WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn is introducing new laws aimed toward making the enforcement of Islamic Sharia Legislation, and discrimination primarily based on the fundamentalist Muslim code, a violation of the Civil Rights Act — amid the continued controversy surrounding a proposed Muslim-centered neighborhood within the Lone Star State.
The purpose of the Republican lawmaker’s “Defeat Sharia Legislation in America Act” is to cease coercive personal sector implementation of Sharia Legislation, an Islamic code that sometimes options harsh punishments for theft, blasphemy, and adultery.
Cornyn’s invoice would prohibit municipalities and corporations from mandating that residents or staff adhere to the strict guidelines of Sharia Legislation.
This has change into a contentious native difficulty surrounding EPIC Metropolis, a sprawling residential growth undertaking in North Texas affiliated with the East Plano Islamic Heart (EPIC), one of many largest mosques within the area.
The proposed metropolis has confronted fierce backlash and authorized challenges over issues that it meant to exclude non-Muslims from shopping for or renting within the growth, which might be situated in Josephine.
Locals additionally fretted that EPIC Metropolis would implement Sharia Legislation, prompting Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to signal laws to ban “Sharia compounds” in response.
“Sharia Legislation is the antithesis of the rights, beliefs, and values that make Texas and America nice, and we should root out and eradicate this existential menace to our lifestyle,” Cornyn informed The Submit in an announcement.
“I’m introducing the Defeat Sharia Legislation in America Act to make sure anti-American jihadists, and people who dare to try to implement Sharia Legislation’s hateful ideology in our freedom-loving, God-fearing communities, are stopped and held accountable for his or her radical discrimination and flagrant violation of our Structure.”
Cornyn beforehand pushed the Justice Division to probe EPIC over these issues. The DOJ closed its probe of EPIC final summer time with out submitting fees or discovering violations of the Honest Housing Act.
Implementations of Sharia Legislation range broadly, however the spiritual code typically bans homosexuality, requires males to have some type of guardianship of girls, and different practices that critics declare are human rights violations.
Sharia Legislation can be typically related to brutal punishments akin to stoning and lashing, given the way it has been applied by the Taliban, ISIS, and different terrorist teams.
Nonetheless, there are looser, comparatively extra progressive types of it as effectively. Typically, Sharia Legislation is seen as a set of personal obligations, whereas different instances, international locations, significantly within the Center East, will implement some harsh model of it of their legal guidelines.
There have lengthy been anti-democratic issues raised about Sharia Legislation, together with from the European Courtroom of Human Rights, which deemed it “incompatible with the basic rules of democracy” in 2018. Mulsim defenders of Sharia Legislation counter that it’s been misunderstood.
Cornyn’s introduction of the “Defeat Sharia Legislation in America Act” comes amid his bruising GOP major combat for reelection to the Senate, the place he’s dealing with off towards Texas Legal professional Basic Ken Paxton (R) and Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-Texas).
Paxton and Cornyn, who beforehand served because the state’s AG from 1999 to 2002, have lengthy had a beef, with the legal professional basic difficult Cornyn from the fitting and questioning his MAGA bona fides.
Many GOP operatives and the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) view Cornyn because the stronger candidate in a basic election, given Paxton’s previous scandals, such because the 2023 impeachment he narrowly escaped over allegations of giving preferential therapy to a political donor.
Paxton is averaging a 2 proportion level lead over Cornyn within the newest RealClearPolitics polling combination forward of the March 3 major. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who’s mates with each males, and President Trump have remained impartial to date.
Elsewhere in Congress, there was scrutiny over Sharia Legislation, together with a Wednesday listening to by the Home Judiciary Subcommittee on the Structure and Restricted Authorities and a press convention by the Sharia-Free America Caucus final week.
“Sharia Legislation shouldn’t be a faith; it’s a dying cult and has no place on this nation,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a Sharia-Free America Caucus member, who’s co-sponsoring the Defeat Sharia Legislation in America Act, informed The Submit.
“Persons are afraid to name out Sharia Legislation for what it’s: an ideology that requires the killing of freedom-loving Individuals,” Tuberville, who’s operating for governor of Alabama, added. “We have now to take motion towards this toxic ideology and defend Individuals from the rising menace of Radical Islam.”
