This effectively makes South Carolina the latest state to consider legislation that would ban Sharia law, though one of the bill's sponsors insists it's more than that.
"This bill has been called anti-Sharia law, and I suppose it does deal with that," State Sen. Michael Fair (R-Greenville), who introduced the bill in the Senate, said in an interview. "There are some localities around the country that have imposed Sharia law in lieu of local laws."
HIGHLIGHTS
Fair says the bill is necessary to re-establish the primacy of state law in those cases, but he says the bill doesn't target Muslims specifically.
"We're big on religious freedom, but we also understand that civil law and criminal law in this country and in the state of South Carolina is not religious law," Fair said. Newser
"A growing concern is the immigration of people who are accustomed to their religion and their civil laws being inextricably connected. For those newcomers to our state, this bill will be helpful to them as they are assimilated into our culture maintaining complete freedom to worship as they please." Huffington Post
The Bill was introduced on January 26 in both the House and Senate by Rep. Wendy Nanney (who drafted the bill) and Sen. Mike Fair respectively, who say the bill will preempt violations of a person's constitutional rights resulting from the application of foreign law. Human Events
Oklahoma and Wyoming have previously tried to introduce Sharia bans.
FACTS & FIGURES
In a 2007 survey, 53% of American Muslims reported that it was more difficult to be a Muslim after the 9/11 attacks. An increasing number of Muslims are subject to hate crimes.
Muslim workers filed record number of discrimination claims in 2010, up 60% from the year 2005.
Islam is one of the fastest-growing religions in the U.S. Some 5 to 8 million Muslims live in the United States.
America's Muslim population is expected to soon surpass the Jewish population, making Islam the country's second-largest faith after Christianity.
California, New York, Washington D.C., Ohio and Illinois are the states with the largest Muslim communities in the U.S.
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