What happens if Muslims take advantage of ‘Religious Freedom’ laws?

Photo/Steffie Keith-Flickr

In a clever piece of semi-satire, Dean Oeidallah, a political comedian and commentator, wondered this week if the type of religious freedom legislation initially signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence could inadvertently convert Indiana into the “Muslim mecca of the Midwest.”
After all, the law that Pence and his hard-right colleagues in the Indiana Legislature truly preferred was intended to protect Christian “liberty,” especially the beliefs practiced by Evangelicals. But it would also shield the practice of Muslim religious rituals.
With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, Obeidallah, a Muslim and a former lawyer, gave a rundown of the implications, turning the original law on its head in such a way so as to send shivers through the soul of every Islamaphobe across the land.

In his blog for The Daily Beast, The Dean Report, Obeidallah offers this little gem:

“… Wait until we start blasting our calls to prayer (known as the Adhan) five times a day across the Hoosier state. The first one, known as Fajr, is right before sunrise. Nothing says ‘Wake up, Indiana!’ like a man calling out in Arabic at 5 in the morning for everyone to come pray.”

As Obeidallah points out, the initial law, before it was modified to mollify a barrage of criticism, essentially stated that state government cannot “substantially burden” a person’s (including a Muslim’s) religious practice unless it can prove that doing so serves a “compelling governmental interest.”

Under that law of unintended consequences, here are just a couple of the outcomes Obeidallah predicts Indiana could have to accept:

“Allow wudhu (the washing before our prayers) in public fountains. Think the opening of the TV show Friends with the cast frolicking in public fountains, but instead it will happen five times a day and feature a much more racially diverse group of people.”
“Stop paying interest on credit cards and mortgages. To some Muslims, interest payments (known as “riba”) are considered a violation of Islam.”

Obeidallah’s colleague at The Daily Beast, David Freelander, noted in his Tuesday column that the initial law would have also granted license to invasive public displays of rituals by Wiccans, who engage in a modern version of witchcraft.

Freelander found that leaders of the Wiccan religion think the original Indiana statute was a “horrible” law because of its potentially discriminatory impact against the LGBT community. But Dusty Dionne, High Priest and High Summoner of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Washington State, added this: “If they are going to open up this can of worms, we are going to shove it right in their face.”