A Florida Senate panel’s hurried decision last week to pass a measure banning the use of Sharia law may, in practice, serve to prevent Orthodox Jewish couples from using Jewish religious courts to arbitrate their divorces.

The bill, the Application of Foreign Law in Certain Cases, is likely to pass the Florida Senate and, according to The Jewish Daily Foward’s Paul Berger, Florida Governor Rick Scott is expected to sign the bill into law.

The language of the bill is largely modeled after a wave of legislation targeting Sharia, traditional Islamic law, that has swept the country in recent years as part of an organized Islamophobia campaign, detailed in the Center for American Progress’s report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network In America. But the Florida bill — styled on model legislation drafted by David Yerushalmi, an Orthodox Jew who lives in New York — may have the unintended consequence of severely limiting the ability of Orthodox Jews to employ arbitration from Jewish religious courts in divorces.

The Florida bill states that arbitration is unenforceable if a tribunal bases its ruling on a “foreign law, legal code or system” that does not give people the same rights as Florida or U.S. Constitutions. Speaking to The Forward, Anti-Defamation League attorney David Barkey warns that the bill will affect Jews seeking divorces in accordance with rabbinical courts.

Barkey explains that because only a man can grant his wife a Jewish divorce, rabbinical courts could be seen as violating state and federal equal protection principles. “Any abritration or ruling based on such a law is, per se, invalid,” said Barkey. Orthodox couples frequently arbitrate divorces in accordance with rabbincal courts and, after agreeing to the terms of their divorce, petition a civil court to make the ruling a binding judgement.

Islamic and Jewish groups, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, challenge that the bill targets Islam, but the bill’s sponsors insist that’s not true. Both the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization Agudath Israel of America have vowed to fight the bill.

“The notion that secular judges are being asked to decide whether religious law does or does not conform with ‘fundamental liberties’ is an intrusion on religious freedom and could be a dangerous precedent for more far-ranging efforts in the future that might well impact our community,” warned Agudath’s vice president, Rabbi David Zwiebel.

The American Jewish Committee’s general counsel, Marc Stern, slammed the bill as “all smoke and mirrors” in an interview with The Forward. “It’s a trap for the unwary and nothing more. But I know it will be seen as another great victory in suppressing extremist Islam,” said Stern. “It’s nothing of the sort.”

A Florida Senate panel approved a measure to ban the use of Sharia law in the Sunshine State yesterday after deliberating for just three minutes and turning dozens away who sought to give their testimony.

SB 1360, which already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee, was approved by the Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday by a 5-2 vote. A concurrent anti-Sharia bill in the House was also sent out of committee last week and will be voted receive a floor vote in the next few days.

The proposed legislation, which would ban the use of “foreign law,” is drawing ire not only because it’s been used as a way to attack Muslims in this country, but also because it could have a number of unintended consequences. As the Orlando Sun-Sentinel notes, many Jewish groups are calling the legislation discriminatory against them as well:

Andrew Rosenkranz, regional director for the Anti Defamation League, said that the decisions of Jewish tribunals called Bet Dins, which often handle divorce proceedings, are often converted into civil divorce decrees by the courts. But under the Senate bill, and another ready for a vote by the entire House, an observant Orthodox couple would “effectively be barred from following their faith and using a Jewish tribunal to dissolve their marriage,” he said.

“The alleged threat of Islamic, other religious or foreign law to Florida’s court system is completely illusory, and the Senate’s consideration of this measure is an unwise use of resources,” Rosenkranz said, adding that both the Florida and U.S. constitutions “already prohibit the unconstitutional application of foreign law in the courts.”

But neither representatives from the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] nor about 50 Muslims who were visiting Tallahassee as part of Muslim Day at the capital were allowed to speak at the meeting, which had more than 20 bills on the agenda and started late.

In 2011, Florida Republicans tried to pass an anti-Sharia bill, but it failed to gain approval. Proponents are hopeful they will gain enough support this year.

Last month, a similar Sharia ban in Oklahoma was ruled unconstitutional by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Nevertheless, a number of states like Florida are pushing forward. Just two months into 2012, 22 states have introduced anti-Sharia bills.

To learn more about what Sharia law actually is (and is not), read this Center for American Progress primer. Also check out CAP’s report Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America to read about the players behind state anti-Sharia bills.

Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney finds himself increasingly isolated from the mainstream Republican party. Last year, Gaffney was barred from CPAC after accusing Suhail Kahn, who directed Muslim outreach efforts for the Bush White House, and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist of being moles for the Muslim Brotherhood. And last month, Edward Meese, a former Reagan administration Attorney General and Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, slammed Gaffney and his allies for disparaging Muslim Americans “solely because of their religion or their background when there’s no basis for it.”

But Gaffney, who has said “it is now public knowledge that nearly every major Muslim organization in the United States is actually controlled by the MB [Muslim Brotherhood] or a derivative organization,” doesn’t hold much credibility with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

As part of a September 2010 Senate Homeland Security committee hearing, “Nine Years After 9/11: Confronting The Terrorist Threat To The Homeland,” the FBI issued written responses to questions posed by committee members. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) issued the following question to the FBI (see page 123-123 in the PDF):

LIEBERMAN: What is your perspective on the Center for Security Policy’s recent report entitled “Shariah: The Threat To America”?

