Yes, I am very supportive of Brownback signing this bill into law.

My only concern is it’s forbiddence of international law, which of course is necessary and crucial, considering the US has to obey it.

Also, the bill seems to singularly target Islamic law. I hope this bill targeted all religious law, and thus prevented Jewish/Catholic/Christian law from being used as well….

I really don’t think that the Kansas law will be challenged. You need to really look at the law itself, not heresay about it. Below is what it is:

1.ALAC is facially neutral. In an honest debate, it cannot be accused of discriminating against any religion or protected class.
2.ALAC is based on a completely different legal premise from SQ 755′s. Rather than seeking a ban on foreign or international law, ALAC seeks to preserve the constitutional rights and state public policy protections of American citizens and legal residents, in cases involving foreign laws in the particular dispute being adjudicated. If a case arises in which a foreign law or foreign legal doctrine is involved in a dispute in a state court, ALAC prevents the use of that foreign law or foreign legal doctrine if any of the parties’ constitutional rights or state public policy would be violated in the process. This is very different from a blanket ban on foreign laws. ALAC also contains a specific provision for corporations and businesses so as not to interfere with commerce; it exempts Native American laws; it specifically says that the law cannot detract from the right to free exercise of religion, which would include religious courts like Jewish Bet Din or Catholic ecclesiastical courts; and it states that the law would not interfere with compliance with international treaties the U.S. has signed.
3.ALAC is not vague. It provides specific instructions for judges on complex legal issues involving comity and choice of forum, thus closing potential loopholes for activist judges.

deccal, an interesting point and yes I think that family law in the US is a mess. However I think that courts in general are a bad place for family law; it puts everything on display to the public and is often used as a weapon. In my mind a quiet arbitration that both parties can agree on, presided by people who are actually qualified in something other than law, is far superior to hanging out the dirty laundry for everyone to see. And if someone wishes to use Cannon or Halakha or Sharia for that, it is their choice. I don’t think a court is the right place for an awful lot of family cases.

@Nur Alia, I actually view sharia as being superior to current American family law, which is extremely corrupt, based on the precepts of ‘no fault divorce’ while retaining the penalties as if one of the spouses had actually broken their vows. As it is, a ‘prenuptial agreement’ is actually just a piece of paper, with no legal status whatsoever, and its application up to the discretion of the judge. However, the law should be reformed from the inside. Again, Halakha and Canon law in addition to Sharia should never be used for binding agreements or civil cases.

john spielman, this ‘creeping sharia’ sure is well… creeping if you can only cite two examples. That is the main problem with the frankly already crappy argument for ‘creeping sharia’ in the first place; no one can point to it happening. I’ll note that the of your two very vague examples was from Canada, the other as Ilisha pointed out was just wrong.

Which of course brings out the usual tin foil hat brigade to tell me that its because Obama is card carrying member of the Muslamic Alliance and that we are all doomed anyway.

@HGG: I am not sure if you are interpreting the Kansas law correctly. It does not solely say to follow Kansas and U.S. law, which would indeed be redundant, but says, in part: “Any court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency ruling or decision shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal or administrative agency bases its rulings or decisions in the matter at issue in whole or in part on any foreign law, legal code or system that would not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights and privileges granted under the United States and Kansas constitutions, including, but not limited to, equal protection, due process, free exercise of religion, freedom of speech or press, and any right of privacy or marriage.”

Suppose Kansas law says to minimize disruption to a teenage child by considering their expectations about the parent who would be awarded custody in case of divorce. A ruling based on a citation to a survey of what normally happens in US custody decisions would not run afoul of this law and could help explain what the child may be thinking. A decision based on a citation to a foreign or religous law implying that the child (say the child of immigrants or members of said religion) should have long expected to be placed with one particular parent in the case of divorce could be invalid under this law. In both examples, the decision is applying my hypothetical Kansas law, but relying on different sources to explain the child’s reasonable expectations.

