this is according to our religion. You are my wife, I c[an] do anything to you. The woman, she should submit and do anything I ask her to do.

Now, here's a real heart-warming story that was alerted to us at The Corner with a post titled, "Sharia Creeps". Without context, be it known that creeps is in the intransitive verb form though the noun form would certainly qualify in this case, as well.

A woman brought suit against her Muslim husband for non-consensual sex and other abuses. The judge presiding in the case refused to find that there had been sexual assault or any other criminal misconduct because under Sharia law a wife cannot refuse her husband's request for sex. Here's the judge's reasoning:

This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.

Charmed, we're sure.

So, where did this all go down? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Perhaps England which is slowly losing its way in the West vs. East war with respect to assimilation and sharia law? No, no and no. This little marital dust-up and resulting sharia-friendly ruling by the judge went down in New Jersey.

The defendant employed the ol' I-didn't-know-I-could-knock-my-wife-around-and-force-myself-on-her-because-I'm-Muslim defense. And we'll be damned if it didn't work.

Thankfully, an appellate court reversed this ruling, stating that for the time being at least, the law of the land here in the states super cedes any sort of violent and misogynistic features of a cave-dwelling body of law that might by practiced abroad:

Defendant’s conduct in engaging in non consensual sexual intercourse was unquestionably knowing, regardless of his view that his religion permitted him to act as he did.

As the judge recognized, the case thus presents a conflict between the criminal law and religious precepts. In resolving this conflict, the judge determined to except defendant from the operation of the State’s statutes as the result of his religious beliefs. In doing so, the judge was mistaken.

We dodged that bullet. Shame that it actually had to be reversed on appeal. What does that tell us about how things are trending in this country?

And when internationalists inform us that we must look overseas to see how law is interpreted there, do you think this is what they had in mind?