Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness?

Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness? 
38th Annual ICNA-MAS Convention, May 26, 2013
(Speech as written.)

Salaam alaykum. Peace be unto you. Good afternoon.

My mother was born and raised in Scotland. She met and married my father, a U.S. Air Force Master Sergeant, in England. She came to the United States in the late 1960’s.

As she tells it, her first major impression of America was looking out of an airpalne’s window and seeing fires burning along the Detroit skyline.

That was a time of great unhappiness in our nation. The 1967 riot in Detroit resulted in 43 dead and 467 injured people. Damage estimates at the time ranged from 40-60 million dollars.

The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders’ 1968 report, the result of an investigation of civil unrest such as the Detroit riot, has a very famous passage:

"Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

So our question today, “Is Struggling for Civil Rights the Pursuit of Happiness?” becomes easy to answer.

Happiness is difficult in an unjust, unequal society.

Happiness, Rights and the Revolution
Our nation’s founder’s embodied this reality.

Everyone knows the famous lines from the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

But I want you to hear what comes after that:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

So, in laying out their justification for breaking from the British Empire, the Founder’s argue that government needs to be organized in a fashion most likely to allow those living under it the most safety and happiness.

If you read further, you will find a list of issues that the Founder’s had with King George’s rule, among those is this:

“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”

So the Founder’s took the incredible step of breaking with King George’s government in part due to his “invasions on the rights of the people” and sought a new form of government more likely to “effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Happiness is difficult in an unjust society.

Struggling for civil rights might not always be the pursuit of our own individual happiness, but it is definitely a larger pursuit of peace and therefore happiness for larger communities.

For individuals being able to live in peace and security is the foundation of happiness.

If we live in fear of having our basic rights violated at any time, and we are not secure in the knowledge that our children are safe as well from having their rights violated, then no amount of education, success and wealth can ever make up for the lack of basic rights or enable us to build happy and content lives.

Nothing that I have said so far is surprising, shocking or particularly a revelation.

Upholding the Constitution
But here is a key, and for this gathering, crucial reality, that may surprise you:

American Muslims are on the front lines of protecting the Constitution ideals of a just and equal society.

There are people who, selling anti-Muslim stereotypes and fear, seek to return America to a legal system that treats one group of Americans as different from other. People who seek two societies—separate and unequal.

Worse, if you pay attention to Islamophobes like Pamela Geller or David Yerushalmi, there are those who appear to seek the rebirth of South African apartheid with religion as its new targeted class.

Indulge me, please, while I offer proof of what I just said.

Anti-Islam Legislation
First, we will look at efforts to legislate government-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims.

In 2011 and 2012, 78 bills or amendments aimed at interfering with Islamic religious practices were considered in 29 states and the U.S. Congress.

Sixty-two of these bills contained language that was extracted from Islamophobe David Yerushalmi’s American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) model legislation.

(As an aside: An internet search of “David Yerushalmi” returns results demonstrating his call for a “WAR AGAINST ISLAM and all the Muslim faithful.” You will also see his anti-woman, anti-black and similarly biased comments on the first results page. It is reasonable to be alarmed that a man so central to that anti-Islam hate movement in the United States is able to have real impact on legislators.)

73 of these bills were introduced solely by Republicans. Not just fringe legislators, but in too many cases this included state-level GOP party leadership.

Bills were signed into law in Arizona, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Louisiana.

I want you to be clear that this anti-Sharia movement is really a cover for Islamophobic sentiment.

In Tennessee, the original bill’s definition of “Sharia” was, in practical terms, the entire religious tradition of Islam. It stated that “Sharia” encompasses all content derived from “any of the authoritative schools of Islamic jurisprudence of Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, Ja’afariya, or Salafi.”

They wanted to make being a Muslim illegal in Tennessee.

South Dakota anti-Islam bill sponsor Phil Jensen (R-District 33) told an audience, “It is alarming how many of our sisters and daughters who attend American universities are now marrying Muslim men.”

As you may have already concluded, these legislators frequently have no idea what they are talking about.

The Star Assistant in Alabama reported, “But no one—not even Sen. Gerald Allen, who sponsored the bill—can point to examples of Muslims trying to have Islamic law recognized in Alabama courts.”

Allen could not even define Sharia. When asked he said, “I don’t have my file in front of me.”

When pressed about why the Alabama bill’s definition of sharia matched one found in Wikipedia, Allen’s legislative staff “confirmed that the definition was in fact pulled from Wikipedia.”iv

Now college students that I know tell me that Wikipedia is not a valid citation in their papers. I find it intriguing that it is, however, a valid source for things that may become the law of the land.

