Constitutional prohibitions and accommodations Edit
Because of the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, no religious tradition can be established as the basis of laws that apply to everyone, including any form of sharia, Christian canon law, Jewish halakha, or rules of dharma from Eastern religions. Laws must be passed in a secular fashion, not by religious authorities. The Free Exercise Clause allows residents to practice any religion or no religion, and there is often controversy about separation of church and state and the balance between these two clauses when the government does or does not accommodate any particular religious practice (for example blue laws that require stores to be closed on Sunday, the Christian holy day).
Direct consultation of any religious law, including any form of sharia, is relatively rare in U.S. jurisprudence, and is generally limited to circumstances where the government is accommodating the religious belief of a specific person. This occurs mainly in matters of arbitration and family law. For example, the law may allow parties to submit a dispute for binding arbitration to a mutually agreed-upon religious authority; mandatory arbitration by a specified or mutually-agreed arbitrator is also a common clause in commercial and labor union contracts. Couples with the same religious beliefs may wish to construct marriage contracts and conduct divorces in concordance with those beliefs, and people may also wish to arrange wills and other financial matters in accordance with their own religious principles. If presented as evidence, devotion to peaceful religious principles, along with many other aspects of personality, is commonly considered when judging the character of a person before the law, for example during sentencing or a parole hearing.
