TAMPA — If members of the Hillsborough County School Board thought they had put controversy over a Muslim speaker behind them, they were wrong.

More than a dozen who oppose school appearances from the Council on American-Islamic Relations attended Tuesday’s board meeting, some asking the board to call for a workshop and others displaying signs on the sidewalk outside that said, “Welcome to Tampastan.”

The group included Kristina Gionet of the Pinellas Patriots, who said, “I guarantee that if CAIR comes across the bay, we will stop them at the Howard Frankland Bridge.”

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A long list of S.C. lawmakers plan to send a message to Palmetto State courts: Don’t apply foreign laws here. A proposed law, which a House panel will consider later this month, is part of a growing movement in legislatures around the country.

Twenty other states are considering similar measures to ban judges from applying the laws of others nations, particularly in custody and marriage cases. Three states – Tennessee, Louisiana and Arizona – already have added the laws to their books. Oklahoma put it in its state Constitution in 2010, a move now being challenged in federal court.

Proponents say the S.C. measure will ensure only U.S. and S.C. laws are applied in Palmetto State courtrooms, and foreign laws do not trump constitutional rights guaranteed to Americans.

Opponents say the proposal addresses a nonexistent issue and, while not specifically naming Islamic Sharia law, smacks of anti-Islamic sentiment. They say such bills target the practice of Sharia, a wide-ranging group of Islamic religious codes and customs that, in some countries, are enforced as law.

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Last month, a bill intended to combat the nearly non-existent problem of courts citing Sharia law was cruising to passage in the Virginia House of Delegates. For the moment, however, the bill appears to be dead after numerous business groups stepped forward to oppose it:

One bill, HB825 from Republican Del. Bob Marshall of Prince William County, would have prohibited judges and state administrators from using any legal code established outside the United States to make decisions. […]

But when legislators started hearing from business groups concerned about how the proposal could affect their dealings abroad and foreign companies located here, they sent the bill back to committee.

“I had some business concerns,” said Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott County, after making the motion Thursday to kick back the bill. “It’s just something that needs some work.”

It’s unfortunate, if far from unexpected, that similar protests from religious groups, both Islamic and otherwise, were not enough to kill the bill. Nevertheless, the emergence of business opposition to these sorts of bills is a very important development.

Think Progress, 13 February 2012