Oklahoma voters have overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment that would prohibit courts from considering Islamic shari’a or other international law when deciding their rulings.

The anti-shari’a ballot initiative known as State Question 755, passed by a 70 percent margin. It had the approval of majorities in both houses of the state legislature.

The day after the election, Muneer Awad, who heads the Oklahoma branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the amendment violates the U.S. Constitution. He said he will seek to have federal courts overturn the amendment to the state Constitution that bars judges from considering international or Islamic laws when deciding cases.

In promoting the measure, Republican sponsor Rex Duncan had called the constitutional amendment a "pre-emptive strike" to close the door on activist judges. However, Awad says it reflects anti-Muslim prejudice and would prevent judges from giving due consideration to treaties endorsed by the U.S. Congress.

The amendment was heavily promoted by bestselling author, Brigitte Gabriel, who wrote They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It.

"What we are seeing right now," she said, "not only in Oklahoma, but nationwide is wherever there is a large concentration of Muslim population, there are more demands and more push for shari’a law."

Could it happen here?

British courts have begun considering shari’a in divorce cases.

Gabriel tells of a New Jersey judge who refused to grant a restraining order against an Islamic man accused of beating his wife. When she sought a restraining order, "he didn’t give it to her because he said that her Muslim husband was within his Islamic right," explains Gabriel.

Ignoring local, state and even federal law, the New Jersey judge said he did not believe the Muslim should be restrained from abusing his wife, because under shari’a a man may beat his wife if he chooses.

"Thankfully," notes Gabriel, "the judge was overruled a year later."

"Does shari’a law allow a husband to rape his wife, even in America?" asks columnist Cully Stimson. "A New Jersey trial judge thought so. In a recently overturned case, a ‘trial judge found as a fact that defendant committed conduct that constituted a sexual assault’ but did not hold the defendant liable because the defendant believed he was exercising his rights over the victim.

"Fortunately, a New Jersey appellate court reversed the trial judge. But make no mistake about it: this is no isolated incident. We will see more cases here in the United States where others attempt to impose shari’a law, under the guise of First Amendment protections, as a defense against crimes and other civil violations."

In that case, "the plaintiff, a Moroccan Muslim woman, lived with her Moroccan Muslim husband in New Jersey."

Rape, beating justified

"She was repeatedly beaten and raped by her husband over the course of several weeks. While the plaintiff was being treated for her injuries at a hospital, a police detective interviewed her and took photographs of her injuries.

"Those photographs depicted injuries to the plaintiff’s breasts, thighs and arm, bruised lips, eyes and right check. Further investigation established there were blood stains on the pillow and sheets of the plaintiff’s bed.

"The wife sought a permanent restraining order," writes Stimson, "and a New Jersey trial judge held a hearing in order to decide whether to issue the order. Evidence at trial established, among other things, that the husband told his wife, ‘You must do whatever I tell you to do. I want to hurt your flesh’ and ‘this is according to our religion. You are my wife, I can do anything to you.’ The police detective testified about her findings, and some of the photographs were entered into evidence.

Muslim women must submit

"The defendant’s imam testified that a wife must comply with her husband’s sexual demands and he refused to answer whether, under Islamic law, a husband must stop his sexual advances on his wife if she says ‘no.’

"The trial judge found that most of the criminal acts were indeed proved, but nonetheless denied the permanent retraining order.

"This judge held that the defendant could not be held responsible for the violent sexual assaults of his wife because he did not have the specific intent to sexually assault his wife, and because his actions were ‘consistent with his religious practices.’ In other words, the judge refused to issue the permanent restraining order because under shari’a law, this Muslim husband had a ‘right’ to rape his wife.

"Besides the fact that the ruling is wrong as a legal matter and offensive beyond words, it goes to the heart of the controversy about the insidious spread of shari’a law – the goal of radical Islamic extremists," writes Stimson. "Fortunately, the New Jersey appellate court refused to tolerate the trial judge’s ‘mistaken’ and unsustainable decision.

