Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick debunks the absurd claim that Harold Koh, the dean of Yale Law School and President Obama’s nominee to serve as legal advisor to the State Department, wants to institute Islamic sharia law in this country’s courts — a claim that is based on a single person’s recollection of a talk Koh gave in 2007.

Are we seriously having this debate? As my friend and co-author Jason Reifler pointed out, a Fox News report hyping the claim (via HP) appears to show Koh wearing a gay rights pin:

Let’s just say that most people who are secretly bent on imposing sharia law aren’t also gay rights supporters.

More generally, there’s no way this allegation would be getting traction if so many Americans didn’t think that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Pew just reported that the misperception is holding steady at pre-election levels: 11% of the public and 17% of Republicans say Obama is Muslim and an additional 13% say they don’t know and have “heard different things” (via MJ). As long as this myth persists, Obama’s opponents — like Bill O’Reilly, who questioned tonight whether Obama supports the “global justice jihad” — will continue to push garbage like the Koh allegations that plays on the misperception.