At the Daily Kos blog, the blogger known as SixDollarLiberal created a ruckus on Wednesday by titling an article “In Defense of Sharia.” You know the article was a bad idea when it began with the disclaimer “I was raised a Christian, and became an atheist/agnostic as an adult. I have a much better understanding of Christianity than of Islam. If I get anything wrong in this, please feel free to correct me in the comments section.”
S.D.L. doesn’t explicitly defend Sharia law, but suggests that hey, Islam has some extreme tenets that most moderate Muslims don’t follow, just like Christianity has some wild old practices as dictated by the Old Testament about stoning adulterers and so on. So S.D.L. thought let’s be fair and balanced: “We don't call out Christianity for being a very violent religion that calls upon the execution of women, children, and homosexuals; so let's not do it to Islam either.”
The main argument is here:
American Muslims is this country came here themselves, or their ancestors before them did, not because they wanted to supplant American law with Sharia; they came because they wanted the freedom that American law entails. They are Muslims, yes, but they are also American; and they understand that in this country, the laws passed by the government come before the laws of their religion.
Christianity too has a lot of extreme laws that would be outlandish by today's standards. Many Christians still believe in God's law as laid out in the Old Testament, but as Lawrence O' Donnell has explained on his show; Christians do not follow the most extreme practices. Some are still behind the times and follow some outlandish traditions, but women and children are not being stoned in the streets. Just because the Bible has some really harsh traditions in it, doesn't mean we force Christians to disavow God's law. We don't call out Christianity for being a very violent religion that calls upon the execution of women, children, and homosexuals; so let's not do it to Islam either. Let's try to understand each other and cohabitate this country; not try to purge each other because of our different backgrounds and beliefs.
Worst of all here, S.D.L. doesn' t really acknowledge that there are American Muslims who came here to take the fight to the Christian "infidel" (Faisal Shahzad, Najibullah Zazi, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and most effectively, Nidal Malik Hassan), and it can't really be said there are a similar band of Christians organizing to blow up innocent Muslim "infidels" in America.
Also on Daily Kos, as recommended by the addled Sharia-defender: "Raised Christian? Harmed by Christianity? Tell Your Story."
