Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You might want to turn off your irony meters for this one: Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition says that if Muslims are allowed to claim the same kinds of religious exemptions that Christians do, it will lead to Sharia law being implemented in the US:
All over the United States, radical Muslims are pushing companies to bow to Islamic law known as Sharia. They are doing this under the guise of religious freedom, but the political and cultural ideology of Islam recognizes only Allah as the supreme ruler over the world.Efforts are already underway here in America to introduce Sharia enclaves in some communities. In these enclaves, Constitutional concepts like one person/one vote would be replaced by Sharia concepts which values a woman's vote at half that of a man. In many instances, Sharia law allocates rights based on gender and religion (Islam is the only legal religion) rather than individual rights. In the United Kingdom and France, such enclaves exist and have caused conflict between Islamists and the country's civil law.
What Muslims are doing has been referred to as "creeping Sharia" - that is, getting companies, communities and states to change policies in order to force everyone to obey Sharia law, a totalitarian system of regulations that govern Islamic theocracies.
And his examples of this creeping Sharia law are highly ironic. Like this one:
In Minneapolis in 2006, a number of Somali cabdrivers refused to carry passengers with alcohol. The Muslim Brotherhood was behind this publicity stunt. The airport's initial plan was to cave to Sharia law and create Sharia-compliant and Sharia non-compliant cabs. An Islamic "fatwa," or order was issued by the Muslim American Society in June 2006 and sent to the Metropolitan Airports Commission. The fatwa stated that Islamic law prohibits Muslim cabdrivers from carrying passengers with alcohol "because it involves cooperating in sin according to Islam."
Can you believe that? Can you believe that Muslims think they have a right to refuse to do those parts of their job that violate their religious and moral beliefs? Hmmm....I seem to recall that Sheldon supports Christian pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and for doctors who refuse to perform medical procedures that violate their beliefs. In fact, here's the TVC's take on such legislation in California:
Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara had put forth this bill that will mandate that all future gynecologists and obstetricians be trained to perform abortions. This bill will subject medical students training to become doctors to abortion procedures they would object to for religious and moral beliefs. Jackson has no regard for those doctors in training who, for example, are Catholic or Mormon who view abortion for what it is--the destruction of innocent life!
You see, when Christians make such claims that's an important fight for religious freedom; when Muslims make such claims it's just part of their evil agenda. Sheldon also supports the right of employers to refuse to hire gays and lesbians, of course. It's all about whose ox is being gored.
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Comments
It's not theocracy these guys fear. It's just a theocracy ruled by someone other than themselves that they fear. Like a dictator who takes power through a violent coup, then spends his time in office paranoid that someone might try to take power through a violent coup.
Posted by: Wes | July 1, 2008 10:00 AM
But wait! The Founding Fathers built this nation on Christianity and the Ten Commandments! There can be no rule of law other than one guided by religion! Oh. Never mind.
Posted by: kehrsam | July 1, 2008 10:02 AM
I realise this is shooting fish in a barrel, and I'm no fan of Sharia law, but it's absolutely not "a totalitarian system of regulations that govern Islamic theocracies". First, it's not a sytem of reuglations. It's a set of principles that are interpreted in widely variant ways by scholars and by courts around the world. Second, it doesn't govern Islamic theocracies. Islamic theocrats do. Third it's no more totalitarian than, say, the ten commandments.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | July 1, 2008 10:10 AM
Also, the irony in this sentence is hurting my brain:
Even going beyond the fact that Sharia has nothing to do with women voting (directly - some Sharia countries grant full suffrage, others grant none), "one person/one vote" is most decidedly not a constitutional concept. One white male, one vote, maybe, but even that isn't an explicit right.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | July 1, 2008 10:20 AM
"Constitutional concepts" include those in the Amendments, Ginger Yellow.
Posted by: W. Kevin Vicklund | July 1, 2008 10:26 AM
The irony of this coming after reading the post about the TX supreme court allowing torture in the name of religion....
Did you do that on purpose, Ed? =P
Cheers.
Posted by: FastLane | July 1, 2008 10:28 AM
I'm skimming your blog and, honestly, I don't know which post to stop to read in full. Each one keeps getting more and more amazing. Finally, I had to stop skimming at "Tyson Homosexual." It just hurt my head too much. What are you trying to do to us today?
