Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is sounding alarms about the threat of Sharia law in the U.S., warning that it is in direct conflict with the tenets the U.S. was founded on.
“There’s a lot of energy in the country and a lot of popular sentiment that the demand to impose Sharia law in America is a serious problem,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference at House Republicans’ annual policy retreat in Miami.
“I think that that’s a serious issue. Sharia law and the imposition of Sharia law is contrary to the U.S. Constitution.”
He was answering a question regarding the budding backlash against Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who posted on X, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”
The post was immediately attacked by Democrats as racist and bigoted, with some, including Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., demanding that Johnson “speak out against this hate.”
Ogles, for his part, was unrepentant. He followed his post with another that said, “My comments wouldn’t even be a news story if I had said this about Christians. Please spare me your moral outrage. Cry harder.”
Johnson said Ogles’ comments were “different language than I would use” but suggested he believed the Tennessee Republican was referring to immigrants who refuse to adapt to U.S. culture and values.
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“When you seek to come to a country and not assimilate, but to impose Sharia law — Sharia law is in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. That is the conflict that people are talking about,” Johnson said.
“It is not about people as Muslims. It’s about those who seek to impose a different belief system that is in direct conflict with the Constitution. That’s where I think that comes from.”
Conservatives in Congress have grown more vocal about the threat of Sharia law in recent months, with representatives Keith Self, R-Texas, and Chip Roy, R-Texas, even moving to form a “Sharia-free America Caucus.”
Sharia broadly refers to a code of ethics and conduct used by devout Muslims. Sharia law more specifically often refers to the criminal code used in non-secular Islamic countries, like Iran.
In its most extreme cases, such as when ISIS controlled parts of the Middle East, charges like blasphemy could carry the death penalty. But guarantees of religious freedom in the Constitution mean that Sharia law cannot be carried out on any governmental level in the U.S.
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