On this Friday the 13th, I want to talk about something as irrational as friggatriskaidekaphobia, which means fear of Friday the 13th.
Which is to say that I want to talk about an aspect of Islamophobia -- fear of Islamic law, or Shari'a.
Fortunately, our courts seem to be standing up to this prejudice. Earlier this week, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that had prevented Oklahoma's anti-Shari'a from going into effect.
In 2010, Oklahoma voters, swayed by ignorant and even hateful rhetoric about how Shari'a law would destroy America, forbid the state's courts from recognizing international law.
Regular readers of this blog may recall last September that here and here I wrote about a phenomenal new book about Shari'a by a University of Kansas professor. In the second piece, the author, Raj Bhala, had some comments about why it's hurtful to the American economy and essentially idiocy (my word, not his) to ban courts from ever considering Shari'a.
Here's what Bhala told me then about anti-Shari'a bills such as Oklahoma's:
"These bills are based on ignorance," he said. "The American legal system -- many specific concepts in it -- owes a debt, either direct or indirect, to the Shari'a. We have. . .imported some concepts or some debates into our legal system that also are found in the Shari'a, and the Shari'a long predates English law from which our system more directly comes.
"So it's like banishing the blood of your great-great-great-great-great-grandparents from your veins. You can't do it. So it's intellectually ignorant and disingenuous to do that.
"It is also bad for business. I think this is a very important point that a lot of people miss -- these legisators who are trying to do this. One of the reasons why New York or England are commonly chosen in choice-of-law clauses
in major contracts, whether it's financial deals or deals to transport goods or services, is of course the laws of New York and England are well known and they're major jurisdictions and they're rule-of-law jurisdictions. But another reason is they're highly tolerant jurisdictions of different legal traditions. So you can have in some of these more progressive cosmopolitan places. . .(the opportunity to say) we want the law of another country to apply to this part of our contract. . ."
So, in the end, it's good news that the Court of Appeals has slowed down, if not yet stopped, implementation of the Oklahoma law. There's more yet to happen with this case, however.
But when we let prejudice rule, wisdom goes out the window.
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GOD AND HAITI
Two years after the earthquake that devasted Haiti, things are still in terrible shape there. This good commentary suggests, in effect, we set aside the question of why God seemed to be missing in action in this catastrophe and get on with the task of helping. Exactly right.
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P.S.: The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life yesterday released a broad survey about Mormons in America. I'll be sharing it and some thoughts here on the blog this weekend.
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