SEATTLE, WA - Scott Presler, an organizer with ACT For America, which has been labeled an extremist anti-Muslim group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, thinks that liberals and other left-leaning types should join his March Against Sharia in Seattle on Saturday. Why? Because Presler sees sharia as maybe the world's biggest oppressor of women and gays, and no self-respecting feminist or gay rights activist, he says, can support sharia.

"You cannot call yourself a feminist and be for sharia; you can't be a champion of gay rights and be for sharia," he says.

Sharia has been a boogeyman of the right for years, most often peddled as a violent, medieval set of laws slowly creeping into U.S. institutions. But that, of course, is not reality. Sharia is essentially just the rules Muslims use to live their faith. Washing your hands before eating, for example, is sharia. Covering your head with a scarf or keeping a beard, that's sharia. Christianity and other religions have rules, too. Catholic canonical law requires Catholics to, for example, go to confession.

So when a group like ACT decides to hold a march to "ban" sharia, it is essentially marching against the practice of Islam. Jawad Khaki, the founder of Kirkland's Ithna-asheri Muslim Association of the Northwest mosque, sees that the anti-sharia march as a group of deeply misinformed people spreading ignorance and fear. And that worries him as Islamophobic incidents continue locally and around the world.

"I'm concerned about this message of intolerance, because that's not really the America that we want," Khaki says.

Khaki points out that sharia is a constantly evolving set of laws that Muslims use in the regular course of worship. There is a sharia penal code in the Quran, but the Old Testament has one, too - the death penalty for adulterers is in there, for example.

Presler highlighted two main problems with sharia to justify the ACT rally: the practice of female genital cutting, and that Islam does not allow gay relationships. Presler said that over 500,000 girls in the U.S. are at risk of genital cutting, citing a 2012 Centers for Disease Control study. The CDC did publish such a study, but the CDC does not cite sharia as a reason that so many women are at risk of cutting.

Asked why ACT doesn't just hold a rally against homophobia or genital cutting, Presler says that's not enough. Despite saying that "what sharia is to one Muslim might not be to another Muslim," Presler insisted that the march has to be against the entirety of sharia - washing hands and all. That murder and cruelty are perpetuated by plenty of people who aren't following sharia seemed to be beside the point for Presler.

"We're cognizant there are parts of sharia that are constitutionally protected," Presler says. "What we're marching against is that we don't believe in female genital violence, honor killings; we don't believe in forced marriages."

(Genital cutting, forced marriages, and crimes based on prejudice, it should be noted, are all illegal in the U.S.)

The timing of the march is also questionable. It's the middle of Ramadan, and the march comes two weeks after two men were killed and one more seriously injured in Portland for defending two girls from an Islamophobic attack.

A group called Patriot Prayer - which came to Seattle for May Day - is also joining the anti-sharia march. Patriot Prayer's leader, Joey Gibson, says his group is coming to "stand against the extreme parts of Islam." Gibson also talked about sharia in the context of gay and women's rights.

"To us, [sharia] is an attack on human rights, an attack on women's rights, an attack on gay rights," Gibson said. "It's the ideology that we're concerned with. Even as Christians, we believe gays should have a right to exist without harassment."

Presler said that ACT is coordinating marches on Saturday in some 30 cities (the march begins at 10 a.m. at Victor Steinbrueck Park near Pike Place Market in front of City Hall). He doesn't know how many will show up in Seattle, but the event might be slightly larger than in other cities: after the attacks in Portland, the ACT march planned in that city was canceled, and the attendees were told to head to Seattle instead.

There will be counter-protesters there. The American Muslim Empowerment Network, which is based out of the Redmond MAPS mosque, is planning to demonstrate (MAPS has been vandalized twice since November). Khaki is not sure if he or anyone from his mosque will attend. But he has faith that Muslims will be protected from any ill will, whether by god or police.

"America is great because of the appreciation it has for the diversity of the world's people," he said. "The Quran invites us to work together toward a more harmonious society, whether we worship in the same way or not.

"Living harmoniously with our neighbors is what we want to do."'

Image Patch.com file photo/Neal McNamara

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