Irving “not supportive” of Islamic group, mayor tells Glenn Beck.
I’m not going to get into the whole history of the North Texas-based Islamic Tribunal here. Nor will I try to explain why vast swaths of the Internet are erroneously claiming that it’s headquartered in Irving and/or the beginning of the end of religious freedom in America.
The Morning News has a story in the works about the group, which offers to mediate civil disputes among North Texas Muslims in exchange for a fee. If you’re impatient, Google “Irving Shariah” and you’ll find plenty of contradictory articles—from a Snopes debunk to a frantic blog post tagged “end times prophecy,” and everything in between.
Lest you think I’m negligent for not diving into a story that’s lighting up Irving’s Facebook groups along with half the U.S. blogosphere, the Islamic Tribunal isn’t actually headquarted in Irving. (Its panel of religious arbitrators includes an Irving imam, but it’s based in Dallas and represents several cities in the region.)
And yet, the tribunal is bound up with Irving in the public debate. Probably moreso after Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne sat down with conservative media icon Glenn Beck last week to criticize the group.
“This is not city-sanctioned, we weren’t given an opportunity even to pass anything, and we’re not supportive of it,” the mayor told Beck at the start of the video interview (online, but paywalled). Over the next half hour she accused the voluntary, non-binding tribunal of “bypassing American courts,” short-changing women’s testimony and threatening equal protection under the law.
Read more: http://irvingblog.dallasnews.com/2015/02/irving-not-supportive-of-islamic-group-mayor-tells-glenn-beck-but-city-hall-says-something-else.html/
[font color=green]Please permit an exception to the four paragraph rule, but the article has a long introduction and the comments from the mayor do not start until the fifth paragraph.[/font]
Related thread:
Islamic Tribunal Confirmed in Texas; Attorney Claims ‘It’s Voluntary’
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107823117
= new reply since forum marked as read
(Never mind that the Cowboys never really were America's Team)
It also occurs to me that Jewish communities hace had such tribunals in this country for a long time (prob always). Is Irving upset just because it's Islam?
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