A few days ago, a federal appeals court--not always the voice of sanity, but in this case definitely so--to the surprise of no one who knows anything about the US Constitution, declared unconstitutional Oklahoma's recently approved proposed constitutional amendment that barred judges in the state from considering Sharia or international law in formulating their decisions. (See here.) The Bubba electorate of this state thought that was such a fine idea they voted for it en masse, by a 7 to 3 majority, when it was offered as a state question in 2010. A couple of Republican dingbat representatives, naturally, had proposed the measure. It was nothing but hysteria-driven nonsense, but that the electorate of this state was heartily in favor of blatant discrimination against a religion other than Christianity just shows to what pass we've come in this country. Since 9/11, it seems the whole country has taken leave of its senses.
The federal judges pointed this very fact out: the proposed amendment openly discriminates by name against a specific religion, it said. Moreover, the supporters of the law could not point to any specific problem the proposed amendment addressed. "Indeed," they wrote, "they admitted at the preliminary injunction hearing that they
did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had
applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or
cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in
concrete problems in Oklahoma."
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