The “supremacy clause” of the U.S. Constitution is one of the first things taught in many first-year law school courses. Article VI, Clause 2 states quite clearly that the “Constitution and the laws of the United States … shall be the supreme law of the land” and that no other law (foreign or domestic) can pre-empt or supersede it. While that seems pretty clear, some national conservative political figures have convinced more than a dozen American states that “Sharia,” or Islamic law, is somehow on the verge of toppling the American way of law. While that’s unlikely, some ... Read More
Why Are the World’s Muslims So Mad at America?
May 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
As the U.S. tries to reset relations (yet again) with a Muslim world now reshaped by revolution — a theme President Barack Obama pushed in a major speech Thursday on American policy in the region — officials would be wise to first better understand one of the most fundamental questions about U.S. involvement there. Why are Muslims, by and large, so mad at America? The answer is not so simple — not just about invasions, or religious offense or oil greed. A new book, reflecting five years of research on the ground and public opinion polling by political psychologist Steven Kull, ... Read More
Building Mosques: Realpolitik vs. Constitution
May 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The United States Agency for International Development published a proposed rule change in the Federal Register back in March that startled many legal scholars and civil libertarians. The agency, which is responsible for doling out the State Department's economic and humanitarian assistance throughout the world, wanted to update two paragraphs in a federal regulation governing who is eligible for U.S. aid money overseas. USAID funds, the updated rule proposes, may in the future be used "for the acquisition, construction, or rehabilitation of structures that are used, in whole or in part, ... Read More
Muslim-American Terrorism Down in 2010
March 9, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The number of Muslim Americans involved in terrorist threats declined in 2010 from the previous year, although you wouldn’t know that from the tone of a congressional hearing scheduled for Thursday on “the extent of radicalization of the American Muslim community.” Committee chairman Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York, has been planning the hearing for months, partly as a response, he says, to the lack of cooperation some law enforcement officials have complained of within the Muslim-American community. Civil liberties groups and Muslim leaders, meanwhile, are decrying what ... Read More
The Greatly Exaggerated Death of Multiculturalism
February 16, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
One immediate result of Arab revolutions in North Africa throws a monkey wrench into the “death of multiculturalism” rhetoric that has thrummed from European leaders almost like a heartbeat since last fall. Tunisians, still unemployed even with their dictator gone, have boarded boats for Italy. Since the revolution, some 5,000 illegal immigrants from Tunisia have arrived on the small Italian island of Lampedusa. They’re fleeing the same conditions that masses of people protested before the resignation of Tunisia’s president and dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali — poverty, ... Read More
Is Islam ‘Worse’ Than Any Other Religion?
December 3, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment
A recent Pew Center poll reports that 18 percent of Americans think President Obama is a Muslim, thanks largely to a politicized misinformation campaign. The attitude behind the numbers—the notion that Obama’s purported Islamic faith makes him untrustworthy and a threat to our national security—underlies a troubling pattern. Consider Pastor Terry Jones' aborted "Bonfire of Korans," Newt Gingrich's remarks comparing organizers of lower Manhattan's Islamic cultural center to Nazis, and Oklahoma's pre-emptive strike against Shariah law and you can see why the term "Islamophobia," so in ... Read More
Anti-Semitism Keeps Rising in Europe. Why?
June 9, 2010 • By • 10 Comments
Anti-Semitic attacks spiked in early 2009, particularly in Europe, just after Israel's brief but brutal war to punish Hamas and stop the steady drumbeat of missile fire from the Gaza Strip. "Operation Cast Lead" had awkward ripple effects around the world, but particularly in Britain and France, where anti-Semitic incidents apparently multiplied by three or four. Someone drove a car through the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse and set it on fire, burning the gates; synagogues and Jewish community buildings in Britain and France have been daubed with graffiti. There were problems with arson ... Read More
Meet the Real Islam
March 15, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
In the final Republican presidential debate last year, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, speaking about America's adversaries in the so-called "war on terror," told the audience: "This is about Shi'a and Sunni. This is about Hezbollah and Hamas and al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is the worldwide jihadist effort to try and cause the collapse of all moderate Islamic governments and replace them with a caliphate." So many powerful groups, representing hundreds of millions of people, united against freedom and moderation and democratic ideals. Quite a harrowing thought. Lucky ... Read More
