Roy Moore, former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the Foundation for Moral Law, a religious liberties legal organization in Montgomery, Alabama, filed an amicus curiae brief (http://morallaw NULL.org/PDF/Awad_v_Ziriax_OKSharia_FMLAmicus NULL.pdf) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit today, defending Oklahoma’s “Save Our State Amendment,” (https://www NULL.sos NULL.ok NULL.gov/documents/questions/755 NULL.pdf)which blocks foreign and Sharia law from being considered in Oklahoma court decisions.  A federal district court held last year that the amendment violated Muslims’ rights of free exercise of religion and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The State of Oklahoma has appealed to the 10th Circuit.

Read the Foundation’s brief in Awad v. Ziriax. (http://morallaw NULL.org/PDF/Awad_v_Ziriax_OKSharia_FMLAmicus NULL.pdf)

Roy Moore stated about this case:

“Oklahoma judges should be guided in their decisions by the Constitution and the laws of the State of Oklahoma, not the opinions of foreign judges or the religious legal code of Muslim Sharia law. As the U.S. Supreme Court shows an increasing fondness toward foreign laws and opinions, we should hardly blame Oklahoma for trying to prevent such improper adjudication in their own courts. How can it violate the Constitution to require judges to abide by the very law they are sworn to uphold?”

The legal brief filed by Moore and the Foundation argues (1) that Oklahoma may establish standards for the interpretation of its Constitution and laws, especially a legal system like Sharia that is antithetical to American law; (2) that the Save Our State Amendment would have certainly been held constitutional if it had not mentioned Sharia; but that (3) because there is doubt as to whether Sharia is religion or law (or both), it was necessary for the Oklahoma amendment to mention Sharia as part of the excluded category of law. Moreover, allowing the influence of Sharia in American courts–and there are examples of it in several states–raises greater problems of government establishment of religion as courts will be forced to pick and choose one of the many variants of Sharia law in Islam.

The Foundation for Moral Law (http://www NULL.morallaw NULL.org/), a national non-profit legal organization, is located in Montgomery, Alabama, and is dedicated to restoring the knowledge of God in law and government through litigation and education relating to moral issues and religious liberty cases.