The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on concerns about applications of Islamic law in the United States on Tuesday, with Republicans describing Sharia as a threat to constitutional order and Democrats labeling the proceedings “un-American” hysteria about a religious minority.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), chairman of the constitution and limited government subcommittee that hosted the hearing, said that his home state was the epicenter of a movement to introduce Islamic law in America.
“Over the last few years, efforts to impose Sharia on American communities have taken off, and nowhere more than in my home state of Texas,” Roy said. “If Texas falls, so does the nation.”
Roy cited the East Plano Islamic Center City, an effort to build a 402-acre planned community for Muslims outside of Dallas, which Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, signed legislation to block in September, labeling it a “Sharia compound.”
Roy also alleged that there are now Islamic “no-go zones” in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a term that some observers have used to describe predominantly Muslim neighborhoods in Europe, which is frequently rejected by European politicians.
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), ranking member of the subcommittee, said that the hearing was an effort by Republicans to win votes in the Texas primaries, which begin early voting on Feb. 17.
“Federal, state and local candidates are trying to outdo one another with anti-Sharia, anti-Muslim sentiment in order to score political points,” Scanlon said. “In the words of one Texas Republican political strategist, the Muslim community is the bogeyman for this cycle.”
“I can’t think of anything more un-American than for members of Congress to be stoking fear and suspicion against fellow Americans or anyone else on the explicit basis of their religious beliefs, no matter what hysterical rhetoric we hear from our Republican colleagues,” she added.
One of the witnesses at the hearing, Stephen Gelé, chairman of Louisiana’s Pelican Institute for Public Policy, pointed to divorce and child custody hearings as one area where U.S. courts have recognized the rulings of foreign Sharia-based legal systems as part of international family dispute arbitrations.
When Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) asked for examples of legislative efforts to impose Sharia law in the United States, none of the witnesses, who also included Robert Spencer of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Krista Schild of RAIR Foundation USA and Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, provided any examples.
Many of the Democrats on the committee said that observance of Islamic law was a First Amendment right for Muslim Americans that had no bearing on non-Muslims and was not enforceable in U.S. courts.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is Jewish, compared the status of Sharia law in the United States to Jewish halachah.
“Within Orthodox Judaism, there’s a process called the get, which is that the couple may get a secular divorce. But if the husband doesn’t dispense this religious document called a get, the woman can never get remarried again within Orthodox Judaism,” Raskin said. “These guys are schmucks. They’re not giving the women the get, but the women can get remarried in a secular court if they want to. They just can’t do it within the religious courts.”
Somin, the George Mason law professor, agreed. “Orthodox Jews can recognize or not recognize these divorces as they choose within their religious community,” he said. “But as far as secular law in the United States is concerned, the law that matters is the law of the state of Maryland, in that case, or whatever state they happen to be in.”
