Inside Track
Federal Government Sued for Promoting Islamic Religious Activity
In 2008, the Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) filed suit in federal court against Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The suit alleged that over a million dollars of the $70 billion in bailout money provided to American International Group (AIG) was used to support Islamic religious indoctrination within the United States. Specifically, the complaint pointed to AIG’s funding and promotion of “Sharia-compliant financing.” The lawsuit stated: “The use of these taxpayer funds to approve, promote, endorse, support, and fund these Sharia-based Islamic religious activities violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
In May 2009, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought dismissal of the lawsuit, but the judge hearing the case denied its request. He stated that the lawsuit properly alleged a federal constitutional challenge to the use of taxpayer money, in that some money had been used to promote Islamic religious indoctrination. Lawyers for TMLC then compiled voluminous evidence to support its charge. But, on January 14, 2011, the court reversed its earlier ruling and claimed that no evidence of religious indoctrination had been shown and, if there was any, it could not be attributed to the federal government. In addition, the judge claimed that the amount of money used to support the religious activities, $153 million of the $70 billion doled out to AIG, was “de minimus” — that is, inconsequential when the entire amount is considered.
Robert Muise, senior trial counsel for TMLC, then stated: “Based on the incredible amount of evidence we presented, much of which DOJ could not refute, and in light of the strength of the court’s prior ruling, we expect the court to ultimately rule in our favor and hold that the federal government violated the U.S. Constitution by using federal tax money to fund Islamic religious activities. As soon as we read the court’s adverse opinion, we filed an immediate appeal.” The appeal process is expected to take at least a year.
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