Those looking for a fuller explanation of Sharia can turn to the normally terrible Wikipedia — home of facts like this one — for a surprisingly decent rundown of what it means. Cynics will note that, politically, Sharia is Michelle Bachmann's favorite new argument, one that ignores history and the terms of the Bill of Rights to paint a unique existential threat that is to be categorically feared. That she is willing to demonize Sharia as fundamentalist Islam's lurking, hateful agenda, crafted by a bunch of men to tell women what they can't do and seeking to criminalize private behavior on the basis of abstract morality — and, further, that no manner of violence is prohibited to defend this morality — should at no point remind you of her fundamentalist Christianity, which is something totally different.
