Rollback #7: American Laws for American Courts

In the battle against creeping shariah the United States often has the luxury of learning from Europe’s mistakes.  For example, in 2009 it was reported that at least 85 shariah courts were operating in the United Kingdom – presumably more in 2011 – with the full weight of British law if approved in national law courts.

In November 2010 Oklahomans voted overwhelmingly to amend their state constitution stave off the encroachment of "foreign laws in general, and Islamic Sharia law in particular, from overriding state or U.S. laws."  Unfortunately, vague and failing to be facially neutral, the language of the law doomed it to effective quarantine by federal courts with no hope of ever being enforced.

Fortunately there is a viable alternative that has already been passed in 3 states and will soon be considered in 25 additional states: American Laws for American Courts (ALAC).  In a recent column for the American Thinker, Center for Security Policy Vice President Christopher Holton argued that ALAC remedies the flaws in the Oklahoma legislation:

• ALAC is facially neutral.  In an honest debate, it cannot be accused of discriminating against any religion or protected class.
• ALAC is based on a completely different legal premise from SQ 755’s.  Rather than seeking a ban on foreign or international law, ALAC seeks to preserve the constitutional rights and state public policy protections of American citizens and legal residents, in cases involving foreign laws in the particular dispute being adjudicated.  If a case arises in which a foreign law or foreign legal doctrine is involved in a dispute in a state court, ALAC prevents the use of that foreign law or foreign legal doctrine if any of the parties’ constitutional rights or state public policy would be violated in the process.  This is very different from a blanket ban on foreign laws.  ALAC also contains a specific provision for corporations and businesses so as not to interfere with commerce; it exempts Native American laws; it specifically says that the law cannot detract from the right to free exercise of religion, which would include religious courts like Jewish Bet Din or Catholic ecclesiastical courts; and it states that the law would not interfere with compliance with international treaties the U.S. has signed.
• ALAC is not vague.  It provides specific instructions for judges on complex legal issues involving comity and choice of forum, thus closing potential loopholes for activist judges.
• Because of the careful planning and thought behind ALAC’s wording, in contrast to SQ 755, from a practical standpoint, it is effective in preventing the enforcement of any foreign law — including in many cases, shariah law — that would violate U.S. and state constitutional liberties or state public policy.
• And the need for an effective law preserving constitutional rights against the enforcement of unconstitutional foreign law is both real and urgent: an independent study found fifty cases in 23 states where shariah law had been introduced into state court cases, including many appellate and trial court cases where the judges ruled for shariah law over U.S. law.  Most victims of foreign laws in these cases had come to America for freedom and individual liberty — including American Muslims seeking to escape shariah laws. 

Click here to read the whole article at the American Thinker.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s growth in America has expanded greatly since the 1990s, with their stated goal “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.”   The Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to impose Shariah and censorship in America reaches into our media, our government, our military and law enforcement, our textbooks and our colleges.  Anyone who openly opposes the Muslim Brotherhood – that would be well over 200 million Americans, according to polls – has been labeled an “islamophobe” by the leftwing media.

Enough is enough.  Americans across the nation have started pushing back against the Muslim Brotherhood’s trademark intimidation and threats.  The Center for Security Policy is tracking these efforts to expose and to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood’s  influence over  how we talk and think, how we govern ourselves and  enforce our laws, and how we make our own plans for our children’s future of freedom under the Constitution, not enslavement under Shariah law.  

We call it The Rollback.