Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) likened Islamic religious practices to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.
The Republican-convened hearing, “Sharia-Free America,” was called to examine what GOP lawmakers described as efforts to impose sharia, the Islamic moral and legal code derived from the Quran, in U.S. communities.
“That sounds like a Middle Eastern version of Project 2025,” Cohen said as he criticized the warning of sharia’s influence in the United States.
Cohen’s comments came after Robert Spencer, a fellow of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and witness at the hearing, explained the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum, which details the organization’s plan to eliminate and destroy Western civilization from within by their own hands and give it to Islamic believers.
The remark prompted audible laughs from some lawmakers in the chamber.
Cohen tried to land a laugh earlier in his allotted time during a back-and-forth exchange with Spencer.
“Sir, I’ve got the floor. You’re not [Attorney General] Pam Bondi,” Cohen said.
Cohen said he was “confused about this hearing,” arguing that Congress was devoting time to a perceived threat rather than what he described as more pressing constitutional issues. He cited concerns of presidential power, civil rights violations, and violence by law enforcement.
“We’ve got so much to deal with,” Cohen said. “And we’re talking about sharia law.”
Committee Chairman Chip Roy (R-TX) said the hearing was intended to highlight what he and his fellow Texans see as a growing problem that has not received sufficient attention.
“Sharia encourages violence, silences dissent, rejects religious freedom, and subjugates women and children,” Roy said to begin the hearing. “Let’s be clear, this is not about having the freedom of worshiping a religion of one’s choosing, such as Islam, but forcing a foreign legal code that is incompatible with our laws and legal system that provides unwanted consequences to the American people, everything we’ve fought against for more than 250 years.”
For example, sharia permits polygamy and domestic violence, both of which are illegal in the U.S.
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GOP members also pointed to proposed Muslim-led developments in Texas, including planned residential communities, as examples of what they described as efforts to create enclaves governed by religious norms.
Democrats, however, dismissed the worry that sharia poses a threat to the country and warned of First Amendment violations if the Islamic moral code were to be banned in the U.S.
