According to a 2000 poll, there were approximately 6,000 self-identifying Muslims living Oklahoma. As of 2011, there were approximately 30,000 self-identifying Muslims living in the state. A large boom, to be sure, but the total population of Muslims is still relatively small, as compared to the percentage of non-Muslims in the state’s 3,791,508 population. Despite the massive numbers advantage, Oklahoma voters felt threatened enough to approve a “Save out State” amendment to their state Constitution. Coauthored by state senators Anthony Sykes and Rex Duncan, the initiative forbid courts from “considering or using international law or Sharia law”. According to Mr. Sykes, “Sharia law coming to the U.S. is a scary concept”. Mr. Duncan concurred, saying, “”SQ 755 will constitute a pre-emptive strike against Sharia law coming to Oklahoma.” The amendment was passed 70.08% to 29.92%. It has since been overturned and ruled unconstitutional by the 10th Circuit Appeals Court, on the grounds that it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Many wills, contracts, and other legally binding documents used by Muslims invoke Islamic religious traditions, and would legally be declared invalid in Oklahoma, were the ban on courts considering Sharia law be put in place. More comically, the contracts of various international companies that operate in Oklahoma would have been deemed null and void, if aspects of various international trade laws were written into them.
The point of this post isn’t to discuss the reversal of Oklahoma’s xenophobic and unconstitutional law. It is to give context to it. The state’s approximate 3,761,508 majority of non-Muslims felt “threatened” enough to seek to vote for legislation that banned Sharia law. Now, in Oklahoma, this doesn’t surprise me, since Oklahoma is one of the most religiously conservative areas of an already religiously conservative Bible Belt. Oklahoma isn’t the only state to have proposes similar legislation. In the past two or three years, more than a dozen states have drafted and/or passed similar legislation. I’ll go ahead and say it: the fear of Islamic Sharia law encroaching into and fundamentally altering U.S. jurisprudence and/or society is a right wing canard of a threat. Politicians will invoke the possibility, will invoke the populist fear, but can’t actually produce examples of their paper tiger, to any degree. Where are the Muslim groups forcefully trying to have their Islamic morals and notions imposed on Americans from coast to coast?
More sinister is the religious encroachment that is going on right under our collective noses.
Christian Reconstructionism is a movement that calls for Christians to put their mores and values in action in all walks of life. What differentiates it from any ordinary Christian who lives in accordance with the values and morals prescribed by their religion is the emphasis on theonomy, the belief that God’s laws (‘theo’, being Greek for ‘God’ and ‘nomos’ being Greek for ‘law’) should be the basis for civil laws. In other words, the laws that the state passes should be in accordance with Biblical law, and should not contradict or otherwise overshadow the authority of Biblical law.
At its face, it sounds a lot like the fear of Sharia law taking primacy in the United States. It also is the basic notion of believers of a religion believing it to be correct, and wanting everybody to live within the confines of that religion. But, how is it different? Most notably, it is unfolding in the United States as we speak. I don’t recall ever hearing about federal judges saying, regarding Islam, “[It] transcends the political order and cannot be subordinated to the political order” like Justice James Leon Holmes said regarding Christianity. I don’t recall Congress ever voting on bills and measures that would affirm the primacy of Islam, like bills and measures affirming the primacy of Christianity have been brought up.
As columnist Robert Boston wrote in Church and State Magazine in October 2001, “Although Reconstructionism may seem so far out as to be easily dismissed, the philosophy has in fact provided the intellectual basis for much of the Religious Right’s thinking and political activism”. Indeed, Gary North, the son-in-law of R.J. Rushdoony, the extreme right wing father of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, has said, “Rushdoony’s writings are the source of many of the core ideas of the new Christian Right’s political activism”. Supporters of Christian Reconstructionism are in favor of recriminalizing abortion and homosexuality, among other things. Is it a coincidence that Speaker of the House John Boehner called the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”, a proposed bill that would strip federal funding to groups that directly or indirectly funded abortions (regardless of the reasons the abortions were done) “one of [the Republican Party that he presides over as Speaker] highest legislative priorities”? At a time when the economy is in shambles, a large percentage of Americans are long-term unemployed, and the country was still embroiled in two wars, defunding federal funding to groups directly or indirectly administering abortions was his highest priority? As of 2010, the Texas Republican party says as one of its official positions, “We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such…We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual ‘couples’. We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values. We oppose the legalization of sodomy.” Where was the same moral outrage and enthusiasm in calling for the reversal the highly unconstitutional USA Patriot Act, which they only touch on in a single sentence? Which issue is more topical and relevant to everyday life?
Joan Bokaer of Theocracy Watch, a project under the auspices of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy at Cornell University, explains in The Rise of Dominionism that the Christian Reconstructionist movement seeks to have the power of the federal government minimized, so that churches would assume responsibility for welfare and education, and as a result, Biblical law would be given an increasing important role, until the U.S. Constitution and other laws conformed to it. The federal government being minimized would be accomplished by allowing unrestricted, unregulated free markets, cutting social programs and entitlements, and tax cuts. Does this platform sound eerily familiar to anyone? Does this mean that Mitt Romney, or Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul want to transform the United States into a Christian theocratic state? No, I don’t think so (Rick Santorum and Rick Perry might though, actually). It does demonstrate the pervasive influence that the shadowy hand of Christian Reconstructionism has had in mainstream influencing policy.
Now, don’t get me wrong: I am not in favor of any sort of theocracy in these United States. This country is a secular republic, founded on the principle that religion and the state not become entangled as to allow free, unrestrained exercise for individuals of all religious persuasions. A theocratic America with Islam at the helm would be just as abhorrent as a theocratic America with Christianity at the helm, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or any other religion. Unlike Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, there is not a very pervasive and influential lobby to fundamentally transform the core values and principles of America like there is regarding Christianity. How powerful that lobby is, is up to the reader, the individual. Where I might see a concentrated effort, others might see a group of coincidences. Regardless, that is not the intent- when you’re in the middle of a heart attack, you shouldn’t be fearing the specter of cancer.
[...] discussed in Fear Tigers, Not Paper Tigers: Islamism and Christian Reconstructionism, a large swath of the Tea Party movement actively campaigns to blur the lines between Christianity [...]