Greg Sargent tries to get to the bottom of the strange rumor that Islamic-based Sharia Law has in some way taken over law enforcement of some Michigan cities. It's obviously untrue and – as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out last night – would be clearly forbidden by the US Constitution's mandate of church-state separation. So why would major-party candidates for the US Senate like Nevada's Sharron Angle, be claiming it is happening? Here's Sargent:
What Angle was probably referring to is a myth propagated by Newt Gingrich, that Christian missionaries who were proselytizing outside an Arab festival in Dearborn were arrested by police on the say-so of stealth jihadists upholding sharia-based prohibitions against converting Muslims. Gingrich called it "a clear case of freedom of speech and the exercise of religious freedom being sacrificed in deference to sharia's intolerance against the preaching of religions other than Islam." In fact, the cops were called by a Christian volunteer who thought the missionaries were harassing the patrons. The anecdote was in a July piece published in Human Events and was one of several misleading examples Gingrich used to argue against allowing an Islamic community center in downtown Manhattan.
Is it too much to ask national political figures to know what they are talking about before they ratchet up fear with misinformation, by suggesting that an essential constitutional doctrine, protecting the religious freedom of all Americans, has somehow been usurped by jihadists?