"The appellate court chastised the trial judge’s ruling, holding among other things that he held an ‘unnecessarily dismissive view of defendant’s acts of domestic violence,’ and that his views of the facts in the case ‘may have been colored by his perception that…they were culturally acceptable and thus not actionable – a view we soundly reject.’

"Although appellate courts typically defer to findings of fact by trial judges, under the circumstances, this appellate court correctly refused to do so, and reversed the trial court and ordered the permanent restraining order to be issued."

A beheading in Buffalo, New York

"The truth is that imposition of shari’a law in the United States, especially when mixed with a perverted sense of political correctness, poses a danger to civil society," says Stimson. "Just last year, a Muslim man in Buffalo, New York beheaded his wife in what appeared to be an honor killing, again using his faith to justify his actions. It is doubtful that the domestic violence and rape in this recently overturned case will be the last Americans see of shari’a being impermissibly used to justify brutal acts on our soil. As former Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney wrote recently:

"Shari’a is no less toxic when it comes to the sorts of democratic government and civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. According to this legal code of Saudi Arabia and Iran, only Allah can make laws, and only a theocrat can properly administer them, ultimately on a global basis.

"The trial opinion in this case shows that, indeed, the global reach of shari’a law is expanding," writes Stimson. "The trial court allowed the testimony of an Imam to be entered so that his account of shari’a’s standards could supercede the standards set by the New Jersey legislature.

"This is not just about cultural defenses, which by themselves are not proper under United States law, but about giving up control of the law to a religious code citizens of this country have no control over, a theocratic code world famous for its antidemocratic, sexist nature and its human rights abuses."

But was this just an isolated case? Did Oklahoma voters over-react? Not at all, says Stimson.

"The U.S. Constitution cannot and should not be used to subvert legislatures and allow brutes such as the husband in this case to harm others simply because their actions are legal under shari’a law.

"It was impermissible for the trial court to act as it did in this case, and the appellate judges very correctly overturned the ruling below. This is not the last we will hear of such attempts, however, as shari’a-loving extremists are determined to establish an Islamic Caliphate around the world, especially in America.

"As Andy McCarthy has written, ‘Our enemies are those who want shari’a to supplant American law and Western culture.’ We cannot allow that to happen."

But is such legislation
necessary in America?

Absolutely, says Atlanta pastor Michael Youseff, who escaped from Muslim oppression in his native Egypt.

"We are living in one of the most dangerous times in modern history," he says.

Making it even more dangerous is the reality that the Obama Administration refuses to allow any discussion of the matter. When a Pentagon report was issued on last year’s Fort Hood shootings – in which 12 were killed and 31 were wounded when witnesses say that U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at an awards ceremony – all mention was deleted that he is a Muslim or that he yelled "Allah is Great" as he fired on the crowd.

Also suppressed have been any mention that the Beltway Snipers, John Allen Muhammed and teenage accomplice Lee Malvo were Muslims and bragged in prison that they were waging "jijad" against Americans. The two terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks, killing 10 people.

"I have been accused on my mission. Allah knows I’m gonna suffer now," Malvo wrote in prison.

A Virginia court found Muhammad guilty of murder "while committing terrorism."

However, the press downplayed any Muslim connections.

Why is America just
looking the other way?

Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently took her urgent message of warning to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. She has been living for several years under a fatwa, an order by Islamic officials to kill her for her statements critical of Islam.

Although there are scores of such cases, few get much attention.

Bestselling author Salman Rushdie is one of the best known. His novel, The Satanic Verses, drew protests from mobs of Muslims worldwide. The Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on February 24, 1989 declared it was the religious obligation of all Muslims to kill Rushdie.

At the National Press Club, Ali, a Somali native, said she was "frustrated" with the west’s refusal to take Islam seriously.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel also complained recently that Germans have failed to grasp how Muslim immigration has transformed their country and will have to come to terms with more mosques than churches throughout the countryside, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily newspaper.

"Our country is going to carry on changing, and integration is also a task for the society taking up the task of dealing with immigrants," Merkel said. "For years we’ve been deceiving ourselves about this. Mosques, for example, are going to be a more prominent part of our cities than they were before."

