http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=250065By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
A constitutional scholar who graduated cum laude from Harvard Law and later taught at the University of Oklahoma and Oral Roberts University says a federal judge got it backwards when she wrote an opinion that Oklahoma voters would not be allowed to ban the use of Shariah law in their courts.
That opinion came from Chief Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, who before Christmas blocked the state from certifying a constitutional amendment approved by 70 percent of Oklahoma voters through a ballot initiative known as State Question 755.
A Muslim activist had contended in court that he would be injured by having his religious law banned from use in the courts, and Miles-LaGrange agreed, writing that plaintiff Muneer Awad "has shown that he will suffer an injury in fact, specifically, an invasion of his First Amendment rights."
The judge's order prevented state officials from certifying the election results on that issue, and it now is being appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, where a decision is not expected probably until mid-summer.
Officials in the office of newly installed Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told WND they would defend the state's constitutional provision in the court battle, which is not expected to be final for possibly years.
But Herb Titus, now of the Virginia law firm of William J. Olson P.C., wrote in a commentary in the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs publication, which is online and now is being mailed to subscribers, that the judge's ruling that would allow Shariah to be used in courts actually would "rob the people of their inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Titus said America's legacy of liberty is endangered because of the drift of courts and the judges who issue opinions.
"Courts regularly substitute their own evolving values of 'religious tolerance' in place of fixed principles of freedom of religion embodied in the First Amendment," wrote Titus, whose work also involved producing an amicus brief on behalf of the state.
He continued, "Judges, both state and federal, have not only forgotten, but they have undermined, the Judeo-Christian premise upon which the First Amendment freedom of religion guarantees are founded. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson's Preamble to his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom is certainly not 'religiously neutral': 'Well aware … that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his Supreme will that free it shall remain … That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens … depart from the plan of the holy author of our religion who being Lord of both body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone….'"
Titus said Shariah simply "is a totalitarian system – 'all-embracing' – compris[ing] all the commands, prohibitions, and recommendations given by God in respect to human conduct, and includes on an equal footing rules for prayer and rules for contract, matters punishable by death and matters punishable by inner contrition.'
"According to the original meaning of the First Amendment guarantees, then, the amendment banning Shariah law from the exercise of state judicial power is not only constitutional under the no-establishment and free-exercise guarantees, but constitutionally required by those very guarantees," he said.
Oklahoma's defense of its citizen-approved Shariah plan will be coordinated by Pruitt, who describes himself on his website as being a man of "values" and "action."
"During the attorney general's early years in the state Senate, he passed the Religious Freedoms Act. Through his leadership, Oklahoma became among the first group of states to pass this type of act that makes it more difficult for a government to burden an individual's practicing of his or her faith, even in the public square," his website explains.
In the decision by Miles-LaGrange, she said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, where Awad served, likely would succeed in its argument against the plan.
The decision by Miles-LaGrange now is on appeal before the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which could send it back to the district court for a hearing or trial on the merits.
Ultimately, it could go again to the 10th Circuit panel, following a final determination at the district court level.
"[This] marks another day in American history in which our courts have defended the Constitution against those who would deny its protections to a minority community," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad at the time of the judge's decision. "We agree with Judge Miles-LaGrange and the U.S. Supreme Court that 'fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote.'"
As WND reported, Oklahoma became the first state to put before voters the proposition that Islamic courts, Islamic, and Shariah-based court decisions should be banned.
Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR's Oklahoma chapter (and no relation to Nihad Awad), told The Oklahoman newspaper that "there's no threat" of Shariah law being enforced in the U.S., calling it "a legal impossibility."
But one of the chief supports of the plan, state Rep. Rex Duncan, said the storm already is on the horizon.
The United Kingdom, for example, now has 85 separate Shariah courts for Muslims that operate in parallel with the Crown courts of the nation, and one judge in New Jersey already has cited Shariah in a defense of a man accused of assaulting his wife, though the judge's decision was overturned in appeal.
Further, Republican state Sen. Anthony Sykes, who helped author the measure, said both SQ 755 and another ballot initiative, which requires official state actions to be conducted in English, reflect the values of Oklahomans.
"Certainly each of these measures had critics, but the crushing margins by which these constitutional amendments passed shows without a doubt that those critics are deeply out of touch with the values and views of Oklahomans, just as Washington, D.C., is out of touch with America," Sykes said.
Brigitte Gabriel, of the advocacy group Act for America, said Shariah, which stipulates punishments ranging from chopping off the hand of a thief to death for infidelity, "is an oppressive, discriminatory law system. It suppresses religion, speech."
"We want to make a very strong message (to Muslims), you are welcome to America, pray to whatever god you want to pray to, the Constitution gives you that right, but in America our law is the Constitution," she said.
Miles-LaGrange warned the Shariah ban could be viewed as an "official condemnation" of Islam, resulting in "a stigma" attached to Muslims within the political community. She also argued that since many Islamic last wills and testaments require consideration of Shariah law, under the approved amendment courts would not be able to probate Islamic wills.
Therefore, she ruled, CAIR "has made a strong showing of a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of his claim asserting a violation of the Free Exercise Clause."
But Titus wrote, "Is Mr. Awad deprived of a fundamental right because the amendment would not permit a state court to judge him according to Shariah law? … There is no constitutional right in American to be adjudged by the law of one's personal religious faith. In a nation governed by Shariah law, however, one's personal religious faith determines one's legal rights."
CAIR, whose national office is in the nation's capital, describes itself as a civil-rights group, but FBI evidence points to its origin as a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot Hamas, and the Justice Department designated it an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history. The Washington, D.C.-based group, which has more than a dozen former and current leaders with known associations with violent jihad, is suing two investigators behind the best-selling expose "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America".
IMPORTANT NOTE: The CAIR legal attack on WND's author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of "Muslim Mafia" co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR's lawsuit. Already, the book's revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can't do it without your help. Please donate to WND's Legal Defense Fund now.
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