S.C. to stop non-existent threat of Muslim law

I bet you didn’t know that Muslim extremists are menacing the good folks of South Carolina, did you? Well, listen up, because it appears there’s a good chance that some of S.C.’s laws will be overruled by … (ominous, vaguely Middle Eastern-sounding music) Koran-based, or sharia, law. Not to worry, though, S.C. Republicans are on top of the situation.

Seriously, Republican conservatives are running more state houses these days, which means we can look forward to new laws specially tailored to the right’s peculiar collection of paranoid notions. It’s about time our lawmaking GOP friends in South Carolina got cracking, too. They’ve spent much of the past two years  fighting each other and calling their own gubernatorial candidates things like “queer” and “rag-head,” so they have some catching up to do if they expect to maintain their role as one of the nation’s strangest legislatures.

State Sen. Michael Fair of Greenville, S.C., has come to the rescue; he introduced a bill that would “prevent a court or other enforcement authority from enforcing foreign law in this state.” Fair explains that, “There are some localities around the country that have imposed sharia law in lieu of local laws.” Welllllll, not exactly, Michael, although we know the Great Sharia Law Scare is something the far right is riled up about. Fair mentions an Arizona case where an Iraqi man, citing sharia law, is accused of killing his daughter for being “too Westernized.” Apparently, to Fair, this amounts to sharia law sneaking its way into U.S. courts, although the Iraqi man is accused of first-degree murder by an American district attorney, who will try the man in an American court, after which the guy will probably spend many years in an American prison. Some conservatives also point to George Washington University, where the Muslims Students Association successfully lobbied for a weekly women-only swim hour at the pool, as “sharia law” taking over America (or, as TalkingPointsMemo put it, “Out of the pool! It’s filled with Sharia!”). There are other cases where the evil specter of creeping sharia law has raised the hackles and concerns of xenophobes; you  can read about those cases here. Suffice it to say that the cases reveal way more about the complainers’ xenophobia than anything related to imposing sharia law.

And get this, because this is especially rich: Sen. Fair says he’s not looking to discriminate against anyone, but in S.C., “We’re big on religious freedom, but we also understand that civil law and criminal law in this country and in the state of South Carolina … is not religious law.” That statement is sadly hilarious, considering that for decades, South Carolina was one of the nation’s strictest enforcers of “blue laws,” which impose Christian religious standards, especially the observance of Sunday as a day of worship or rest, by restricting Sunday shopping. Blue laws still mandate that S.C. non-essential businesses not operate before 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, because lawmakers think you should be in church instead of out buying flip-flops or whatever. So Sen. Fair’s picture of South Carolina as a progressive land that’s just trying to protect everyone from religion-based laws is pretty much, well, pure bullshit. But then, that’s the kind of scaredy-cat hogwash you get when you put ignoramuses in charge. We’re about to learn that hard lesson here in North Carolina, too — so actually, we shouldn’t be laughing too loudly at our neighbors to the south. Fasten your seatbelts.

This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2011.