Excerpt:
Alan Hays, a Republican state senator in Florida, likened Sharia law to a "dreadful disease" requiring vaccination to protect Americans.
The Council on American Islamic Relations, a civil liberties advocacy organization for Muslims, posted a clip Friday of Hays invoking disease prevention when asked to provide an example of a foreign law that had stripped the rights of Americans in United States courts:
When you were a child, did your parents have you vaccinated against different diseases? That was a preemptive gesture on their part for which I would hope you're very thankful. And this is very similar to that. Your mom and dad would not want you to get sick from one of those dreadful diseases, and I don't want any American to be in a Florida courtroom and have their constitutional rights violated by any foreign law. That's it. It's not that complicated.