Germany, with a population of 4-5 million Muslims, has been divided by a debate over remarks by the Bundesbank official Thilo Sarrazin, who said Turkish and Arab immigrants are failing to integrate and are swamping Germany with a higher birth rate.

Merkel’s remarks were the first official acknowledgment of concerns that Germany, like other European countries, is coming under Islamic influence.

In France, 30 percent of the population age 20 years and younger is Muslim. The ratio in Paris and Marseille has soared to 45 percent. In southern France, there are more mosques than churches.

The situation within the United Kingdom is not much different

In the last 30 years, the Muslim population there has climbed from 82,000 to 2.5 million. Presently, there are over 1,000 mosques throughout Great Britain – many of which were formerly churches.

In Belgium, 50 percent of the newborns are Muslims and the Islamic population hovers around 25 percent. A similar statistic holds true for the Netherlands. In Russia, one in five inhabitants is a Muslim.

Although the west chooses to look the other way, the Muslim world is fully aware of what is going on. Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi recently stated that "There are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe without sword, without gun, without conquest. We don’t need terrorists; we don’t need homicide bombers. The 50 plus million Muslims in Europe will turn it into the Muslim continent within a few decades."

In each country, officials are coming under political pressure to institute shari’a, Islamic law, which makes it legal for a husband to brutalize his wife or wives, puts the blame in cases of rape on the victim and allows "honor killings" in which someone who converts to Christianity may be murdered by family members.

Under shari’a, Muslim men have more rights than Muslim women, who have more rights than Christian or Jewish men. Even lower on the scale are Christian and Jewish women, then Hindus, New Agers and atheists. Muslim men are permitted to own and sell non-Muslims as slaves. They are prohibited from engaging in friendships with non-Muslims. Lying and cheating non-Muslims is permitted if it advances the spread of Islam.

So, what do we do?

Should states be passing constitutional amendements – such as in Oklahoma? Gabriel says so. Voters agreed with her.

"What do we do about a religion that wants to conquer and dominate us?" asks journalist Alisa Craddock. "The only real remedy is a robust and publicly endorsed Christianity: a code of freedom in Christ, not the slavery of Islam. Our God gave us free will. We must submit to Him voluntarily, or we will eventually submit to Allah forcefully. It’s our choice. Only a return to faith and family values will preserve our country."

But America wants to pretend there is no problem even though the imposition of shari’a worldwide is a stated goal of Islam.

How is that different from the Christian yearning to evangelize the world?

Shari’a is significantly different from Christianity’s Great Commission, in which believers are told by Jesus to go unto all the world and preach the Gospel, convincing them of their sin and calling them to repentance and to accept God’s gift of salvation.

Shari’a is imposed on an unwilling population whenever Muslims take over a country.

Speaking to the National Press Club, Ali pointed out how Islam’s founder, Muhammad, defined "peace" as that moment when the entire world submits to Islam. She fled from her Muslim family and an arranged marriage in her early 20s and sought asylum in the Netherlands.

Pastor Youssef also fled Islam and like Ali spends his time warning America of the Islamic threat.

He was born in 1948 in Egypt, raised in a Christian home. During the 1967 Six-Day War in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, Youssef left Egypt since as a Christian, he could not justify fighting against Israel. He and his wife, Elizabeth came to America in 1977 and he became a U.S. citizen in 1984. In Atlanta, he pastors the 3,000-member Church of the Apostles, which he started in 1987.

He says America is in
no shape to resist Islam

"Spiritually, millions of those who claim to be Christians and church-goers are so confused about the essence of their faith that apostasy abounds inside the church," he says. "Christian pastors are turning over their pulpits to Muslim imams to inform their congregations about Islam.

"Ignorance of the true Islamic ideology has opened the door for a Muslim takeover. It’s going on in Europe, and it’s on its way here. Shari’a courts are springing up all over England, Europe and in some parts of the United States.

"One thing is very clear," writes Youssef. "Islamists in their very essence believe they must take over the world or else they will be punished by Allah. And that is why everything they do, every business deal they conduct, every investment they make, every building they build, every dollar they spend and every ounce of energy they have is dedicated to that end. Some, of course, are more subtle than others. Some are more blunt than others. But it is the same goal.

