Dave Weigel makes an important point about Tennessee state Sen. Bill Ketron's decision to alter his "Sharia" bill so it was no longer about Sharia.
The point of the anti-Sharia campaign is that to allow it in the United States is to allow an alternative culture to develop -- a culture where terror can develop, too. So this is not at all acceptable to the Frank Gaffneys of the world.
This actually gives the Sharia panic crowd too much credit. They're not concerned about terror; they're concerned about Muslims having public influence and permanently altering the fabric of American society. They'll associate Islam with terrorism if that's what they need to do to scare people, but really, they're not worried about Muslims blowing things up; they're worried about America becoming more Muslim.
The altering of the bill wasn't simply a loss for the Gaffneys of the world in the abstract. The bill had been written by David Yerushalmi, the resident "sharia expert" at Gaffney's think tank, and an attorney who has also represented anti-Muslim blogger Pamela Geller. This was their bill. While it's still problematic, it now contains language that could be interpreted as criticizing being a Muslim, which deep down was what they really wanted. Yerushalmi had once suggested making it a 20 year felony to "to knowingly act in furtherance of, or to support the adherence to Islam."
So the bill they wanted is gone, and all it took was Ketron meeting some actual Muslims and realizing they aren't monsters.
