Does Hollywood and America Finally Get It About Sharia?

Hollywood and perhaps America may finally get it about what constitutes Sharia, Islamic law. This week liberals, feminists and the mainstream media figures are even publicizing it. That may be sucking the media oxygen from accusations of Islamophobia by Muslim advocacy groups like CAIR, Emerge USA, and United Voices for America.  This was a perfect storm triggered by the conjunction of the Sultan of Brunei, who owns the Beverly Hills Hotel with Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres and mainstream feminists marching in outraged protests against Sharia at the fabled Hollywood Pink Palace.

Couple this with the rising national outrage about 300 Nigerian girls abducted by Boko Haram and revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t seize the opportunity to designate the Jihadist group as a terrorist organization when afforded an opportunity to do so. Especially since Boko Haram (“Non-Muslim Teaching Is Forbidden” in English when translated from the Hausa language) has allegedly raised funds here in the US. That was noted on last night’s FoxNews, The Kelly File by host Megyn Kelly  with Brooke Goldstein of The Lawfare Project. See the You Tube video of that segment, here and this Fox News report, “Hillary Fought to keep Boko Haram off the Terrorist List.” The US  has designated  Boko Haram leader Abubakir Shekau a “global terrorist” and placed a $7 Million bounty on him.

The protests against the Beverly Hills Hotel were the flash point for Hollywood recognition and protests of Sharia largely because the Sultan of Brunei formally adopted Sharia for his Sultanate’s criminal code affecting women, gays and all infidels. Already those protests have resulted in the cancellation of 20 events at the Hollywood landmark producing a loss of $2 million in revenues. See the WSJ report on the protest at the fabled Hollywood “Pink Palace”: “Politics Engulf Famed Beverly Hills Hotel“.

What Leno and the rally protesters don’t realize is that Sharia may have already intruded in US state court decisions at both the lower and appellate levels.

Couple that with the rising unease over the Boko Haram abduction and enslavement of the nearly 300 girls from the school in the Borno State in North Eastern Nigeria. Yesterday, we had the graphic image of First Lady Michelle Obama Tweeting a picture of her somber face holding hash-tag #Bring Back Our Girls.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s brilliant op ed in today’s  WSJ, “Boko Haram and the Kidnapped Schoolgirls,  lays bare how moderate Muslims’ silence  has abetted  the rise of Jihad in places like Mali, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, her homeland of Somalia  and even here in the West. Murderous acts committed by extremists like Abubakir Shekau, extolling the virtues of Islam’s exemplar, the Prophet Muhammad saying it is all about “I enjoy killing anyone that God commands me to kill, the way I enjoy killing chickens and rams.”  Ali at the conclusion of her oped notes:

I am often told that the average Muslim wholeheartedly rejects the use of violence and terror, does not share the radicals’ belief that a degenerate and corrupt Western culture needs to be replaced with an Islamic one, and abhors the denigration of women’s most basic rights. Well, it is time for those peace-loving Muslims to do more, much more, to resist those in their midst who engage in this type of proselytizing before they proceed to the phase of holy war.

It is also time for Western liberals to wake up. If they choose to regard Boko Haram as an aberration, they do so at their peril. The kidnapping of these schoolgirls is not an isolated tragedy; their fate reflects a new wave of jihadism that extends far beyond Nigeria and poses a mortal threat to the rights of women and girls. If my pointing this out offends some people more than the odious acts of Boko Haram, then so be it.

Next weekend, May 17th, there will be the first US Prayer March in Orlando March  Against  Persecution of Christians.  that we posted on our  Iconoclast blog post, “Join The March Against  Persecution of Christians  In Orlando on May 17th.” Nina Shea of the Washington, DC-based Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom has obtained 200 signatures of the heads of mainstream and Evangelical Christian groups on a petition Against Persecution of Christians in support of a bi-partisan effort led by US Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia in the House. See this Fox News report, “American Christians Pledge Solidarity with Persecuted Christians in Egypt, Iraq and Syria“.  Perhaps Shea was too  limited  in the  scope of  the petition on persecution of Christians in the Middle East.  Late news out  of Pakistan reported protests of the killing of a lawyer defending a Pakistani Christian. This was the latest outrage following last month’s death sentences handed down by a Pakistani court in another trumped up case against a Christian couple, because Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan criminalize any alleged criticism of the Prophet Mohammed and Islam. See Voice of America, “Pakistani Lawyers protest Killing of Rashid Rehmin.” Many Pakistani Christians falsely accused of Blasphemy are murdered by extra-judicial vigilantes.

The coincidence of protests in Hollywood and Washington over Sharia in Brunei and Jihad against innocent Nigerian girls by the murderous Boko Haram may have a positive effect on recent legislation passed by both chambers of the Florida legislature in the final week of the 2014 session, Senate Bill 386. Should  this landmark legislation  be enacted   it would provide protection against intrusive foreign laws thereby preserving the fundamental Constitutional rights of women, children and all Floridians.  If enacted it may serve as a model for consideration by other states.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The New English Review.