Texas legislator Leo Berman said his bill was necessary because he had heard, but apparently had not actually tried to confirm, that one American town was allowing judges to use sharia. “I heard it on a radio station here on my way into the Capitol one day. I don’t know Dearborn, Michigan but I heard it [Sharia law is accepted there] on the radio. Isn’t that true?”

Missouri Speaker of the House Stephen Tilley also “could not provide an example of foreign law trumping domestic law in Missouri courts,” reported Politicalmo.com. The article noted that Tilley’s office later issued a statement outlining one case in New Jersey, but that poor ruling--which in fact received no support from Muslim groups because it involved a man claiming it was his religious right to rape his wife--was rightfully overturned by a higher court.

CAIR is in the forefront of efforts to reject legislating government-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims. The Constitution is the law of the land and we like it that way. We agree with people of the Jewish and Catholic faiths, who already have an established tradition of using religious mediation, that, within the law, we are free to make choices in accordance with our faith.

In accordance with Islam, my marriage contract required me to pay a mahr to my wife. Why anyone would be upset with a woman getting money that is hers to invest as she sees fit, I have no clue.

In accordance with Islam, my home financing involves no interest. Similarly, my financial investment strategy avoids putting money into gambling, pornography and weapons manufacturing. I have no idea why anyone would think such things are a threat to American democracy.

So let’s turn back to the anti-Islam legislation.

CAIR’s lawsuit against Oklahoma’s anti-Islam constitutional amendment asserts that the law would violate the First Amendment, which says no law can be passed that promotes or vilifies a particular religion, and the Supremacy clause, which says the Constitution is and will remain the highest law of the land.

Interestingly, CAIR gets accused of trying to subvert the Constitution while we are making these arguments this constitutionally-subversive legislation.

So far, four federal judges have ruled in our favor and that law is on hold.

An appeals court ruling on the legal challenge concluded in part that arguments, “that the proposed state amendment expressly condemns [the plaintiff’s] religion and exposes him and other Muslims in Oklahoma to disfavored treatment -- suffices to establish the kind of direct injury-in-fact necessary to create Establishment Clause standing.” The ruling also notes, "Appellants [those representing the state of Oklahoma] do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve. Indeed, they admitted at the preliminary injunction hearing that they did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures..."

Mainstream Candidates Willing to Subject Muslims to Unequal Treatment 
As a second example that Muslims need to defend our faith in order to secure the Constitution’s ideals of securing each person’s equal right to liberty let’s look at the recent presidential election.

Herman Cain was for a while the frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination.

Speaking to Christianity Today on March 11, 2011, Cain said that followers of the “Muslim religion” have “an objective to convert all infidels or kill them.”

Cain also said that Muslims who wanted to serve in his administration would have to take loyalty oaths. He explained to Fox News host Glenn Beck that he would not require similar oaths from Mormons or Catholics, “Because there is a greater dangerous part of the Muslim faith than there is in these other religions.”

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says there is no “religious test” for public office.

So, here we have a man, a frontrunner, committing to undermining the Constitution. Did he get tossed from the stage?

No.

He got applause.

Rick Santorum, also a frontrunner for a time, endorsed religious profiling during one of the GOP presidential debates, saying, "Obviously, Muslims would be someone you'd look at." In January, 2012 journalists brought attention to a lengthy Islamophobic rant Santorum gave in 2007 at David Horowitz’s “Second Annual Academic Freedom Conference.” Santorum asserted that in order to “win” against a vaguely-defined Muslim enemy Americans must “…educate, engage, evangelize and eradicate."

A former Speaker of the U.S. House, Newt Gingrich, yet another onetime frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, told an audience that he feared that by the time his grandchildren reach his age “they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”vii (I am not sure what that means either.) According to Gingrich sharia is a "mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States."

The good news here? Even the Republican-party nominating process, which in my opinion pushes candidates too far right to win a mainstream presidential election ultimately rejected this kind of extremism. That’s good, but each man was in turn the frontrunner.

Optimism Can Reign Supreme 
Threats to each person’s equal right to liberty are not new to America.

In fact, the Constitution as originally enacted treated black people as three-fifths of a human being and left them as property. Women were denied the seemingly basic equal treatment of getting to cast a vote in a presidential election until 1920. Those insults to humanitarian principle were rectified.

Even after slavery was ended, African-Americans were subjected to horrible treatment and discriminatory laws.

They did not hide.

Rev. Martin Luther King was wire-tapped by federal authorities. In an FBI memo, he was called the “most dangerous and effective negro leader in America.” J. Edgar Hoover called him a “degenerate.”

Today, those same federal authorities get King’s birthday off as a Federal Holiday.

