WTF is wrong with South Dakota? Muslim bans?

[MarblesMom]

Again, embarrassed to live here.  The comments on this and other Argus Leader articles on the subject make me want to move.

https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/21/supporter-s-d-bill-ban-refugee-resettlement-you-dont-want-hear-truth/358003002/

Since immigration is a Federal issue, all these (deleted) local folks can do is withhold funds from places like Lutheran Social Services, to make sure immigrants have no safety net once they arrive.  

Great.  We need more homeless, needy people who came here for hope from The Best Country Ever and get shafted.

Blame a small group of pissed off people on an entire religion/culture.  OK.

One of the comments was "NO MUSLIMS!" and I just about shut down the computer for the night.... 

[PennySycamore]

South Dakota seems to be in the running with South Carolina for the state that can pass the most inane bill.  Some assholes in the SC house want to pass a parody marriage bill.  It would define same sex marriage as "parody marriage"  and would clearly be unconstitutional.  This bill also has some strange definition of secular which I don't understand at all.  Of cours, the bill has support from a bunch of Greenville and Spartanburg Repugs.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

My state hasn't taken a stand against refugee immigrants, as far as I know, but apparently some legislators are very concerned that our courts will start implementing Sharia law. 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/idaho/articles/2018-02-15/anti-sharia-law-bill-advances-to-idaho-house

Idiots. I wish they would put as much effort into fixing our real problems as they spend worrying about imaginary ones.

[samurai_sarah]

7 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

My state hasn't taken a stand against refugee immigrants, as far as I know, but apparently some legislators are very concerned that our courts will start implementing Sharia law. 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/idaho/articles/2018-02-15/anti-sharia-law-bill-advances-to-idaho-house

Idiots. I wish they would put as much effort into fixing our real problems as they spend worrying about imaginary ones.

Ahem, don't people realise that Sharia law in some forms is already around? Not sure about the US, but a friend conducted research into the matter in the UK. Far from implementing medieval criminal law, what these tribunals do is regulate the religious issues of believers. The rulings aren't legally binding!

If I went to such a Muslim tribunal with an issue and demanded a hearing, the answer would undoubtedly be: "But you're not even Muslim! We're not responsible for you, so please talk to your own!"

An example for what they are dealing with, according to my friend, being divorce. The issue mostly affects women, who have already obtained a secular divorce, but can't remarry, because their ex-husbands withhold the religious divorce. For other believers, they are still married, hence a religious tribunal offers recourse. It's comparable to obtaining a Catholic annulment, to remarry in the church.

I haven't seen anyone protesting against Catholics getting annulments within their own canonical law, so why should I worry about Muslim religious law? And please, no one tell me how backwards Sharia law is. If the mostly Christian West started implementing Leviticus again, we'd be looking at a lot of stonings, but we don't remove that from the Bible, do we?

Making the same point again with numerous examples, hence spoilered:

Spoiler

 

Someone looking at the text only, might come to the conclusion that Christians and Jews are a load of bloodthirsty savages, and that would only belie the ignorance of the reader. In the same vein, looking at the Qur'an and Sharia law, and coming to the same conclusion belies ignorance.

There is no denying that some Muslim countries with a strong religious bent mete out punishments that the West considers inhumane. There is no denying that ISIS tried to revert to more barbaric times. But, for example, there's Turkey. While rife with political problems, Turkey is majorly Muslim. There are some human rights issues, which undoubtedly need rectifying, but no one gets their hands chopped off for theft. Egypt is certainly not a wonderful example for peace, tranquillity and human rights, but as far as I'm aware they don't do stonings.

Indonesia is one of the world's largest Muslim countries, with nearly 90% of the population being Muslim. It's a rather stable country that officially recognises several religions. According to several anthropologists, things like the practice of wearing the hijab is considered a foreign influence, and not native to the Indonesian people. Having said that, in one province of Indonesia Sharia law is official law. The province of Aceh also wanted to apply it to non-Muslims, the central government said "no", and local Muslim organisations protested such a move and the Sharia law on the whole.

What I am trying to illustrate by bringing up these examples is that Islam is not a monolith. The Indonesian example alone (bear in mind that some 90% of the population are Muslim) bears testimony to that. In that vein, tarring everyone with the same brush is extremely unhelpful for everyone involved, who isn't a member of an extremist organisation.