Posted by: Lauri | July 1, 2008 11:39 AM
Meh. Just another example of projection. Of course the "scary Moooslims" want to enact Sharia Law onto America - that's what Rev. Lou Sheldon would do if he were in their shoes. Hell, that's what he's doing now with his demands for America to become a "Christian Nation". So of course he's paranoid that someone else wants to do it to him - it's what he wants to do to them (and to us). He'd probably admit it too if you confronted him with it. And that's why he sees no problem with so-called Christian pharmacists refusing to do their job and every problem with so-called Muslim taxi drivers refusing to do theirs.
Posted by: NonyNony | July 1, 2008 11:45 AM
Half the "blue laws" that used to be in effect in this country (and some that still are) would be indistinguishable from their sharia counterparts.
Posted by: Jim Anderson | July 1, 2008 11:53 AM
Ed wins 5 internets for breaking my irony meter this morning. Twice.
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | July 1, 2008 11:57 AM
That's why I have to buy my beer/wine on the Saturday before I go to my pastor's conference that starts on a Sunday evening. Wouldn't want to miss an opportunity for a good buzz because silly old Indiana won't sell da booze on Sunday;-)
Posted by: Rev. AJB | July 1, 2008 12:34 PM
I didn't mention this in my earlier posts but Rev. Lou was at the Acton Institutes's premier that Jason and I attended. I introduced myself to him, but didn't broach the gay issue. Rather, after the show, after he mentioned, during the Q&A, Washington's oft-repeated "religion and morality" line from his Farewell Address, I made sure I let him know that GW probably wasn't an orthodox Christian and his morality was informed by a pagan-Stoic sense of virtue.
Posted by: Jon Rowe | July 1, 2008 12:42 PM
""Constitutional concepts" include those in the Amendments, Ginger Yellow"
Indeed, but the amendments don't grant one person/one vote either. They simply forbid disenfranchisement based on certain specific criteria. Lots of people don't have the vote in the US who would in other democracies.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | July 1, 2008 12:47 PM
Slightly off-topic:
Gynecologists and obstetricians need to know how to perform D&Cs for reasons other than abortion. Are they supposed to not learn a medical procedure because ONE of its purposes is abortion?
Should hysterectomies also be forbidden?
Posted by: khan | July 1, 2008 1:43 PM
One nation under allah.In allah we trust.I wonder what the good Rev would think about those ditties?
Posted by: ed | July 1, 2008 2:51 PM
But, what about those Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews who also pray to "Allah" (which is, after all, just the Arabic world for "God")? Shall we classify all Christians and Jews from Turkey as "Muslims"? I'd like to see Sheldon answer that one.
That exhortation not to transport alcohol is bullshit, though. Muslims in the Middle East transport, and sell, alcohol for and to nonMuslim tourists all the time. That's just the Somalis' interpretation of the Koran - and many Muslims in the Twin Cities think (and have told me) that the Somali version of Islam is too rigid. There's nothing wrong with putting the alcohol in the trunk.
Posted by: Kristine | July 1, 2008 4:14 PM
Funny how the Moral Minority can never see the similarites when the shoe is on the other foot.
Just a side.......
I want to know what the cab drivers do when they pick up the big tipping married business man and his "companion" for his business trip........ Do they refuse to pick him up and his "companion" up?
Posted by: DavidR | July 1, 2008 4:24 PM
This seems an insane thing for him to claim, but we need to realize that one of the results that the Christo-pundits have been hoping and fighting for decades to achieve is the right to establish closed communities with their own legal systems un-interfered with by the federal government. In his mind, given that what he sees as the inevitable result of the Christian tactic of abusing free exercise claims is this new legal reality, it makes sense that he'd think giving the same protections to Muslims would lead to Sharia law.
Posted by: Julian | July 1, 2008 5:05 PM
Uh, irony, no.
Hypocrisy, yes.
