The Missouri House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would stop the courts from considering Sharia law, or any other “foreign law, legal code, or system” when ruling on cases.
The bill, which was introduced back in March, passed by a vote of 102-51.
The bill itself doesn’t specifically mention Sharia law, but Jason Hancock at STLToday.com reports that it was the focus of the House debate on Wednesday.
But state Rep. Paul Curtman (R), who sponsored the bill, disagrees: “This bill is about one thing and one thing only, and that is to protect the fundamental rights that are guaranteed to our citizens under our founding documents, in the federal constitution and in our state constitution.”
Though, as the blog PoliticoMo has pointed out, Curtman has had a hard time coming up with a specific example where international law was used in American courts. “I don’t have the specifics with me right now but if you go to—the web address kind of escapes my mind right now,” he said in March. “Any Google search on international law used in the state courts in the U.S. is going to turn up some cases for you.” And in debate this week, he couldn’t come up with an answer either.
Missouri is one of several states to introduce Sharia ban bills over the past several months. An Oklahoma bill died in the state Senate this month, and Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina have similar bills pending.
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