Another Useful Idiot

A friend posted a video on Facebook of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) speaking at a town hall event sponsored by the Islamic Society of Orange County in February 2012. The title of the event was "Sharia and the Constitution." I'll embed the video below.

Ms. Waters speaks for about 12 minutes. I'm not sure if she was the keynote speaker, or if her remarks preceded or followed those of other speakers. I didn't hear a specific reference to the Constitution in her speech, so perhaps there were other speakers presenting that aspect of the town hall meeting. 

Rather, the gist of Ms. Waters' remarks focused on the attempts by some Republican lawmakers, specifically Peter King and Newt Gingrich, to make Sharia Law illegal in the United States. Her point was that America is a country where all religious expression is a fundamental right; in attempting to criminalize one aspect of religion, in this case, Sharia Law, the GOP is discriminating against Muslims. 

Unfortunately, her argument is undermined by the fact that, implicit in Sharia is the expectation of conversion--voluntary or coerced--to Islam, and its tenets are oppressive, tyrannical, anti-woman (are you listening, Ms. Waters?), and, if we're talking about the American legal system, illegal. For example, according to Sharia law:

•  Theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand.
•  Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by death.
•  Criticizing or denying Muhammad is a prophet is punishable by death.
•  Criticizing or denying Allah, the moon god of Islam is punishable by death.
•  A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
•  A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
•  A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
•  A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
•  Girls' clitoris should be cut (per Muhammed's words in Book 41, Kitab Al-Adab, Hadith 5251).
•  A woman can have 1 husband, but a man can have up to 4 wives; Muhammed can have more.
•  A man can unilaterally divorce his wife but a woman needs her husband's consent to divorce.
•  A man can beat his wife for insubordination.
•  Testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman.
•  A woman who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
•  A woman's testimony in court, allowed only in property cases, carries half the weight of a man's.
•  A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
•  A woman cannot drive a car, as it leads to fitnah (upheaval).
•  A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
•  Meat to be eaten must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah.
•  Muslims should engage in Taqiyya and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam.

* Note: I found the above list of Sharia laws on a website called BillionBibles. The link has a picture of a severed hand next to a Koran, so I decided not to link it here.

Today's Los Angeles Times reports that Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL), the Islamic (i.e., religious) terrorist group that is attempting to establish a caliphate in the Middle East and probably aspires to world dominion, is recruiting women to join their cause, marry their soldiers, get pregnant, raise children ("lions"), and cook. At the same time, in Syria, a female militia has been created whose job it is to enforce Sharia among women:

Early this year in the Syrian city of Raqqah, capital of the self-styled caliphate, local women formed the Khansa Militia, an armed morality squad whose job one anti-Islamic State activist summed up as "detaining and whipping." The militia counts many foreigners among its ranks, said the activist, who asked that his name be withheld for security reasons. The women, armed with handguns and rifles, drive around the city looking for violators of Islamic State's severe interpretation of Islam. During one raid, the militia detained several high school students and teachers for such transgressions as wearing niqabs that were too transparent, having visible eyebrows or wearing a hair clip under the hijab. Each one was whipped 30 times, said another activist in Raqqah.

This barbarity is what Ms. Waters considers religious expression and defends as constitutional? She repudiates lawmakers who are trying to prevent such barbarity from creeping into our legal system? 

Ms. Waters is either ignorant of or blind to the oppressive nature of Sharia. Another useful idiot.