After Tennessee state Sen. Bill Ketron introduced his "anti-Sharia" bill that actually gives the state counterterrorism powers similar to those of the federal government, he met with local Muslim residents who tried to explain that he was criminalizing the free exercise of religion. The meeting appears to have had a positive impact. Nashville Public Radio reported that Ketron told Remziya Suleyman of the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition that “there would be an amendment to the bill that would take away any conversation, or really, notation of, Sharia.”
Indeed, as WPLN reports, all mentions of Sharia, including the frenzied, Gaffneyesque references to Sharia as something that compels Muslims to rebel against the United States, have been excised from Ketron's new proposal. Now it's merely an absurd bill that gives Tennessee powers similar to federal anti-terrorism laws.
Instead of the state attorney general alone designating "Sharia organizations," the state AG, along with the governor and the director of the Tennessee office of Homeland Security, will designate "terrorist organizations" based on whether or not they believe them to be part of an organization previously so designated by the federal government. Since obviously the federal government already has these powers, the bill is redundant and could conceivably interfere with counterterrorism efforts, since the bill still gives Tennessee its own counterterrorism policy even though it no longer potentially criminalizes someone who prays five times a day.
I suspect someone from the federal government may eventually weigh in on this if the bill shows signs of passing, but in the meantime, it's somewhat encouraging that Ketron backed down from the whole "Sharia" thing after meeting with Muslim constituents.
