The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/010847.php#comments ^

[rajuchor]

The Islamist Challenge to the U.S. Constitution David Kennedy Houck reveals how serious the challenge to the U.S. Constitution by Muslim groups has already become. From the Middle East Quarterly, with thanks to DFS:

First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law? Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe,[1] the trend is now crossing the Atlantic. Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging the principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil rights movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure."[2]

Baltimore is not alone. In August 2004, a local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes.[3] While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says his goal is to create "a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free of gangs,"[4] the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might prevent the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can it force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab (headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when, how, and to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.

Don't fail to read it all.

[rajuchor]

Be Prepared, very prepared....May be we may have to fight Jihadists right here in our own backyard very soon!

[Brilliant]

If the Islamicists are allowed to have their own law, then I think we all should be able to have our own law.

[sgtbono2002]

The Prime Minister of Australia spoke very bluntly and eloquently on this subject of Islamists and Sharia law. He said witn no bones about it , that while in Australia they would obey Australian law and if they wished to live under Sharia law they should leave Australia and Get the
f--- back where they came from. My sentiments exactly.

[sourcery]

If the Islamicists are allowed to have their own law, then I think we all should be able to have our own law.

That strikes right to the root of issue.

[sangoo]

Wait, wait...our President says that it is the "Religion of Peace", we need to let more of them in, hence the open border policy. Perhaps we can learn to be more peacefull through a more proper understanding of their laws.

[VOA]

bump

[Caveman Lawyer]

I'm sure there's plenty of room for a bit o' Sharia in our "living Constitution."

[CrawDaddyCA]

There's no 'may have to' about it. We will have to fight them. It's only a matter of time.

[PeterFinn]

Lock and load.

[attiladhun2]

Would that our Pres would speak so. Aside from Tancredo, I see few of them with nutsacks betwisk their thighs

[sgtbono2002]

Thats an observation I have commented on many times.

There isnt a testicle in the whole 100 of them.

[wintertime]

The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes.[

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

One of the inflammatory arguments against vouchers is that they may be used to fund madrasses.

Yes that is true, but vouchers could also be used to send our children to schools that will teach the truth about Islam and fortify them with education they need to defend our Constitution and freedom. Children are surely not getting this in our current government schools.

[SouthJrzReaganite18]

The question raised to me by this article is how would a Muslim enclave be different from any other religious community? For example let us use the Amish: are they at all exempt from American law? Or, rather, do any laws that they hold trump those set forth by our government and more importantly our constitution? Being somewhat familiar with the Amish, I would say no. The extra laws they live in their own life are in tandem with American law, but if anyone can shed some light on this I think it would be a good precedence to work with when considering extending such liberties to Muslims.

[Brilliant]

If that's what the Islamicists were trying to do, they would not need to have the law changed to allow them to do it. They'd just do what the Amish do. They'd just go ahead and do it.

[Irene Adler]

"For example let us use the Amish: are they at all exempt from American law?"

No, they are not.

[SHOOT THE MOON bat]

The Amish are not exempt from American law. They are allowed to have their own rules for their own people like not using electricity in their homes or having a phone in the house or not driving a car. They have a certain type of clothing that they wear and the women wear bonnets. But if someone violates those rules they have no right to punish someone outside of the laws of the country.

[SHOOT THE MOON bat]

If that's what the Islamicists were trying to do, they would not need to have the law changed to allow them to do it. They'd just do what the Amish do. They'd just go ahead and do it.

You are right. I really don't understand who they are petitioning and what they are petitioning for. If they all want to live among each other and follow their religious rules who is stopping them. That is being done all over this country.

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Working Americans buy cheap goods from Chinese slaves.
Working Americans buy cheap services from illegal aliens.
Working Americans buy increasingly expensive oil from rich Islamic Arabs.
So far the working American has not felt the pain of lost manufacturing, a diminishing freedom to hold traditional values, and the loss of freedom to believe as they wish.
With elite Americans selling themselves to oil rich Arabs, working Americans will one day wake up and find everything stolen.
The elite are hard at work building a homeland security apparatus to hold back the angry working American, maybe.
Maybe the elite are underestimating the wrath that will come.

[Brilliant]

In this case, the answer is that their "religious rules" are unconstitutional. They want to have forced female circumcision. Divorce by Islamic law. They want to hold their women in slavery.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Well, my two Federal Senators, my Federal Representative, and my State Senator and Representative have just had that entire article emailed to them.

WE have to be sure that our State and Federal Legislators do not stick their heads in the sand and ignore this very real threat.

It's NOT intolerant to protect our way of life. It's NOT intolerant to tell other people that they're out of step with the American Way of Life.

Come to the USA, then assimilate. WE have freedom of religion. EVERYONE who lives here has the RIGHT to change religions or to have no religion. WE live in the 21st Century and Islam can get with the program or go back to the Middle East.

Nuff Said?