Sharia Law in America...
Some want to ban it, but that would be unconstitutional. Churches, sports leagues, and all manner of civil organizations are entitled to their bylaws so long as they do not run afoul of our constitution or our laws. Individual practices may be found illegal, but the government cannot place a wholesale ban on a religion.
The problem, of course, is that vast numbers of Mohammedans now enjoying the ease and comfort of living in the modern western world insist upon dragging with them abhorrent cultural practices that violate our societal norms and our laws. That is what we should adamantly oppose.
A Threat to One Religion is a Threat to All Religions
Those who would outlaw Islam (as if that were possible) must realize that a threat to one religion is a threat to all. So the duty of a constitutional conservative or libertarian is to stand for the right of Muslims to practice their faith so long as it is done within the bounds of our constitution.
A Civil Religion
Our founding fathers consciously chose to put no religion above another, but to instead foster a civil religion, perhaps in the spirit Jean Jaques Rousseau. I doubt he played much of a role in the philosophical development of the founders, but he expresses the non-sectarian zeitgeist of the age.
"Tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship." -- Jean Jaques RousseauIn his chapter on Civil Religion, Rousseau put all religions into one of three categories:
- "The true theism, what may be called natural divine right or law." This is religion at its most elemental; man worshiping God without intervening pastors, altars and dogmas. It is the God upon which our country was founded.
- State Religions, including theocracies. Think the Pantheons of Rome, Greece, Iran, and the ancient Israelites.
- Religions which conflict with the state. He placed Roman Catholicism in this category. He described such religions as one "which gives men two codes of legislation, two rulers, and two countries, renders them subject to contradictory duties, and makes it impossible for them to be faithful both to religion and to citizenship."
The philosopher also recognizes the salutary effects of personal morality on society: "it matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a religion." And it's no business of the state "provided they are good citizens in this life."
The US Constitution: A Civil Profession of Faith
There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject.Theological Intolerance is Incompatible with a Free Society
By theological intolerance, he means being intolerant of those who do not share your religion. This quote is best understood by imagining it coming from an intolerant religious bigot:
It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.Rousseau then explains why...
Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforce priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.This is the standard to which we must hold every American. Muslim, Christian, Atheist. It matters not what your faith is, so long as it's practice does not violate our civil religion.
(Rousseau - Social Contract, Book IV, Chapter 8, Civil Religion)
