Top Conservatives Support anti-Muslim Inquisition
This is related to the other Page I just posted. I’ll repeat what I said there: Everyone who values the protections afforded them by the Establishment Clause needs to be paying close attention to this, regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
UPDATE: I’ve added a link to the PDF of the report mentioned below since the source article doesn’t provide a direct link.
I wrote earlier for IPS about the new Center for Security Policy report “Shariah: The Threat to America” authored by a team billing itself as “Team B II” (in reference to the 1970s Team B notorious for its alarmist and now-discredited estimates of Soviet military capabilities). The group that produced the report featured a number of the right’s nuttier Islamophobes, including Frank Gaffney, Andy McCarthy, and David Yerushalmi. Given that this sort of thinking is making inroads among congressional Republicans — the report was endorsed by Reps. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Trent Franks (R-AZ), and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) — it’s worth taking a closer look at some of the report’s prescriptions to see just how extreme it is. […]
Here are some of their policy recommendations (p. 143 of the report):
‘…extend bands currently in effect that bar members of hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan from holding positions of trust in federal, state, or local governments or the armed forces of the United States to those who espouse or support shariah.’ […]
I am not a scholar of Islam, but any competent one will tell you that sharia is a far broader term than the “Team B” authors seem to think it is – it basically refers to Islamic religious precepts in general, to the point of being virtually synonymous with Islamic religious practice. As a result any practicing Muslim, no matter how moderate or extreme, will consider himself or herself to be “sharia-compliant” according to their own understanding of what sharia requires. This does not, of course, mean that they will endorse the brutal hudud penalties that have become the most notorious symbols of sharia to non-Muslims, that they will seek to impose these precepts on others, or that they will seek to make them the law of the land. But to demand that a practicing Muslim to renounce sharia is tantamount to demanding that they renounce Islam itself.
This is precisely what the report’s recommendations demand, whether or not it’s what the authors intend. Any Muslim who “espouses” or “adheres to” sharia – that is, any practicing Muslim – will thereby be banned from government or military service, prohibited from immigrating to the country, and even opened to prosecution for sedition. The only Muslims immune from this witch-hunt are those “who are willing publicly to denounce shariah” – a surefire recipe for the creation of conversos and crypto-Muslims, but hardly one consistent with the First Amendment. […]