"If only Christians in America were half as committed as they are.

"My friend, it is not unloving to speak these truths," he says, "as some would have us believe. In fact, it is a perversion of love to misinterpret Islamic ideology and try to make it what it is not so that people can love Muslims.

"True love knows the truth about their ideology and still loves the people who embrace it. True love speaks the truth about that evil system and still loves the people who are trapped in it. True love understands why they view us as their enemy but still loves them because our Lord commands it. That is true biblical love.

"But we are confused in the church today. We do not recognize true biblical love and do not know how to share it with the world around us. If we did recognize and share true biblical love, the world around us would be a very different place indeed."

Instead, U.S. practices denial

A new rash of unsolved sniper shots in Washington, D.C., has resurrected concerns that terrorists may once again be on the loose in the nation’s capital, following al-Qaida guidelines for spreading terror by committing seemingly "random" acts of violence. The FBI is investigating four nighttime shootings during late October and early November, including incidents in which an unknown gunman has taken aim at military buildings, using a high-powered rifle to leave bullet holes in the windows of the Marine recruiting station in Chantilly, Virginia, the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Virginia, and the Pentagon.

FBI spokeswoman Katherine Schweit has suggested the shooter is simply a "struggling" individual.

"This guy hasn’t hurt anybody. We don’t think he wants to," she says. "We’re hoping that he’ll turn himself in."

But a Washington Times editorial worried the shootings are "reminiscent" of the Beltway Snipers.

Youssef notes how authorities in 2002 consistently denied Muhammad and Malvo’s connections to terrorism, even after Malvo filled nearly 100 pages with sketches obsessed with jihad and shedding American blood for Islam.

The Times editorial pointed out that Muhammed and Malvo have been held up by al-Qaida "as an example of the kind of low-tech, low-cost terrorism that gets results.

Only a month before Muhammad and Malvo began their sniper attacks, an al-Qaida training tape captured in Afghanistan revealed terrorists planning drive-by shootings, home break-ins, ambushes of law-enforcement officers and targeted assassinations.

John Holschen of Insights Training Center, produced a report on the 2002 tape for military and law enforcement officials.

"The major take-home lesson here," Holschen wrote, "is that although the enemy is known to be seeking the ability and opportunity to use weapons of mass destruction and of an unconventional nature, such as hijacked airliners, they are also spending a lot of time training to carry out attacks the old-fashioned way – attacks executed by small groups of dedicated personnel equipped with little more than small arms."

The training video showed al-Qaida operatives practicing the following kinds of assaults:

l using pickup trucks with shooters concealed in the bed of the trucks;

l using motorcycles as a shooting platform for drive-bys and assassinations;

l execution of prisoners;

l ambushes of law-enforcement officers;

l residential assassinations;

l assassination on a golf course using a rocket-propelled grenade and rifle fire;

l drive-up kidnapping of target walking on a street;

l use of tunnels, storm drains and sewers for infiltration during urban raids;

l rappelling from rooftops of buildings to make entry on upper floors;

l use of motorcycles for grenade attacks; and

l raids on buildings with large numbers of occupants – perhaps schools or office buildings.

When asked if these techniques are intended for use in the U.S., one military intelligence operative said without hesitation, "Yes."

In one scenario on the video, terrorists pretend to be stranded on a six-lane highway, their vehicle disabled. When a police officer stops to assist, shooters concealed in the trunk of the car open fire.

When Muhammad and Malvo were finally apprehended, police discovered the duo carried out their sniper fire from the trunk of a car, through a hole drilled near the license plate.

Just isolated nut cases

However, the growing incidence of "freelance" Islamic terror across America has often been regarded officially as the work of "criminals" or "deranged individuals," not jihadists and certainly not as an orchestrated attempt to spread terror with small-scale attacks.

For example, the police chief of Bellingham, Washington, where federal agents searched a school that Malvo attended briefly, said the FBI assured him the 2002 D.C. snipers were not acting with any group.