I think the constitutionality will be close. I imagine that the law is written on its face to appear quite neutral and constitutional. But, typically if someone can show that the law was targeted at a particular group, they have a chance at invalidating it. Given the history of this law, I think there is a good argument to be made for invalidating it, but ultimately the result may depend heavily on the judges who decide that issue. The other possibility I see from the excerpt I provided is that the law may be too broad: it appears, for example, to invalidate a division of a will under religious principles if based on a legal code that does not guarantee freedom of the press. By not specifying that the legal code must guarantee the same freedoms relevant to the case at hand, rather than all freedoms, the law might be seen as overbroad or unworkable.

It’s called “creeping sharia”, and unless specific laws are enacted some activist judges may try and use portions of sharia in their decisions. For example in the USA earlier this year, an atheist was attacked by a muslim during a halloween parade for wearing a Mohammed mask. The judge who was muslim basically let the assailent off because was only defending his religion.
Another example in Ontario Canada a few years ago, the government was about to legalize shaia law for private desputes among muslims like divorse settlemnts and inheritance similar to Jewish religious courts (for those who agree with type of arbitration) but muslim women were so boisterous in their opposition that the govt removed the motion before the provincial parliment.

@HGG says, “It may be perfectly constitutional because it’s perfectly redundant.”

It’s actually not necessarily redundant, but is certainly a hysterical Islamophobic fantasy. There are areas of law where “reasonableness” is an issue, including the right against unreasonable searches and seizure, reasonable doubt, and reasonable expectations between parties such as spouses. In determining what is reasonable where the relevant U.S. law is not explicit, judges have cited everything from surveys to literature to foreign law and religious texts to give examples of what people believe to be reasonable.

The main Islamophobic argument, however strained, is that shari’a would be used to argue for claims such as it being reasonable to attack someone based on their speech. Imagine a judge deciding that killing someone for making an anti-Islam statement is not murder but justifiable homicide or even self-defense. Now, I don’t think there is a single case where anything like this has happened (not even the “zombie Muhammad” assault case, though there are interpretations of the judge’s motives that suggest that his stated reasoning was hiding this form of underlying reasoning), but that does not stop the Islamophobes from projecting out bizarre fantasies.

I think the only well-known case was a decision in New Jersey where a judge refused to give a restraining order to a woman whose husband assaulted her, finding that the husband’s actions were based on his views of Islamic law; the decision was promptly overturned at the appellate level. If we were to make a law to deal with every dumb judicial decision, especially those that don’t make it through the appellate process, our legislatures would be very busy.

How does this affect Rabbic law, and Jewish arbitration, or is this not allowed in America either, if agreed by the two parties.

I do agree though that the marriage dispute should be settled by the CONTRACT (the nikah) because it is exactly the same force as a prenuputal agreement. Both parties signed the nikah, understanding that they would be held to it if they had differences they cant settle.

That is EXACTLY what a contract is for, to insure parties fulfill thier committments, and/or an agreed means to settle any disputes they may have legally.

@deccal:

I’m all for “the right direction” if we ban this:

http://www.jlaw.com/About/

and this:

http://www.clsa.org/

..amongst other religious law in courts.

Personally, if two parties want to have an agreement/contract based on the various religious laws, that’s their right.

This is a step in the right direction; sharia will not be allowed in civil court cases anymore. However, if it is a matter such as a financial agreement/transaction between two consenting muslims sharia will be allowed.

@Emperor

Well, I guess we’re off to the supreme court now. Let’s keep our figures crossed that its overthrown.

I support the signing of this bill by Gov. Brownback.

The US has to respect international law, but I do not think that religious courts should be allowed to operate within this country.

But I also criticize this bill because it’s founders seemed to focus exclusively on Islamic law, whereas te bill should have been more intended to not just focus on forbidding Islanic law, but also Catholic/Christian law and Jewish law.