Sharia Creeps

A few weeks back, uniformed police in the heavily Muslim Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, arrested four Christian missionaries for the offense of handing out copies of the Gospel of St. John on a public street outside an Arab festival. (Can you even imagine uniformed cops interfering with (much less arresting) Islamic preachers who were handing out copies of the Koran inside a Christian festival (much less on a public street). The Christian missionaries were charged with disorderly conduct and their camera was seized. As the tape showed, there wasn’t anything disorderly about them and they were engaged in behavior that is absolutely legal under the U.S. Constitution. Proselytism of Christianity, however, is an offense against sharia — that’s what the police, in effect, were enforcing. See John Hinderaker’s report (with some video) at Powerline, here.

Now comes this story out of New Jersey: A Muslim woman was raped by her Muslim husband (who was about to divorce her). However, a state judge refused to find that there had been a sexual assault or any kind of criminal sexual misconduct because, under sharia principles, a wife may not refuse her husband’s requests for sex. As the man told the crying woman, “This is according to our religion. You are my wife, I c[an] do anything to you. The woman, she should submit and do anything I ask her to do.”

Robert Spencer has the story at Jihad Watch, along with some of the relevant Islamic scripture. (Robert tips his cap to Eugene Volokh). The judge reasoned as follows:

This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.

Thankfully, this ruling has been reversed by an appellate court, which has reaffirmed — at least for now — the principle that we are still ruled by American law:

As the judge recognized, the case thus presents a conflict between the criminal law and religious precepts. In resolving this conflict, the judge determined to except defendant from the operation of the State’s statutes as the result of his religious beliefs. In doing so, the judge was mistaken.

Expect to see lots more of this as long as sharia’s apologists inhabit high places.