Because my grandparents ran a seasonal hotel in Myrtle Beach for three decades, I’ve vacationed there most summers of my life. I’ve seen a lot of change over the years, but recently I noticed something new: Muslim women swimming in the ocean, garbed in full burqa coverings.
Of course, Islamic families are as welcome at the beach as anyone. But the dynamics visible between the Islamic couples were striking: The men were there, sunning in normal swimsuits. But the women stood to the side, garbed in black from head to toe in sweltering 100-degree heat, waiting for a flick of a husband’s finger cueing the wife to get him a beverage from the cooler. When the women did get into the ocean, I thought about how heavy it all must be: Swimming in yards of fabric soaked in water. Clearly, a day at the beach for an Islamic man is vastly different from that of an observant (or, a forced-to-be-observant) Muslim woman.
“How can 21st-century, ‘liberated’ feminists be OK with this?” I wondered.
Islam, Marxists and Democrats: suicidal utilitarianism
This election cycle has seen unlikely political unions solidify that have been years in the making. Until just recently, America’s Democratic Party would have had big problems with the human rights abuses of Islam (which include mistreatment of women as part of “canon law”). Even “tax and spend” liberals would have objected to today’s new Marxists’ calls for abolition of a free market economy, private property ownership, law enforcement and the criminalization of wealth accumulation.
But Democrats, Muslim activists and Marxists now share at least four common foes. These onerous entities are Donald Trump and Constitutionalism (societally), and Christianity and Israel (spiritually).
But 1400 years of Islamic history show that Islam yields ground to nothing. It truly is, “conquer at any cost.” Since the Ayatollah took Iran in 1979, we’ve watched purist Islam slaughter its way to domination. For all American voters who just don’t like the Republicans, let it be said as emphatically as possible: Stoking the presence of Islam is not the answer; if not arrested, it will be the absolute end of the United States.
Sharia law as a subset of American law: Will it happen?
Will Muslims in the United States someday be able to demand that American courts settle their disputes under Sharia law? Is this a First Amendment “freedom of religion” issue, as Sharia proponents say? What is actually possible under American law?
Currently, a Muslim American cannot simply walk into an American courthouse and demand that a judge replace American law with Sharia. American courts are bound by the Constitution, federal and state statutes and the established legal authority of the United States.
There is no parallel system of Sharia courts with governmental jurisdiction over American citizens. And there should never be. This is because government generally cannot single out one religion for different treatment under the law. Civil-liberties organizations argue that laws specifically opposing Sharia threaten religious freedom.
But there is another constitutional principle that should unwaveringly be pointed out: Religious freedom does not and should not create a parallel source of governmental authority.
An American Muslim is free to believe that Sharia represents God’s law just as they are free to worship according to Islamic teachings, consult imams, enter religious marriages and seek religious counseling according to their traditions. But no American is free to simply demand different laws for use in American courts.
Sharia is the ideological opposite of our Constitutional, representative republic, which guarantees protection for individual liberties but not the elevation of liberties above our nation’s laws.
To summarize, people may voluntarily conduct their private affairs in ways the law permits, provided that conduct remains subject to American law. The Constitution in no way requires that Muslims receive a special privilege.
The First Amendment and “limits of privilege”
It is an error to believe that religious freedom requires Americans to tolerate competing governmental systems of law.
It does not.
People of every faith stand before the law as American citizens. The Constitution does not establish separate courts for separate faiths.
Concerns about Sharia are not borne of religious discrimination. They are motivated by constitutional convictions. We will not have one law for Muslims and another for all others. We need one law for everybody.
Private religious belief deserves the fullest protection the First Amendment provides. But governmental power must remain subject to the Constitution and the duly enacted laws of our nation and states.
Let us say it like this: Freedom of religion for every American, special legal privilege for none and one constitutional rule of law for all.
Otherwise, we’re in for some stormy seas.
