Photo/Steffie Keith-Flickr

In a clever piece of semi-satire, Dean Oeidallah, a
political comedian and commentator, wondered this week if the type of religious
freedom legislation initially signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence could
inadvertently convert Indiana into the “Muslim mecca of the Midwest.”

After all, the law that Pence and his hard-right
colleagues in the Indiana Legislature truly preferred was intended to protect
Christian “liberty,” especially the beliefs practiced by Evangelicals. But it
would also shield the practice of Muslim religious rituals.

With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, Obeidallah,
a Muslim and a former lawyer, gave a rundown of the implications, turning the original
law on its head in such a way so as to send shivers through the soul of every
Islamaphobe across the land.

In his blog for The Daily Beast, The Dean Report, Obeidallah
offers this little gem:

“… Wait until we start blasting our calls to prayer
(known as the Adhan) five times a day across the Hoosier state. The first one,
known as Fajr, is right before sunrise. Nothing says ‘Wake up, Indiana!’ like a
man calling out in Arabic at 5 in the morning for everyone to come pray.”

As Obeidallah points out, the initial law, before it was
modified to mollify a barrage of criticism, essentially stated that state government
cannot “substantially burden” a person’s (including a Muslim’s) religious
practice unless it can prove that doing so serves a “compelling governmental interest.”

Under that law of unintended consequences, here are just
a couple of the outcomes Obeidallah predicts Indiana could have to accept:

“Allow wudhu (the washing before our prayers) in public
fountains. Think the opening of the TV show Friends with the cast
frolicking in public fountains, but instead it will happen five times a day and
feature a much more racially diverse group of people.”

“Stop paying interest on credit cards and mortgages. To
some Muslims, interest payments (known as “riba”) are considered a
violation of Islam.”

Obeidallah’s colleague at
The Daily Beast, David Freelander, noted in his Tuesday column that the initial
law would have also granted license to invasive public displays of rituals by
Wiccans, who engage in a modern version of witchcraft.

Freelander found that leaders of the Wiccan religion
think the original Indiana statute was a “horrible” law because of its
potentially discriminatory impact against the LGBT community. But Dusty Dionne,
High Priest and High Summoner of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Washington
State, added this: “If they are going to open up this can of worms, we are going to
shove it right in their face.”