Judges on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sounded skeptical this week as they heard arguments about why a ban on sharia law in Oklahoma courts should become part of the state’s constitution. “We just have sharia law singled out,” said Judge Scott Matheson, while one of his colleagues pressed the state’s solicitor general to confirm that the ban applies to only one religion. Seventy percent of Oklahoma voters supported the ballot initiative–known as the “Save Our State” amendment–last November, not because sharia often comes up in the Oklahoma court system, but as a preemptive measure against a shadowy, frightening future. Not long after Election Day, a U.S. District Court judge ordered Oklahoma to refrain from certifying the referendum results. Her reasoning was that the ban was likely to be found unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds because it dealt with only one religion’s legal code. And based on the tenor of this week’s questioning by the Appeals Court, she was probably right. Anti-abortion activists have run into similar problems with their efforts to enact a variety of abortion restrictions at the state level. Two weeks ago, a U.S. district court judge issued an injunction against parts of a new Texas law that would require women seeking abortions not only to have sonograms, but to listen to detailed descriptions of their fetuses and hear the heartbeat, if audible, as well. As the state’s appeal now moves to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, opponents of the law feel confident that it will be found to have violated the First Amendment by forcing doctors to engage in government-mandated speech. Around the same time, Kansas officials announced they would comply with a federal judge’s directive to resume funding Planned Parenthood clinics. The state had passed a law earlier this year essentially stripping Planned Parenthood of federal family planning dollars by requiring Kansas to direct funding to public hospitals and health centers. A U.S. District Court judge blocked enforcement of the new law over the summer and funding to Planned Parenthood clinics was supposed to![]()
