Posted on 09/16/2010 1:48:29 AM PDT by Rashputin
What Are D.C. Police Doing Enforcing Shariah Law?
Police officers, at the direction of an imam, remove six Muslim women from the Islamic Center. Their crime? Worshiping peacefully.
The Islamic Center, housed in a magnificent building in Washington, D.C., has been around for over a half-century, but it is seldom in the news. Unless you drive by (on Embassy Row) you would not know that it there. Because it is supposed to be a peaceful place of worship, we would not expect local police to enter.
Yet last March they did. Three D.C. Metropolitan police officers entered the center, at the direction of an imam, and removed six Muslim women. Their crime? They were worshiping peacefully in the main prayer hall after the imam announced that women were forbidden to enter that area.
What happened in Washington, D.C., should remind us of the peaceful sit-ins of the 1960s. The courts found that the police action removing people from private businesses violated the Equal Protection Clause.
In a series of cases the lower federal courts and the Supreme Court reversed convictions of black and white civil protestors who were convicted under state criminal trespass or disturbing the peace laws when they sat in the “white-only” section of various lunch counters and restaurants and refused to move after having been ordered to do so by the agent of the establishment.
Neither state nor federal laws at the time required the restaurants to serve blacks, but the courts found “state action” that violated Equal Protection. In Garner v. Louisiana (1961), for example, the Supreme Court reversed the convictions (under a state disturbing the peace statute) of those who had engaged in a sit-in, because the record was “totally devoid of evidentiary support” that petitioners caused any disturbance of the peace. They sat there quietly.
Peterson v. Greenville (1963) reversed the trespass conviction of blacks who had engaged in a lunch counter sit-in. The store manager asked the blacks to leave because integrated service was “contrary to local customs” and a local ordinance. The Supreme Court held that “these convictions cannot stand,” whether or not a local ordinance supported the store manager. In Lombard v. Louisiana (1963), decided the same day, the Court reversed the trespass convictions of three blacks and one white who had sat in a privately owned restaurant that served only whites. The case involved no statutes or ordinances, but the police did say that “no additional sit-in demonstrations … will be permitted.” Justice Douglas, concurring, argued that there was state action when the state judiciary “put criminal sanctions behind racial discrimination in public places.”
There are precious little differences between the sit-in cases of the 1960s and the Muslim sit-in cases. We knew, in the 1960s, that the Equal Protection Clause forbids discrimination based on color. We know now that the Equal Protection Clause forbids discrimination based on gender. We know that the lunch counters were open to anyone who wanted to eat, except blacks, or blacks had to sit at a special section. We know that the mosque is open to anyone who wants to worship God, except that women must sit at special places — sort of like “back of the bus.”
And we know that the discrimination based on race or sex could not exist without the help of the local police. The question is why the D.C. police — who have real crime to worry about – are spending their time and taxpayer dollars to enforce sharia law.
Our First Amendment protects the right of people to believe whatever they want to believe. But there are limits to how they can act on their beliefs. For example, a religion may believe that racial segregation is God’s way. They can believe that, but the state cannot aid that belief by, for example, giving federally subsidized loans to colleges that discriminate on the basis of race. The people of Washington, D.C., should not be enforcing shariah law.
Ronald Rotunda is the Doy & Dee Henley Chair and Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence at the Chapman University School of Law.
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Wonder if they have been killed since then....
If these were Muslim women who normally worshiped at that mosque, the police had no business becoming involved. Since they were Muslim, it seems it'd be hard make a case for trespassing unless they had been told previously not to come on any part of the property. Probably not enough information.
For years, the police have been called for PC “violations.” So this is not surprising. The police are not there to protect you and me from criminals. The police are there to carry out the policies of the local administration that hired them.
If the police had not removed them, there would have been riots and general mayhen throughout the muzzy world. And it would be all our fault.
(That’s the usual MO for getting their way, isn’t it?)
try this comparison:
a woman in a clerical collar (and a few supporters) walks into a catholic church and goes through the motions of conducting mass. When asked to leave, she refuses.
Should the police respond when called by the rector?
Seems like the police were removing trespassers from private property at the request of the property owners. The reasons the property owners want the individuals removed is of no interest.
On the ohter hand if the women want to pray outside or protest the discrimination, they are free to do so.
It doesn't matter; they are only women, property of some man or another. < /sarc >
‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;’ Congress shall not, states may. DC is under the jurisdiction of Congress. The DC cops were prohibiting the free exercise of religion unconstitutionally!
If it is private, it is not a true religious enterprise, but rather a private one, meaning that Congress may pass laws prohibiting activities or the exercise of those private activities and any and all tax breaks received by said mosque and any "clergy" should be rescinded! They can't have it both ways.
This is a simple case of trespassing.
If I were to decide that I wanted to practice my pagen fertility ritual on the alter of a catholic church in Washington DC, and the cops are called in to remove me (I was asked nicely to leave, but I refuse), is that a violation of my free exercise of religion?
>> It’s not a church, it’s a club.
It’s a war room.
The reason?
That is what G-d specified when they received the Law at Sinai.
No, Mosque...Agreed and thanks.
Here is a well produced video of 3 Basic Things one you should know about Islam and Shari’a Law;
http://www.thewall.net/view/1332/islam-three-things-you-didnt-know-1/
Its only 8 minutes or so and very worth it.
If you have others who would be interested, this should be sent to them.
They're members. The trespassing is then their not playing by the club rules and staying in the back of the bus? I don't think disobeying the club rules is trespass and I find their sitting down a bit less than a disturbance of the peace. I realize people are willing to see trespass due to the fact that they want their own property protected but this is different. They had a right to be there. They are members of the Mosque.
If you don't follow the rules, you aren't a member.
Have you heard of the concept of "trespass on private property"? Because trespass is what happened here, not some membership controversy.
If you have an all-mens club, and a woman shows up uninvited or enters a restricted area, do you not expect the police to come and remove the intruder if called and asked by the property owner to do just that?
Or, if a member no longer in good standing shows up, do the police not have the authority to remove him if asked to do so? This is what you're asserting.
No, "The police have no role in enforcing private membership rules and/or beliefs.", but they do have a role in enforcing trespass complaints from private property owners.
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