In a breathtaking and brazen show of ignorance, Judge Vicki Miles "LaLa" LaGrange temporarily blocked Oklahoma from instituting the anti-sharia amendment that 70% of Oklahomans voted for.
Here is the cold hard fact: Islam is a complete system. Islam has religious, legal, sociological, dietary, political, economic, cultural and military components. The religious component covers for all of these components.
Judge Miles-LaGrange also said that she agreed with a second argument [CAIR]Mr. Awad had made — that the definition of Shariah shifts depending on the country in which a Muslim lives and one’s individual beliefs.
David Yerushalmi said here: "If sharia were in fact simply a matter of individual interpretation to all Muslims, it would not be the subject of entire university departments, it would not be reducible to a code of law as in the text Reliance of the Traveler endorsed by Al Azhar University, the citadel of Sunni jurisprudence, it would not be the basis for family laws of most Muslim countries, and it would not be the basis for the ultimate desiderata for 50-70% of the Muslims living in Muslim countries who desire an al Qaeda-like strict sharia.
In other words, the slippery slope argument most certainly cannot rest on the argument that outlawing sharia would be like outlawing "humanism"-that is, humanism can mean anything to anyone. To be sure, humanism is unknowable to the law precisely because there is no code or authoritative corpus juris that defines humanism. But sharia is, at least for the 600-840 million Muslims represented by the World Public Opinion survey something quite knowable and as such quite subject to critical analysis and to the law's reach. To argue that sharia is akin to humanism is fatuous at best; purposefully deceptive at worst."
One precept of Islamic law, for instance, is to abide by the law of one’s land, and this explains why American Muslims do not generally practice bigamy, she noted.
But they do. It's the judges and the authorities who look the other way. “If the laws of the country conflict with Islamic law, if one goes against the other, then I am going to follow Islamic law, simple as that,” said an Imam here.
The judge concluded that Shariah law “lacks a legal character” and “is not ‘law’ but is religious traditions that differ among Muslims.”
LaLa Grange only had to take a cursory look at the Muslim countries living under Islamic law (sharia) to understand, but no, she took the Muslim Brotherhood at its word. She only had to look to Europe and the UK to witness how sharia is slowly intorduced into free societies.
Oklahoma’s Ban on Shariah Law in Court Is Blocked NY Times
HOUSTON — A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Oklahoma from putting into effect an amendment to the constitution that would forbid state judges from considering Islamic law in their decisions.
Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange of Federal District Court in Oklahoma City gave no timetable for when she would make a final ruling. The amendment has generated controversy in Oklahoma, where Muslims claim that the state is discriminating against their religion and supporters claim that there is an international movement to impose Shariah law in Western democracies.
The amendment was passed with 70 percent of the vote on Election Day in a Republican landslide, and Oklahoma politicians say its presence on the ballot helped to increase turnout among conservatives. As a result, Republicans seized the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature for the first time in modern history.
The measure, known as State Question 755, or the “Save Our State Amendment,” forbids judges from considering or using Shariah law in their decisions, as well as banning the use of international law.
But in her order, Judge Miles-LaGrange said the measure did not pass constitutional muster. It conveys a message, she said, that the state favors one religion or particular belief, and that the federal courts have held that such a message violates the First Amendment.
“While defendants contend that the amendment is merely a choice of law provision that bans state courts from applying the law of other nations or cultures, regardless of what faith they may be based on, if any, the actual language of the amendment reasonably, and perhaps more reasonably, may be viewed as specifically singling out Shariah law, conveying a message of disapproval of plaintiff’s faith,” the judge wrote.
Supporters of the measure in the state Legislature say it is a pre-emptive strike against what they see as an international movement to establish Islamic law throughout the world. As evidence of this threat, they point to a recent case in New Jersey in which a judge had considered Shariah law in denying a restraining order to a Moroccan woman who said her former husband had raped her while they were married. The decision later was overturned.
Supporters have also pointed to Shariah courts that have been set up in England, where they have the power under a 1996 law to act as arbitration tribunals in civil disputes between Muslims, so long as the parties agree in advance to abide by the ruling.
The principal author, State Representative Rex Duncan, a Republican from Sand Springs, has said the amendment was part of “a war for the survival of America” and “a pre-emptive strike.”
But after the election, the leader of a Muslim group in Oklahoma City, Muneer Awad, argued before Judge Miles-LaGrange that the amendment violated his First Amendment right to practice religion without infringement from the government. Because the amendment singles out Islamic law, it amounts to the state taking a stand against Islam while tacitly endorsing other faiths, he said. Mr. Awad, 27, is executive director of the Oklahoma branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Judge Miles-LaGrange issued a temporary restraining order on Nov. 8 to prevent Oklahoma’s Election Board from certifying passage of the amendment. Last week, she heard arguments from both sides.
Scott Boughton, an assistant attorney general for the state, defended the measure, saying it was only intended to keep Oklahoma judges from looking at the legal principles of other nations and cultures in applying state and federal law. When the judge asked if that had ever happened in Oklahoma, Mr. Boughton acknowledged that he did not know of an instance in which Shariah law had been invoked by the courts.
Testifying at the hearing, Mr. Awad said the amendment “targets my religion.” As an example of the discrimination he said it would cause, he pointed out that state courts would not be able to adjudicate his last will and testament, since it asks that he be buried in accordance with Shariah law.