"It appears they have acted on their own," said the chief.

Following the Ft. Hood shooting, President Obama refused to call the murders an act of "terrorism," but instead suggested to ABC news that Major Hassan’s act may have merely been an instance "in which an individual cracks" under "severe stress."

American Civil Rights Union Senior Fellow Ken Blackwell blasted the administration for its official wrap-up of the incident:

"The Obama administration promised us an ‘investigation,’" Blackwell writes. "What they delivered is nothing more than a whitewash of years of bureaucratic coddling of terrorism and winking at treason. It didn’t even mention Islamism or jihad."

Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R-Michigan, also released a commentary in the wake of the Ft. Hood shooting, concerned that Americans "underestimate the threat" of a web of terrorists at work in the U.S.

"There has been a troubling refusal by Obama officials to acknowledge that the shooting likely was an act of homegrown terrorism," Hoekstra wrote. "I fear that our nation is returning to the naive security outlook of Sept. 10, 2001, when radical Islamic terrorist attacks were considered law-enforcement and criminal problems and not threats to our national security."

He continues, "The president said it is inconceivable that this would happen in America. Wrong. It is not inconceivable and is a growing global problem that needs to be addressed."

During All Saints Day ceremonies on October 31, at least 46 Christians were murdered and more than 80 others severely injured when Islamic militants stormed the Syriac Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad, Iraq.

Muslim gunmen, armed with automatic weapons and explosives, entered the building, shot a priest and began spraying the crowd with bullets.

It was entirely reminescent of Ft. Hood.

Can the attack in
Baghdad happen here?

Incredibly, the American news media virtually ignored the attack – and certainly the fact that it was Muslims opening fire on Christians.

They looked away.

Remember how they reacted when a Florida preacher threatened to burn a copy of the Koran?

"I have watched with a great deal of curiosity the feeding frenzy created by the White House regarding the burning of the Koran by a pastor in Florida," writes conservative columnist Dave Daubenmire. "I am always leery of where it is the media is trying to take me.

"First of all, they wanted us to know that Pastor Terry Jones shepherds a ‘small congregation’ in Gainesville, Florida, as if behavior is validated by the number of followers that one has.

"Evidently Joel Osteen’s version of the Gospel is better than Pastor Jones’ because he has such a large following.

"You certainly realize that this whole event was driven by the White House, don’t you? Don’t you find it troubling that the President, Hillary, Eric Holder, General Petreaus and Robert Gates weighed in on this insignificant Pastor’s behavior?

"Why would they choose to blow oxygen on that small fire? The President ignores appeals for his birth certificate but speaks out on a small-potatoes pastor? Tell me you are not that stupid."

What was their story?

"To show us how intolerant Christianity is: ‘You see now don’t you? Christians can be radical too,’" writes Daubenmire.

What would Jesus do?

"Of course, ‘moderate’ Christians always jump into the media trap. They fall all over each other to let the world know that ‘lunatic’ Pastor Terry Jones does not represent ‘their’ Christianity. Whatever that means!

"Does Jesus respect and tolerate other religions?" asks Daubenmire. "Did Jesus die to merely share the platform with the other religious headliners? Are His followers supposed to put Muhammad, Buddha and the boys on equal footing with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?

"Standing up for Jesus in the public square has become ‘intolerant.’ But Acts 4 tells us: ‘Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.’

No man cometh ... but by Me

"John 14:6 is clear: ‘Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’

"Indeed, in the Ten Commandments, God proclaims: ‘I am the Lord thy God which has brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’

"No other gods," writes Daubenmire.

"Here is the point. If ‘religion’ is merely to be used as a set of values by which we live our lives, then I suppose it doesn’t matter which one you choose. But if heaven and hell are real, and there really is life beyond this world, then ‘religion’ takes on a whole new perspective."

Christianity is not a popularity contest

"If the Bible is true, then all other roads lead to hell."

"I think it is time Christians stopped worrying so much about being nice and started being honest."

"Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant," notes reporter Lisa Gardiner.

She noted how Americans have been intimidated into silence.

Meanwhile, Oklahoma voters have stated where they stand.