Beth Van Duyne is the Mayor of Irving, Texas, a rather large city which is in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.
It seems that some Muslims participate in a non-binding arbitration system to resolve civil disputes based on Sharia law, much like similar systems developed by other religions, such as Jews and some Christian denominations.
However, Mayor Van Duyne perceives the Islamic dispute resolution as some kind of threat, and introduced a resolution in the city council, that, while not actually mentioning Islam, was clearly directed at it. Let's hear from Eric Celeste, of frontburner who has a good take on all of this. He interviewed the man in charge of the mosque in Irving, Zia ul-Haque Sheikh, who has had to deal with all of this. Read the whole thing, but here is a quote:
“This all happened very quickly,” he says. His smile suggests weary bemusement over a social-media firestorm that recently engulfed Imam Zia and the Islamic Center. “It started with the right-wing website story. Then suddenly the mayor [of Irving, Beth Van Duyne] is posting on her Facebook page. From that, hatred and misinformation filled her site and others. And, of course, she had never even spoken with us.”
The mayor did eventually meet with the leaders of the mosque, but did not apologize or retract her statements. Meanwhile, last week the Irving city council voted 5-4 to endorse a bill, introduced by some twit from Plano (Republican, of course), which was described in the Dallas Morning News as follows:
The mediation is advertised as voluntary, nonbinding and in harmony with the law.
But it has led Van Duyne to back a bill by state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, that would forbid judges from using foreign law in their rulings.
While the bill does not mention religion, Leach has singled out the Islamic mediation panel as a “problem” it will solve. The wording is largely identical to that in a previous bill pitched by another lawmaker as a way to stop the influence of “large populations of Middle Easterners.”
And all of this is having the usual effect on the weak minded cowards who constitute the voting base of people like Representative Leach and Mayor Van Duyne. Again, from the linked article at the
Dallas Morning News:
Leach’s bill is nearly identical to House Bill 911, filed in 2011 by Rep. Leo Berman and intentionally numbered to reference the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by Islamic terrorists.
“Shariah law … it’s the whole way of life to a certain religion,” Berman warned a House committee as he pitched his bill that year. “It’s starting in Europe because of a large population of Middle Easterners ... and it could spread through the United States.”
As the City Council and statehouse consider the issue four years later, anti-Muslim hostility is getting louder in Irving.
A popular Facebook group, once filled with news of ribbon cuttings and new restaurants, is now filled with rumors about Muslim courts and Muslim-only neighborhoods. Occasionally, a poster threatens violence to take the city back.
You know, I keep reading about how people don't go to church anymore, etc. If I may paraphrase Gandhi, the problem is not Christianity, but Christians, or at least some of them. These anti-Muslim haters come from that mold.