The Oct. 24 editorial (“A useless, discriminatory bill outlawing Sharia law”) rejects state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe’s proposal to ban Islamic and other foreign laws from Pennsylvania courtrooms as “a waste of time in the absence of any substantial substantive threat — legal or otherwise — to the rights of Americans engaged with the court system.”

Editorial writer PAR fails to understand the problem. He goes on to state, “[W]e can only call this bill what it is: political hysteria and bigotry given form and focus.” He quotes “This Constitution (the United States constitution) ... shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bounded thereby,” and concludes, “That shall be all that needs to be said on the matter,” then states that legislators “have chosen to try and misinform and divide Pennsylvanians with these useless pieces of legislation.”

The writer apparently fails to read legal journals which recite the holdings of a court in a different state. At least one out-of-state court has already ruled that another clause of the U.S. Constitution apparently supersedes all other clauses. That clause states that a person is free to practice his own religion.

What the out-of-state court in that state ruled was that the district attorney was prevented from bringing charges of attempted murder or assault and battery against a husband who had subjected his wife to a “brutal” beating and abuse, because his defense was that Islamic law permits a husband to beat his wife and he was only practicing his religion.

Such an interpretation of the Constitution, if adopted by Pennsylvania courts, would cut the legs out from under the Protection from Abuse Act. All a husband would have to do would say he had converted to Islamism, and was practicing the rights of his religion. I do not recall that the court ruled how “brutal” the beating could be — to within a foot of her life or within an inch of her life, or maybe even death.

All the Pennsylvania Legislature is attempting to do is prevent some Pennsylvania court from saying it was adopting that reasoning of an out-of-state court, which is what state courts often do when they are faced with a problem in a case where there is no controlling decision of a court in that state court. The Eagle’s editorial writer fails to understand where Pennsylvania could end up if the Legislature did not pass such an act that he calls “a waste of time.”

If Pennsylvania courts were to adopt that same ruling, it would show the incorrectness of his statement. 1t is not true that there is no absence of any substantive threat to the rights of Americans.

All Metcalfe is attempting to do is prevent Pennsylvania courts from adopting an out-of-state court’s interpretation of the Constitution that the right of religious freedom is absolutely, overruling any other portions of the Constitution that may be contradictory to it.

It is admitted there is no provision of the Constitution that prohibits a man from beating his wife. Our founding fathers left that to the states — under the then-commonsense understanding they would never be faced with a situation where a religion would permit actions that might constitute total contradiction to the U.S. Constitution or to state laws. Putting it another way, our country fought a civil war from 1861 to 1866 to prove that “all men (and women) are created equal” — that then terminated slavery.

Under the tenets of Sharia law, a wife apparently loses her equal rights of creation (if she ever had any) when she marries a husband, and then, in effect, becomes his slave, to be beaten at will. At least this appears to be the interpretation of an out-of-state court, (adopting the freedom of religion clause, over and supreme to the equal rights clause), which Pennsylvania is attempting to prohibit from being adopted by Pennsylvania courts.

I also read that other state legislatures are “wasting their time” in discussing passage of such legislation, for fear of such a decision in their state.

Robert J. Stock is a Butler attorney.