"We came, we saw, he died," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE joked on a CBS interview when told about the death of Libyan Dictator Muammar Qaddafi on October 20, 2011. Prior to the overthrow of the Gaddafi government, Muslim women in Libya were the beneficiaries of gender sensitive policies encouraging advanced education and entrepreneurism through small business loans. These western-focused policies were created to give Libyan women equal access to economic resources, such as finance and land ownership.

Having spent extensive time in Libya since the U.S. sanctions were lifted by the Bush Administration in 2004, I personally witnessed Libyan women surging in the private sector. It was increasingly common to see Muslim women dressed like women in the Western world with no headscarf. At that time, Libyan women were afforded “the choice” on how they dressed.

ADVERTISEMENT

The dramatic advances in women’s rights in Libya following the lifting of the U.S. sanctions ended with the bloodshed and violence of the Libyan revolution of 2011. The gender sensitive policies promoting women’s rights came under direct assault by the radical Islamic factions promoting and imposing Sharia law. As a direct consequence of the Libyan revolution, Muslim women were thrown back into the dark ages.

Across Africa, where the advances of radical Islam have occurred, violence against women has increased. Women have been brutally forced into submission by Islamists using Sharia law. As outlined by the Clarion Project, under Sharia law a man owns all property and there is no joint ownership. Also, a man can marry a girl who has reached puberty and marriage to girls as young as 12 and 13 is allowed. The husband pays a bride price (“mahr”) in exchange for sexual submission (“tamkin”) of the woman, and wife beating is permitted. Islamic law (Sharia) requires that adulterers be put to death, including rape victims.

As the world has witnessed, Muslim women are executed by stoning even when they are the victims of rape.

These barbarous Sharia laws should be abhorred by civilized society and totally rejected by Americans as being counter to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. And yet, in an unconscionable display of bad judgment, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration chose to implement a foreign policy, which destabilized a secular Muslim nation leaving a vacuum of power to be filled by radical Islamists who have waged their own war on women.

I am outraged that Hillary Clinton continues to defend the rights of Islamists whose practice of Sharia law directly assaults women’s rights. Equally outrageous are the continuing actions of the Clinton Foundation to accept millions of dollars from nations, which engage in violence against women.

In America, eight States have enacted law banning Sharia law as foreign or international law, and seventeen States are in the process of enacting similar legislation for the same purpose. Although State law banning Sharia law forbids its adjudication giving supremacy to the U.S. Constitution and State law, it does not ban the private practice of Sharia law and its violation of individual rights. Radical Islamists must be admonished that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect acts of violence or oppression on the grounds of religious freedom. America is learning from the tragedies occurring throughout the Muslim world and the horrific murders in San Bernardino and Orlando, that the violent ideology of Sharia law is a major threat to the inalienable rights of American citizens. It is time to press Congress to ban the practice of Sharia law in the United States.