Minnesota Lawmaker Drops Anti-Sharia Bill Following Pressure From CAIR

The Minnesota Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stood against what it called an anti-Sharia Senate bill that would "discriminate" against Muslims in its state legislature. Now, following its protest, it seems CAIR succeeded in its goal as the Minnesota lawmaker responsible for introducing the piece of legislation will drop the bill.

An official CAIR press release states that the announcement came following a news conference CAIR-MN held earlier Monday "with interfaith leaders to challenge the threat to religious freedom posed by the bill."

According to the release, Republican State Senator Dave Thompson said, "It was never my intent to introduce legislation that was being targeted to any one group."

"We thank Senator Thompson for dropping this discriminatory bill and hope his responsible decision sends a message to all those elected officials in other states who are supporting similarly unconstitutional legislation," said CAIR-MN Civil Rights Coordinator Munazza Humayun in the statement.

CAIR dubbed Thompson's S2281 as an "anti-Islam bill" that was a "boilerplate copy-pasted verbatim from a far right policy group." That policy group, according to CAIR, is headed by David Yerushalmi. While CAIR dubs him an "anti-Islam extremist," Yerushlami has worked tirelessly to prevent creeping sharia from entering U.S. legal systems.