200L -SPIRIT OF COMMON LAW

Southern Poverty Law Center, over one-hundred twenty antiSharia law bills have been introduced in 42 states since 2010.2 This year alone, 13 states have introduced an anti-Sharia law bill.3 Professors, attorneys, judges, and legislators have denounced the anti-Sharia movement, with the American Bar Association taking a prominent position: RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association opposes federal or state laws that impose blanket prohibitions on consideration or use by courts or arbitral tribunals of foreign or international law. FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association opposes federal or state laws that impose blanket prohibitions on consideration or use by courts or arbitral tribunals of the entire body of law or doctrine of a particular religion.4 That the American Bar Association would have to come out with such a resolution is a sad commentary on our times, for it betrays not only a current anti-Muslim sentiment, it reveals some of the public’s misunderstanding of how the courts apply the law, whether statutory or case law, to the facts of a given case and always within a constitutional framework.