I look to Japanese Americans as a prime inspiration and source of hope. Like Muslims, as a group they were blamed for an attack on this country. They were placed in internment camps. We likely have them to thank as the reason we were not similarly treated. They were vocal. They organized and after forty years of their hard work, the government acknowledged that what was done to them was wrong.

In fact, we inherit a rich tradition of standing up for an America that is based on a level playing field. Catholics were discriminated against. Jews were discriminated against. Mormons have been discriminated against. Each in turn has pushed back.

Today, it is our turn to push back.

I guarantee you that bias and efforts to treat someone as an enemy other will shift. We must push back to honor those before us and to ensure that the next targeted group does not say, “The Muslims failed us.”

The Ultimate Rebuke 
So. Happiness is difficult in an unjust society. American Muslims are on the frontlines of helping ensure our nation does not take a wrong turn and become an unjust, unequal society.

There is one final benefit to consider.

In his counter terrorism speech on Thursday, President Obama said, “Indeed, the success of American Muslims, and our determination to guard against any encroachment on their civil liberties, is the ultimate rebuke to those who say we are at war with Islam.”

The way we, as Muslims, defend those liberties, for ourselves and everyone else is our ultimate rebuke to the Islamophobes.

Anti-Islam Legislation Updates

Sharia law ban heads to Senate

[Saylor note: From an article discussing a bill that is advancing in North Carolina.]

Corey Saylor with the Council on American-Islamic Relations called the proposal "anti-Islamic."

"Anyone who believes foreign law can replace the Constitution is misguided," he said. "The Supremacy Clause ensures that the Constitution will always remain our nation’s law. American Muslims like it that way, as it ensures every individual’s right to worship or not as they see fit."

"That is why CAIR’s lawsuit against an anti-Islam bill in Oklahoma argues First Amendment and Supremacy Clause issues," Saylor said in a statement. "Four federal judges have ruled in our favor so far, so we are confident we are upholding the Constitution.

"Frankly, supporters of anti-Islam legislation, such as HB 695, are undermining its protections," he added.

Anti-Shariah movement changes tactics and gains success

Omar Sacirbey | May 16, 2013

(RNS) When Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a 2010 ballot measure that prohibits state courts from considering Islamic law, or Shariah, the Council of American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit within two days challenging the constitutionality of the measure, and won.

But when Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a similar measure, one that its sponsor said would forbid Shariah, on April 19 of this year, no legal challenges were mounted.

Why the change?

The biggest difference is that the older bill — and others like it — singled out Islam and Shariah, but also raised concerns that they could affect Catholic canon law or Jewish law. Many early anti-Shariah bills also made references to international or foreign law, which worried businesses that the new bills would undermine contracts and trade with foreign companies.

The new bills, however, are more vague and mention only foreign laws, with no references to Shariah or Islam. They also make specific exceptions for international trade. All of that makes them harder to challenge as a violation of religious freedom.

“These bills don’t have any real-world effect. Their only purpose is to allow people to vilify Islam,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR’s legislative affairs director, of the more recent bills.

The change in language seems to have helped such bills advance in several states. And while these bills no longer single out Shariah, it is often understood that Shariah is the target, which many legislators make no secret of.

The driving force behind these new versions of anti-Shariah laws is “anti-Muslim bigotry plain and simple,” said Daniel Mach of the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking on a panel in Washington Thursday (May 16). To those agitating for such measures, “Islam is the face of the enemy,” he said.

To date, Oklahoma is the sixth state — joining Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, and Tennessee — to adopt a law prohibiting courts from using foreign or international law, with some exceptions, in their decisions.

This year, at least 36 anti-foreign law bills have been proposed in 15 states, down from 51 bills in 23 states in 2011. While most of this year’s anti-foreign law bills have failed, several others, have advanced:

• A North Carolina legislative committee on Wednesday sent a bill to the House that would prohibit consideration of foreign laws in custody and other family law cases.
• On May 9, the Missouri legislature passed an anti-foreign law bill that goes next to Gov. Jay Nixon, who has until July 14 to decide whether he will sign or veto it. Nixon, a Democrat, has not indicated what he will do, and did not reply to a request for comment.
• In Alabama, Indiana and Texas, anti-foreign law bills have made it through the state senates, and are now either in house committees or awaiting full floor votes.
• An anti-foreign law bill in Florida that needed a two-thirds majority to pass fell one vote short, 25-14. Besides Florida, anti-foreign law bills have been introduced but were defeated, died, or are languishing in Arkansas, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Despite the losses, David Yerushalmi, the Washington-based lawyer who drafted template legislation used for the anti-Shariah and anti-foreign law bills, said the anti-Shariah movement “is growing every day” and expects more states to adopt such bills in the future.


“People see the threat and also know that a bill that simply protects U.S. citizens and residents from constitutionally offensive foreign laws and judgments can only be a good thing,” Yerushalmi said.

But CAIR’s Saylor said that victory may prove elusive for the anti-Shariah forces. By stripping all references to Islamic law, the anti-Shariah movement has failed to restrict Muslim religious rights. “In terms of substance, it’s already been beaten,” he said.

Nevertheless, some observers worry that even these watered-down bills could still be interpreted in ways that impinge on Muslims’ religious freedom.

For example, according to the Gavel to Gavel website that covers state legislatures, many of the new anti-foreign law bills specify that the prohibition on courts using foreign laws applies only to certain case types, such as family law or domestic relations. Shariah, as well as Jewish law, is widely used in these types of cases.

“While the foreign law bans are certainly less of a frontal assault on religious freedom than the anti-Shariah bills, they continue to raise concerns about bias towards minority faiths,” said Faiza Patel, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

“The bans cast a cloud of uncertainty over a myriad of arrangements, including family and business-related matters, simply because they have foreign or religious origins.”

She added that some bans on foreign law seem to require judges to reject any foreign law or judgment that comes from a country that does not protect rights in the same way the United States does, even if the case being considered does not raise any rights concerns.

“This could deprive many Jewish and Muslim couples of a wide range of benefits — lower tax rates, immigration benefits for foreign partners and the ability to make life-and-death decisions on behalf of each other in medical emergencies,” Patel said.

Even CAIR won’t rule out the possibility of future legal challenges.

“If someone tries to use these laws to undermine a person’s religious rights, we’re keeping all of our legal options on the table,” Saylor said.

Washington  Post coverage of my remarks at a press conference addressing the Boston terror attacks:

“Every faith has within it heretical elements, and unfortunately some young people will listen to those elements,” said CAIR spokesman Corey Saylor. “What you’re looking at [the leaders at the press conference] is a force that is pushing back against that loudly and clearly.”

(Note: I corrected myself at the event, but I intended to say "some" people, not young people.)

From a press conference addressing the atrocities in Boston. The full article is here.

Corey Saylor, legislative director for CAIR, said the group feared reprisals.
"We're very concerned, because in past instances some individuals have decided to go out and target further innocent people because they look different or belong to a faith that is a minority," Saylor said.

One reporter asked the leaders gathered at the news conference how they could combat radical videos that pop up on social media.

Saylor said community leaders have forcefully pushed back against what they consider radical elements of the faith.

"Unfortunately every faith has within in it heretical elements, and unfortunately young people in general will listen to those elements." (Note: I corrected myself at the event, but I intended to say "some" people, not young people.)

Saylor said he and other leaders would continue to push back against the heretical element "loudly and clearly."

"We will stand up, we will push back against extremists, and I'm very comfortable we'll win against them eventually."

Anti-Islam Bill Advancing in Florida

Bill againstShariah law in courts passes panel

By JAMES L. ROSICA (Associated Press, 3/21/2013)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - After it failed last year, lawmakers on Thursday revived a bill that would ban Shariah, or Islamic, law and other foreign laws from Florida courts.

Republican Sen. Alan Hays, who sponsored the bill, said his measure was a "preemptive gesture." There are no reported cases in which a Florida court applied foreign law.

His bill is aimed at divorce and child custody cases and does not mention Shariah, or Islamic law, specifically. The Senate's Governmental Oversight and Accountability committee cleared the bill (SB 58) by a party-line vote of 6-3.

A bill last year passed the House but never was called for a vote before the Senate.

Hays' "motives and intentions are good, but it's a bad idea," said Sen. Chris Smith, a Fort Lauderdale Democrat. "It's just not needed ... It's not going to become an issue because we have a great legal system. And it could open us up to more litigation."

The Florida Bar's Family Law section opposed the measure, saying it would create confusion and uncertainty.

Several Muslims also spoke against the bill, including Moazzam Adnan Raja, a marketing director from Longwood. Raja soon choked up and cried.

"Show some compassion, show us love," he told senators. "We don't want to be called second-class citizens. We want to be accepted."

Saif Hamideh, a Florida State political science major whose family is from Jordan, worried about unintended consequences from such a law. He said he one day hoped to get married in Jordan, and was fearful his marriage might not be recognized in Florida.

Corey Saylor, legislative director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said six states have laws similar to Hays' bill: Arizona, South Dakota, Kansas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma. His group sued in Oklahoma and that law was suspended. 

"In general, these laws have no real-world impact," Saylor said. Judges "can't replace the constitution with religious laws. But in passing these laws, elected officials are now joining in on the conversation of inspiring fear of Muslims."