Special to WorldTribune.com
http://www.worldnewstribune.com/2012/03/22/ten-questions-for-the-council-on-american-islamic-relations/
By Brigitte Gabriel and Frank Gaffney
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has launched a propaganda campaign attacking a state legislative initiative that is designed to protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, including Muslims.
That initiative is known as American Laws for American Courts (ALAC).
CAIR claims this bill would have the opposite effect — infringing upon Muslims’ and others’ right to freedom of religion. CAIR’s real motivation, however, is not to safeguard the U.S. Constitution, but rather to promote the insinuation here of Shariah, a totalitarian Islamic political-military-legal doctrine. Shariah requires and enforces discrimination against women, children, homosexuals, atheists, members of other religions such as Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians, as well as Muslims who repudiate the dictates of that doctrine.
A review of the actual language of the American Laws for American Courts legislation shows that CAIR is deliberately and falsely characterizing it as anti-Shariah. As we shall see, ALAC is not targeted at either Shariah or Islam. Unlike a constitutional amendment to the State of Oklahoma’s constitution that was approved in 2010 by seventy percent of the voters, neither term is mentioned anywhere in ALAC’s bill language. (A complete comparison can be found here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/09/american_laws_for_american_courts.html .)
ALAC’s very different approach was vindicated when the Council on American Islamic Relations succeeded in challenging the Oklahoma amendment on the grounds that it singled out Shariah law and therefore was ruled unconstitutional. Instead, ALAC is crafted to prevent the infringement in our court system on individual liberties by any foreign laws or legal doctrines, a phenomenon known as “transnationalism.”
This is made necessary since America has unique values of liberty that do not exist in many foreign legal systems. Among those guaranteed rights and privileges are: freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, due process and equal protection under the law, the right to privacy and the right to keep and bear arms.
Unfortunately, increasingly, foreign laws and legal doctrines that would restrict or deny these liberties are finding their way into U.S. court cases, thanks largely to the rulings of transnationalist judges. In some instances, these judges are permitting the use of Shariah to adjudicate disputes on their dockets.
The appeal of the American Laws for American Courts model for preventing such intrusions of unconstitutional foreign laws is evident from the fact that it has been enacted to date in three states: Tennessee in April 2010, in Louisiana in June 2010 and in Arizona in May 2011. And ALAC’s fundamental constitutionality is evident in the fact that neither CAIR nor anyone else has filed a legal challenge to any of these three laws, let alone succeeded in getting ALAC struck down.
Knowing that a legal challenge to American Laws for American Courts is hopeless, CAIR has stooped to launching dishonest and misleading attacks against an initiative designed to preserve our freedoms.
How, one might ask, can an American organization oppose legislation that is crafted to form a reinforcing bulwark to protect our most fundamental freedoms against foreign laws that do not respect them? The answer lies, in part, with the nature of the Council on American Islamic Relations.
The Department of Justice has named CAIR as a front for the Muslim Brotherhood (and its Palestinian franchise: the officially designated terrorist group, Hamas). Evidence introduced in the Holy Land Foundation trial established that the Brotherhood’s mission in America is “a kind of civilization jihad…in destroying Western civilization from within” by our hands. Using our courts to undermine our liberties and Constitution “from within” is one of the most important and effective techniques for advancing this subversive civilization jihad. Two federal courts have refused to strike CAIR’s designation as a Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas co-conspirator and/or joint venturer.
Specifically:
• CAIR has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism finance trial in U.S. history, the 2008 United States vs. Holy Land Foundation case in Dallas, Texas.
• No fewer than four CAIR leaders have been convicted of felonies, including terrorism.
• CAIR has a memorandum of understanding with the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation, the world’s most powerful multinational organization and, with 57 members, its largest — second only to the United Nations. The OIC is, like CAIR, dedicated to the imposition of Shariah doctrine and the criminalization of any “blasphemy” against Shariah law.
• The FBI has terminated relations with CAIR as a matter of policy.
• The IRS has reportedly revoked the non-profit status of CAIR’s national organization.
• CAIR is being sued for engaging in fraud against several of its members.
With this important background on the nature of the Council on American Islamic Relations, let’s analyze its critique of American Laws for American Courts by reviewing in the boxes below key passages from the legislation. (The entire model act can be found here: http://publicpolicyalliance.org/?page_id=38.)
Such a review prompts ten questions concerning CAIR’s opposition to this bill and we will address each, in turn.
ALAC: Purpose
“AN ACT to protect rights and privileges granted under the United
States or [State] Constitution.”
Questions for the Council on American Islamic Relations:
1. Why is CAIR opposing legislation designed to protect the rights and privileges granted under our U.S. and state constitutions? What is CAIR’s motivation? Do they think Muslims either don’t deserve or do not want to enjoy the same constitutional rights to which all citizens of this country are entitled? Or is CAIR trying to establish that Muslims are entitled to such rights (notably, freedom of religion and freedom of speech) but other people deemed inferior, for whatever reason (for example, for being “infidels”) may not be allowed the same rights as Muslims?
2. Exactly which constitutional rights protected by ALAC does CAIR find offensive or “Islamophobic”? (This made-up term is used by Shariah’s adherents to brand anything or anyone who “gives offense” to their doctrine or its enforcers.) The most important non-Brotherhood Muslim organization in this country, the American Islamic Leadership Coalition, has already endorsed American Laws for American Courts when it was introduced in Michigan. (http://publicpolicyalliance.org/?p=632) Does CAIR consider them “Islamophobic,” as well?
ALAC: Finding
“The [general assembly/legislature] finds that it shall be the public policy of this state to protect its citizens from the application of foreign laws when the application of a foreign law will result in the violation of a right guaranteed by the constitution of this state or of the United States, including but not limited to due process, freedom of religion, speech, or press, and any right of privacy or marriage as specifically defined by the constitution of this state.”
Questions for the Council on American Islamic Relations:
3. Does CAIR dispute that Article VI of the U.S. Constitution makes it “the supreme law of the land” and, therefore, that all other laws, including Shariah, must be subordinated to it where there is a conflict? There are, of course, myriad areas in which Shariah is at odds with constitutional rights (e.g., women’s ability to divorce, inherit property, enjoy custody of their children and engage or refuse to engage in sexual relations, homosexuality, freedom of expression, etc.) In such instances, would CAIR have the Constitution defer to Shariah?
4. Which rights does CAIR wish to have violated by or subordinated to foreign law? Does it favor unequal treatment for and/or brutalizing of women, homosexuals, apostates, Jews and others in accordance with Shariah?
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