RUTHFULLY YOURS

The New York Times recently ran a hit piece on lawyer David Yerushalmi, who has led the charge to stop the rise of shariah law in the United States.  With typical anti-religious flair, the newspaper pointed out that Yerushalmi is “a little-known lawyer … a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, immigration, and Islam.”

The Times focuses in on Yerushalmi, as though his Judaic background and love for Israel delegitimize his opposition to shariah.  The paper then brings  in Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, whom they criticize for taking “polarizing positions” and being “well connected in neoconservative [read: conservative Jewish] circles.”  Finally, they wield their club against the Tea Party, which they somehow link to this whole effort: “With the advent of the Tea Party, Mr. Yerushalmi saw an opening.”  They never make clear what the Tea Party has to do with anything; this is just another New York Times attempt to use a putative Tea Party connection as a club on people it disapproves of. .

But leave aside the ad hominem attacks on Yerushalmi and conservatives and focus instead on the Times’ odd contention that shariah law is not a threat.  They say that shariah law is just like Jewish law; it’s applied in domestic and civil disputes, and then courts simply enforce it.  Of course, this is nonsense.  Take, for example, the famed New Jersey case last year in which a Muslim woman tried to get a restraining order against her husband in the aftermath of an assault and rape; the court ruled against her, applying shariah law principles and stating that the husband thought that his wife had to comply with his sexual appetites.  There’s nothing remotely like that in Jewish law.  Jewish law has its flaws, but Jews routinely repair to the secular courts when such flaws create problems (see for example the complex and troublesome divorce issue in Judaism).  And the problems with Jewish civil law don’t begin to approach those of the Islamic community.

Why should the courts uphold the evils intrinsic in shariah?  Courts have long held that, for example, upholding racially restrictive covenants violates federal law (Shelley v. Kraemer).  Why would courts uphold a foreign and primitive law that allows men to rape their wives?    When it comes to conflict between religious freedom and civilized values, civilized values should win out; otherwise, the law, as Dickens once said, “is an ass.”  Freedom of religion was never meant to allow barbarity.  Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Congress stated that federal, state and local laws needed to show a compelling state interest and be minimally restrictive of religious exercise in order to be Constitutional; the Supreme Court struck down the law as too restrictive.  Instead, the Supreme Court standard is that a “general law of neutral applicability” is Constitutional – which is why states can stop polygamy.

The rise of shariah law in Europe has created a separate society that hates civilized values.  According to one US diplomatic document, one survey conducted in the United Kingdom shows that 40% of Muslim students at British universities wanted to implement shariah law for everyone, not just for Muslims.  Not coincidentally, 32% supported murder under Islam.  Britain is already enforcing Islamic law ine 85 shariah courts.  Polygamy has become commonplace.  So have other controversial elements of shariah law.  There should be no problem with Muslims solving their problems their own way.  But there is a problem when secular courts allow their principles to be trumped by religious extremism.

So why, all of a sudden, is the New York Times interested in defending religious extremism – particularly when that religious extremism is upheld by courts in the United States?  Isn’t this the same paper that despises religious Christian displays that aren’t misogynist?  Isn’t this the same publicaiton that zealously guards the non-constitutional separation between church and state?

The Times’ bias comes out here in a major way.  They don’t like Judaism – of all the tactics they could use, the most obvious would be to stand on religious freedom and make the case that Yerushalmi is a hypocrite in his condemnation of shariah.  But they don’t do that, because that would require them to stand up for the application of Jewish law, which they oppose.  In the end, this is all about pro-Islamism, which they feel is the highest form of multiculturalism.  They do not believe that Islam in any form is a true threat, even if it means endorsing shariah applied through US courts.  And to make that point, they’ll sacrifice wives and daughters, and then blame a Hasidic Jew.