Think Progress

TN Bill Calls Two Or More Observant Muslims A ‘Sharia Organization’

After initial objections, lawmakers in Tennessee are moving a new version (pdf) of the most expansive anti-Sharia bill yet. The legislation has already been passed by committees in each chamber. The bill’s house sponsor has even cited defense against possible retaliation terror attacks for Osama bin Laden’s death to justify its breadth.

Tennessee is one of more than fifteen states trying to push laws banning Sharia — referring to the legal code of Islam. The bill says Sharia is “inextricably linked” to its “war doctrine known as jihad.”

The February version of the Tennessee bill was spiked for specific references to a particular religion, but caveats in the new incarnation make clear that only Islamic practices are in the cross-hairs. The bill says it:

neither targets, nor incidentally prohibits or inhibits, the peaceful practice of any religion, and in particular, the practice of Islam by its adherents. Rather, this part criminalizes only the knowing provision of material support or resources…to designated sharia organizations…or to known sharia-jihad organizations with the intent of furthering their criminal behavior.

So abiding privately by Sharia (ie, being an observant Muslim) is fine. But when a Muslim starts practicing Islam with partners or in a group, they are forming a “Sharia organization”:

“Sharia organization” means any two (2) or more persons conspiring to support of acting in convert in support of, Sharia or in furtherance of the imposition of sharia…

That means, in Tennessee, a Muslim could not form a non-profit that operated a mosque, a religious charity, or any other organization that goes beyond practicing religion in solitude.

Furthermore, the standard for demonstrating adherence to Sharia is absurdly broad. The bill says subscribing to “Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, Ja’afariya, or Salafi, as those terms are used by sharia adherents, is prima facie sharia without any further evidentiary showing.” Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i,and  Hanbali are the only schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence. So following Sunni religious rules in concert with anyone else would be illegal.

The new version of the Tennessee bill maintains the minimum 15-year sentence for knowingly providing “material support or resources to a designated sharia organization.” However, if the support causes a death, the sentence becomes life imprisonment.

The Tennessee bill’s key sponsor on the Senate side, Sen. Bill Ketron (R), who’s mulling a run for Congress, is an eccentric lawmaker, having proposed that the state look into creating its own currency in case the Fed collapses. More than a sixth of the bills he’s sponsored in the current session deal with deregulating alcoholic beverages (which incidentally are prohibited by Sharia).

The sponsor of the bill in the House, Rep. Judd Matheny (R)  has sought to promote the bill using potential retaliatory attacks for the killing of Osama bin Laden. “When developed it took into account several contingencies such as this,” he said.

Cross-posted from The Wonk Room.

Florida Bill Will Come ‘Between Doctors And Patients’ By Prohibiting Pediatricians From Asking About Guns

Governor Rick Scott (R-FL) has been one of the country’s fiercest critics of health care reform, frequently deriding the Affordable Care Act for supposedly coming “between doctors and patients.”

But now Scott is expected to soon sign a first-of-its-kind bill that does just that by forbidding doctors from asking their patients if they own guns. To prevent accidental injuries, pediatricians routinely ask new parents if they have guns at home and if they are stored safely. But the NRA and its allies in the Florida legislature see something more sinister at work — a radical agenda to curb the rights of gun owners.

“For decades,” the American Academy of Pediatrics has encouraged its members to ask patients about guns and how they’re stored. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Louis St. Petery explains that doctors have a responsibility to ask parents about everything from car seats to bike helmets to help them keep their kids safe:

“If you have a pool, let’s talk about pool safety so we don’t have accidental drownings,” he says. “And if you have firearms, let’s talk about gun safety so that they’re stored properly — you know, the gun needs to be locked up, the ammunition stored separate from the gun, etc., so that children don’t have access to them.”

But Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s lobbyist in Tallahassee, FL, considers such questions an unacceptable encroachment on Second Amendment rights:

“We take our children to pediatricians for medical care — not moral judgment, not privacy intrusions,” she says. [...]

“This bill is about helping families who are complaining about being questioned about gun ownership, and the growing anti-gun political agenda being carried out in examination rooms by doctors and staffs,” Hammer says.

Florida’s Senate and House both agreed with the NRA and voted to approve the bill. But several health care professions have voiced concern that restricting what doctors can or cannot say to their patients will jeopardize public safety. Dr. St. Petery spelled out the alarming consequences if Scott signs the bill into law:

“What I think is going to happen is there’ll be more children injured and killed from firearms in the home that are not properly stored.”

Florida has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the nation with 12.5 gun deaths for every 100,000 people. Similar measures are now being considered in other states, including North Carolina and Alabama.

Santorum Says He Does ‘Not Approve’ Of Teaching History Of Gay Americans In California Schools

A bill moving through the California legislature compels the state to add gay history to the state education curriculum. Predictably, just as the addition of African American history and civil rights history to California school textbooks stirred right-wing hatred during the 1960′s, conservatives are railing against the effort. As the Associated Press notes, “California law already requires schools to teach about women, African Americans, Mexican Americans, entrepreneurs, Asian Americans, European Americans, American Indians and labor.”

On Friday, ThinkProgress caught up with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) at the South Carolina Silver Elephant Dinner, where he had just finished his keynote address. Santorum said he was “not surprised” by the California bill, which he said is a “logical consequence” of court decisions “creating rights.” Presumably, Santorum is referring to the multiple court decisions affirming the right of gay marriage in California. In any case, Santorum said he “certainly would not approve” of teaching gay history:

FANG: I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but California is adopting in their state curriculum for public education a required teaching of the gay rights movement. Are you troubled by that at all? I know you’ve written and talked about this issue of education.

SANTORUM: Well what I talked about is that there are consequences of the court’s actions and I think the court, by ruling the way they did, has created a precedent that states now have to follow, and some states are going farther others. I certainly would not approve of that, but there’s a logical consequence to the courts injecting themselves in creating rights and people attaching their legislative ideas to those rights that in some respects could logically flow from that. So I’m not surprised.

Watch it:

Brandishing his anti-gay social conservative values, Santorum would like schools to censor the contributions of gay American scholars, inventors, and activists. Perhaps he would like to bury the fact that even his own campaign slogan, “Fighting to make America America again,” is borrowed from the gay Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes.