NOVANEWS
The GOP continued its campaign against sharia law last week, with potential 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum telling a group in New Hampshire that the Islamic code of conduct is “evil.” Politico’s Kendra Marr said that Santorum’s anti-sharia rhetoric indicated that the former Pennsylvania senator was “continu(ing) to establish himself as the candidate most-aligned with the Republican Party’s conservative base.”
“We need to define it and say what it is. And it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our Constitution.”
Santorum, invoking New York Rep. Peter King’s hearing this week on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims, said that the “vast majority” of Muslims don’t want to it either.
“They left because of Sharia law,” he said, referring to why he believes Muslim immigrants left their home countries to come to the United States.
Santorum added, “Sharia law is not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature an origin, but it is a civil code. And it is incompatible with the civil code of the United States.”
Many of Santorum’s likely contenders for the GOP presidential nomination have made similar statements about Islam.
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R), a strong social conservative, would likely be regarded as a heavyweight if he hadn’t lost his seat by 18 points in 2006. Still, Santorum has been steadily working to show that he’s a serious candidate. (Charlie Neibergall – AP)
After Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee recently called Islam the “antithesis of the gospel of Christ” during an interview on Fox & Friends, On Faith asked our panelists about debating Islam on the campaign trail. Conservative commentator Cal Thomas reasoned that “Islamism affects American politics,” thus it should be discussed during political debate; but Pastor Joel Hunter, a spiritual advisor to President Obama, said that campaigning against Islam is about power, not spirituality and “to stereotype any faith by one scripture reference or fundamentalist sect is unfair and uninformed.” For more takes on Islam’s rhetorical role in political debates, go here.
Nearly 10 years after the terrorist attack that brought radical Islam to the fore of American consciousness, a fierce debate over the faith’s compatibility with American values has emerged as a major political issue, of which King’s hearings on Islam are only the latest example.
Sharia, the Islamic code that guides the behavior of Muslims, has become a particularly charged term in American culture and politics. During last summer’s debate about the Islamic center planned near Ground Zero, Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein wrote For critics of Islam,’sharia’ becomes shorthand for extremism , contending that “ the word has become akin to a slur in some camps.”
Sharia in Arabic means “way” or “path.” Muslims agree that sharia is God’s law, but there is little consensus on the particulars. To some, sharia is a set of rules that are codified and unchanging. To others, it’s a collection of religious principles that shift over time.
Anti-Sharia laws have recently been proposed in Tennessee and Alabama , and Oklahoma voters passed a resolution in November that prohibits the use of sharia law when making rulings. When critics of sharia talk about the body of laws, they are largely referring to some of the worst offenses against human rights enacted in the name of Islam. For one example on how sharia entered American political consciousness, here’s Newt Gingrich’s July 2010 interpretation of the vast and complex legal code. At the September 2010 Values Voters Summit, Gingrich called for a federal ban on sharia law.
Sharia law is used in many Muslim countries to justify shocking acts of barbarity including stoning, the execution of homosexuals, and the subjugation of women. Sharia does not permit freedom of conscience; it prohibits Muslims from renouncing their Islamic faith or converting to another religion. Sharia does not support religious liberty; it treats non-Muslims as inferior and does not accord them the same protections as Muslims. In these and other instances, sharia is explicitly at odds with core American and Western values. It is an explicit repudiation of freedom of conscience and religious liberty as well as the premise that citizens are equal under the law.