Posted by: wheyghey | July 1, 2008 6:21 PM
@ Khan: You mentioned Gyns having to know how to perform D&C for reasons other than abortion, of course they must. Simply because one aspect of a procedure is used as an abortificant is no reason not to allow it to be used. In the same vein, RU-486 was originally developed as an anti-cancer drug; it targets rapidly dividing cells. It was only an accident in clinical trials that its use as an abortion drug were discovered.
@Julian: Have you heard about the group of fundies that are trying to overwhelm South Carolina with their numbers, so they can then establish a theocracy, and seceede?...
" Constitutional concepts like one person/one vote would be replaced by Sharia concepts which values a woman's vote at half that of a man"
In response: "I think "one man, one vote," just unrestricted democracy, would not be wise. There needs to be some kind of protection for the minority which the white people represent now, a minority, and they need and have a right to demand a protection of their rights.
-- Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, March 18, 1992,
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | July 1, 2008 7:04 PM
"It's not theocracy these guys fear. It's just a theocracy ruled by someone other than themselves that they fear."
Of course, Christianity requires that true christians be a minority (the narrow road and all that), so the moment there's no external competition they start splitting into factions. There's always someone to fear.
Posted by: Paul Murray | July 1, 2008 9:12 PM
Or like General Francisco Franco, who throughout most of his life refused to fly in an airplane because he feared that it mightbe used to assasinate him, the way he himself had done to several of his rivals after the end of the Spanish Civil War.
Posted by: Valhar2000 | July 2, 2008 6:28 AM
OK, so someone around here has just got to get Sheldon at a press conference or other public place and ask him if he favors the laws that allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for *contraceptives.* Not "abortifacients" but oldschool contraceptives.
When he answers in the affirmative, *then* ask him how that differs in any way from those cab drivers refusing to carry passengers who have alcohol.
Please bring a tape recorder. Better yet have someone else there with a video camera, and post the whole thing on YouTube.
Posted by: g347 | July 2, 2008 6:47 AM
Blaidd Drwg:
No, I hadn't heard anything specifically about them, my experience with their ilk is mostly restricted to fighting them in academia, but it doesn't surprise me, considering that Texas has its fair share of christian secessionists. It is truly amazing how easily and quickly superstitious belief can undermine rationality and lead people to commit acts, on the word of their pastor, that are clearly and historically doomed to failure. South Carolina seceded once; these folks need to think about how that worked out for them.
Posted by: Julian | July 2, 2008 8:59 AM
I would argue that all of these little rhetorical skirmishes are really just small parts of a competition of ideas, or religion in this case. Sheldon probably doesn't believe in pluralism or more precisely, pluralism where Muslims in this nation can exercise free will. He believes Christianity is the best, the only truth, and his particular flavor of Christianity is even better and he believes if Muslims are allowed to do this (winning), which means someone is losing - in his mind, its Christianity and they are losing their country.
Posted by: Ben Roethlisberger | July 2, 2008 9:22 AM
Of course, Sheldon wants to have his own brand of theocracy established. Sheldon is a money-grubbing preacher, a leech on society. By establishing his own theocracy, he can bleed the people more efficiently.
Posted by: Joan | July 4, 2008 6:41 PM
Ed clearly has no understanding of sharia law or Islamic supremacy and his flippant dismissal of the cab driver issue is evidence...
There is a continuous effort by Muslims in this country, funded by Muslims around the world, particularly Saudi Arabia to slowly eradicate democracy and replace it with sharia...the Muslim Brotherhood wrote an entire manifesto documenting how it should be done and we are seeing it executed to perfection on a daily basis...groups like CAIR, cab drivers at airports, check out clerks at Target, at universities, muslim foot baths at airports, prayer rooms in malls, etc., etc.
The blog Creeping Sharia keeps up with many of the latest events and categorizes by state as well...there are plenty of other sites documenting it as well
Posted by: Edifice | July 24, 2008 10:48 PM
Okay Edifice, please spell out the logical distinction between a Muslim cab driver claiming a religious freedom right not to transport passengers who have alcohol and a Christian pharmacist claiming a religious freedom right not to dispense birth control. Why is one the road to totalitarianism and the other a defense of freedom? We shall breathlessly await your (no doubt absurd) attempt to distinguish between these situations.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 25, 2008 12:21 AM