They Said They Were Banning Sharia. Now They Want to Ban Being Muslim.
Texas Republicans told us this was about protecting American law. The moment they started talking about hijabs, halal food and Ramadan, that excuse collapsed.
For months, every time Texas Republicans started beating the drum about Sharia, we were told not to overreact. Nobody wanted to ban Islam. Nobody wanted to stop Muslims from practicing their religion. This was simply about protecting the Constitution from some shadowy competing legal system that was supposedly creeping across Texas like kudzu.
Then the Dallas Morning News ran a headline that made the game considerably harder to hide:
Ban hijabs and halal foods? Texas Republicans offer early blueprint of plan to ‘stop Islam’
The accompanying report says some Texas Republicans are considering a legislative agenda targeting the hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in this state, with proposals that critics say could make practicing Islam essentially impossible.
Well, there goes the “we’re only worried about a parallel legal system” defense.
Hijabs are not a legal system. Halal chicken is not a legal system. Ramadan is not a legal system. A mosque is not a courthouse. A Muslim declining a pork chop is not overthrowing the Republic.
At some point we should probably stop pretending this argument is about law.
The Fine Print Finally Became the Headline
The Republican Party of Texas has already adopted a 2026–2028 legislative priority called “Don’t Sharia Our Texas.” The language is remarkable. It calls Sharia an “incompatible, seditious, subversive, competing enemy system” and says its “advocacy or implementation” should be treated as a seditious criminal act deserving criminal punishment, disqualification from public, military and law-enforcement service, and potentially denaturalization and deportation.
Read that phrase again: advocacy or implementation.
That creates a rather enormous problem because Sharia does not mean what these politicians keep telling frightened audiences it means.
For most Muslims living in Texas, Sharia is not a secret criminal code waiting to replace the Texas Penal Code. It is the religious and ethical framework through which Muslims try to live. It tells us how to pray, fast, give charity, conduct business honestly, care for our families, avoid intoxicants, eat permissible food and cultivate a life oriented toward God.
I live in Texas. I am Muslim. When I get up to pray Fajr, I am practicing Islam according to Sharia. When another Muslim fasts during Ramadan, she is practicing according to Sharia. When someone looks for halal meat, avoids interest for religious reasons or gives zakat, Sharia is involved.
None of that competes with the Constitution any more than a Catholic following canon law, an Orthodox Christian observing a fasting rule or an observant Jew keeping kosher and following halakha is attempting to overthrow Texas.
American law already settles the issue these politicians claim keeps them awake at night. Texas law is Texas law. Religious rules cannot override criminal law, suspend constitutional rights or give a mosque governmental authority over unwilling citizens. If somebody commits assault and says his religion permitted it, he still gets arrested. This is not complicated.
So once you have established that American civil law is supreme, what exactly is left to ban?
Apparently, hijabs and dinner.
“Sharia” Was the Doorway, Not the Destination
The Sharia-Free Texas Caucus was founded by Republican state Rep. Brent Money. Money has said the organization exists to counter the rise of Sharia, but his rhetoric has repeatedly wandered well beyond courtroom procedure. In announcing the caucus, he warned that Texas would not stand by while “Islamic influences” transformed the state into “another conquered territory.” At the Texas GOP convention, he said the country has been governed best by Christian men.
That convention offered an illuminating preview of where this rhetoric leads. Muslim Republicans attended as duly registered delegates. One Muslim woman wearing a hijab was told to leave the country. Party members tried to remove Muslim delegates over alleged associations with CAIR. The party’s own rules prevented them from doing it.
Think about how far the argument traveled. We began with “foreign law cannot supersede the Constitution” and somehow arrived at American Muslim Republicans being told they do not belong in their own political party or their own country.
That is not mission creep. That is the mission revealing itself.
And now hijabs, halal food and other ordinary expressions of Muslim life are being discussed as evidence of the very “Islamization” Texas politicians say they must stop.
This is the part where every Christian who actually cares about religious liberty should become extremely uncomfortable.
The First Amendment Is Not a Christian Loyalty Program
The First Amendment does not say Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of Christianity. It says religion.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that government cannot single out a particular religion for hostile treatment. In Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, the Court struck down ordinances designed to suppress Santeria religious practices. Government does not get to decide that an unpopular minority faith receives a smaller First Amendment than everybody else.
A law deliberately banning Muslim religious clothing while allowing Christian religious clothing would not become constitutional because somebody shouted “Sharia” during the committee hearing. A law aimed at halal food while leaving kosher food alone does not magically become neutral because legislators say “security” often enough.
And Texas cannot denaturalize an American citizen because he believes Islamic religious law should guide his personal life. Naturalization and denaturalization are federal matters in the first place, and the First Amendment protects religious belief and advocacy from precisely this kind of government punishment.
The irony is almost too rich. Politicians claiming to defend the Constitution are proposing that government investigate religious belief, privilege Christianity, punish religious advocacy and potentially strip citizenship from people whose theology they dislike.
If that is their plan to save constitutional government, I would hate to see what they consider unconstitutional.
Today the Word Is Sharia
There are legitimate conversations to have about religion and civil law. I do not want an imam overruling the Constitution. I also do not want a pastor overruling it. I do not want Catholic canon law imposed on non-Catholics, Jewish halakha imposed on non-Jews or Islamic jurisprudence imposed on non-Muslims.
That is the beauty of the American arrangement. We have one civil legal system and an enormous amount of freedom inside it to live according to conscience.
You can keep kosher. I can eat halal. A Catholic can abstain from meat on Friday. A Sikh can wear a turban. A Muslim woman can wear a hijab. A Christian can wear a cross. We can build churches, mosques, synagogues and temples. We can argue with one another about theology until everyone is exhausted, then go home under the protection of the same Constitution.
That is religious liberty.
What Texas Republicans are now flirting with is something fundamentally different. They are taking ordinary practices of one religion and recasting their very visibility as evidence of political conquest. A halal grocery becomes “Sharia.” A mosque becomes a “military outpost.” A woman covering her hair becomes evidence of Islamization. Muslims simply becoming numerous enough to be noticed becomes the emergency.
I have spent enough of my life around Christianity to recognize what is happening here. This is not confidence in the Christian faith. Confidence does not require the state to make competing religions disappear from the landscape.
This is fear dressed up as religious conviction and constitutional patriotism.
And the Dallas Morning News headline is important because it finally says aloud where that fear is taking us. The debate is no longer merely about whether some imaginary Sharia court might replace Texas law someday.
The question is becoming whether your Muslim neighbor is allowed to be visibly, publicly and unapologetically Muslim today.
If your answer to that question is no, you are not defending religious freedom from Sharia.
You are defending Christian privilege from religious freedom.
Keep the Scrolls Unrolling
The Virgin Monk Boy Scrolls is a free publication.
If these words steady you, challenge you, make you laugh, or help you breathe deeper, here are three simple ways to support the work.
Share the Scrolls
Passing a link forward is how more wandering souls stumble into the monastery. Word of mouth is the whole engine.
Become a Supporting Member
Paid members unlock the Virgin Monk Boy Book Of Hours, Whispers from the Silence, and the ability to start threads and share their own Substacks in the private chat.
Tip with a coffee
A one time gift of holy caffeine that fuels both the monk and the Magdalene movement. ☕🔥
Your presence alone already helps.
Your support keeps the lantern lit for everyone else.