{"id":118,"date":"2012-03-06T07:14:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T14:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/?p=118"},"modified":"2012-03-06T07:14:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-06T14:14:32","slug":"city-council-condemns-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/city-council-condemns-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh City Council Condemns Anti-Sharia Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by Noah Brode<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.essentialpublicradio.org\/story\/2012-03-06\/%E2%80%98anti-sharia-bill-blasted-unconstitutional-prejudicial-10387\">Essential Public Radio<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A crowd of Muslims and religious rights activists applauded when Pittsburgh City Council passed a measure to oppose Pennsylvania House Bill 2029 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Councilman Bill Peduto blasted the bill, which would prohibit &#8220;the application of foreign law which would impair constitutional rights.&#8221; He said it is based on an &#8220;anti-Sharia law&#8221; bill that was struck down by federal courts in Oklahoma.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The bill that is being considered by Pennsylvania State Legislature caters to bigotry and prejudice,&#8221; said Peduto. &#8220;Its basis is unconstitutional. It goes against the wishes of our founding fathers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The resolution passed Council unanimously.<\/p>\n<p>Safdar Khwaja of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said City Council&#8217;s opposition to HB 2029 is encouraging.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Passage of this resolution will be an affirmation of the city&#8217;s basic belief in the spirit of all peoples, of all minorities, and of the strength of our legal system,&#8221; said Khwaja.<\/p>\n<p>CAIR&#8217;s website said the bill &#8220;is part of a national effort to vilify, stigmatize, and demonize Islam and Muslims.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Councilman Peduto likened the state-level bill to &#8220;hate legislation&#8221; against Catholics that was passed about 150 years ago by Pittsburgh Mayor Joseph Barker.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Catholic bishop was actually imprisoned, and the cathedral was burnt down,&#8221; said Peduto. &#8220;This is the exact type of thing we need to be fighting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>HB 2029, introduced by State Rep. RoseMarie Swanger (R-Lebanon County) has been stagnant in the House Judiciary Committee since November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Noah Brode Essential Public Radio A crowd of Muslims and religious rights activists applauded when Pittsburgh City Council passed a measure to oppose Pennsylvania House Bill 2029 on Tuesday. Councilman Bill Peduto blasted the bill, which would prohibit &#8220;the application of foreign law which would impair constitutional rights.&#8221; He [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pa.cair.com\/pitt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}