Oklahoma tried to enact a ban on sharia through a ballot measure last November. The law hasn't taken effect yet because it's being challenged on First Amendment grounds. State Rep. Sally Kern, tried to push an altered bill through the legislature that she thought might slip through some nonexistent loophole in the First Amendment. But the bill appears to be dead:
The controversial bill that would prohibit foreign laws from being enforced in Oklahoma courtrooms easily passed the state House of Representatives but has languished in the Senate, and is considered dead for this year, The Oklahoman reported Tuesday.
The danger posed by sharia is an invention of the conservative imagination. To the extent that people enter into private arrangements according to their own religious beliefs, the government has no business telling them they can't unless they're violating the law. It is in this context that American civil courts deal with Jewish, Christian, and yes sometimes Islamic religious law. The idea that American Muslims are all closet fundamentalists who are going to impose their beliefs on the rest of us is a demographic absurdity. Even if American Muslims wanted or had the numbers to legislate their political beliefs, they wouldn't need to do it in secret any more than Mike Huckabee or Tony Perkins.
This doesn't mean sharia panic is over, far from it. Many other states are taking up the issue, and as Byron Tau noted the other day, a number of 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls have staked out positions on the issue, as it becomes an ever-more important aspect of superficial conservative identity politics.
