Added to the growing list of why Minnesota is an awesome state: kick butt public radio, Keith Ellison and Sharia arbitration.

There is still the “No establishment” clause to think of.

The establishment clause would only prevent government establishing a national religion or giving preference to one religion over another. It would prevent the government from establishing Islamic or other religious courts, but I don’t see how it would prevent private individuals from establishing their own arbitration organisations provided their authority is only derived from the consent of the participants and not from statute or presidential decree.

In other words, the establishment clause is about limiting the actions of the state, not limiting the actions of the citizenry.

This is not to say that Sharia principals can not fit into common law or that the non-establishment clause make Sharia law a total no-go. But there are definite limits. I don’t see any state in the union allowing a Sharia court usurping its authority in divorce/family court. The civil authorities are still going to monopolize that function mainly for equal protection reasons.

Good luck telling child protective services or the woman’s shelter that you have a right via the Koran to beat your wife/ child senseless. Yes I know that the Koran says no such thing; but the civil authorities don’t care what the Koran or Bible, or Tao De Jing say about such matters. What they care about is what the local laws say about such things. You can quote Haddiths and Fiqh till you are blue in the face- the state still has the final say on whether you are Married or not and how many people you can be Married to at any one time. In the US that would be the individual states of the Union.

England being England; they have every right to investigate accommodating the Ummah and its laws. In the USA there is the small matter of both the Individual States Constitutions and the Federal Constitution that seem to be a high walls against such accommodation. Muslims should think twice, thrice and a few more times about fiddling with these protections. Right now they are the only thing between the your Masjids and the wrecking ball in some of the more backwards neighborhoods of the USA.