FBI: The FBI believes the report underestimates the United States Government’s (USG) level of knowledge and understanding of the activities taking place in the United States and overstates the threat posed by those activities. The report also fails to note that some of the threats were disrupted by the USG and are no longer viable, and it makes unsubstantiated assertions regarding limitations on our ability to respond to ongoing threats. Among other reasons, this may be because the report relies on outdated information.

David Yerushalmi, a coauthor of the report and CSP’s general counsel, is the author of the model “anti-Sharia” legislation introduced in over twenty states. As the “anti-Sharia” movement spreads across the country, members of communities facing the Islamophobia campaigns led by Yerushalmi and Gaffney — both of whom are discussed in the Center for American Progress’s report, “Fear Inc.: The Roots Of the Islamophobia Network” — should note that the FBI largely disregarded their report as making “unsubstantiated assertions” and relying “on outdated information.”

A former FBI agent who has said a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee has no legal right to exist will be training the county sheriff’s department about Muslim culture and terrorism threats. John Guandolo, vice president of the Strategic Engagement Group, will lead the training for Rutherford County officers at the World Outreach Church in Murfressboro.

Speaking at another Tennessee church in November, Guandolo said local mosques are front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood. “They do not have a First Amendment right to do anything,” Guandolo said then. And the pastor at World Outreach Church, the Rev. Allen Jackson, urged the Rutherfod County Commission to not allow a mosque to be built in Murfreesboro. “I would submit to you that we have a duty here at home to understand thoroughly the nature, the intent, the funding of any group that is being invited into our community under that general banner (of Islam),” Jackson told the commission in July 2010.

Rutherford Sheriff Robert Arnold defended the training, saying his department only wants to find out more about Islam. “There are not many classes out there for anything when it comes to Muslims … but this training isn’t just about that, it has many other components to it,” he told the Tennessean. “My stance is and my office’s stance is, we are not here to pick sides. I am here to protect the people of this county, and I am never going to waiver from that.” But local Muslims said they weren’t asked to join the training:

Saleh Sbenaty, a member of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, said the sheriff’s office never asked local Muslims to participate in the training. He said the department is supposed to protect the rights of citizens no matter what their faith.

Using a trainer who thinks Muslims have no civil rights doesn’t make sense, he said.

“This training is hate training,” Sbenaty said. “It is not training to keep our whole community safe.”

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national Muslim civil rights group, asked the Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Director Brian Grisham to “investigate the appropriateness” of the week-long training. CAIR points out that the Rutherford Sheriff’s Department “is responsible for investigating an arson and repeated acts of vandalism at the construction site of a planned mosque in Murfreesboro that has faced fierce opposition since it was first proposed.”

Previously, the FBI has come under fire for teaching counterterrorism trainees about Islam using anti-Muslim materials. Spencer Ackerman reports that an internal investigation at the bureau so far has purged hundreds of pages of material about Muslims — some characterizing them as prone to violence or terrorism — from presentations given to agents.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina — Former Oklahoma congressman and Newt Gingrich-endorser J.C. Watts conceded late last week that despite his state’s push to ban Sharia law, it has never actually existed in the Sooner State.

Gingrich has a long history of Islamophobic statements, from calling supporters of a mosque in New York City “hostile to our civilization” to saying that he would only support Muslim presidential candidates if “they would commit in public to give up Sharia.” This last statement earned approval from notable anti-Muslim pseudoexpert Frank Gaffney, who declared on his radio show that “Newt Gingrich has, in my judgment, rendered a real public service.” (You can read more about Gaffney and other Islamophobes behind the Sharia hysteria in the Center for American Progress’ recent report: Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America.)

Yet for all the furor over the “creep of Sharia law” into the American legal system, it’s incredibly difficult to find people who have actually encountered it.

This was plainly evident when speaking with Watts late last week, whose home state of Oklahoma passed a Sharia law ban in 2010. (It has since been ruled unconstitutional by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.) ThinkProgress spoke with Watts, who served as a congressman from Oklahoma for four terms, about the ban as he campaigned for Newt Gingrich in South Carolina on Thursday. When we asked if Watts had ever encountered Sharia law in Oklahoma, the former congressman drew a blank:

KEYES: Personally, have you ever encountered Sharia law in Oklahoma?

WATTS: Well, we’ve not encountered Sharia law because Sharia law has never factored into our law.

Watch it:

Of course, Watts is correct that Sharia law has “never factored into” Oklahoma’s legal system. Even those charged with defending Oklahoma’s Sharia law ban in court were unable to cite a single example of it being used by a state court, “let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma.”

States like Virginia and Pennsylvania are currently considering taking up versions of sharia-banning legislation. To learn more about what Sharia law actually is and isn’t, read this short report from the Center for American Progress.