Police used tear gas to disperse rowdy demonstrators and arrested three people for obstructing law enforcement.
Lisa Jaffe, 52, who carried a sign saying "loving my Muslim neighbor since 1964" said she participated in the counter demonstration because she believes the growing lack of tolerance has no place in her America.
Police officers and barricades stood between the two groups.
Demonstrators gathered to protest against Islamic law take part in a rally on Sat., June 10, 2017, in NY.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, ACT is one of the nation's largest anti-Muslim groups, claiming 280,000 members and 1,000 chapters.
"I would say I follow Sharia law in day-to-day life, and it doesn't run counter to the Constitution", she said Friday. They don't trust those conservative protesters, and they say their big fear right now in America isn't Sharia law.
In Atlanta, rally participants and a handful of counter-protesters appeared Saturday in Piedmont Park. Bristol resident, Rich Guzda said "I'm a patriotic American".
The rally was one of more than two dozen held across the USA on Saturday to target the notion that extremist interpretations of Islamic law might somehow infect American democracy. Sharia is Islamic law as derived from the Quran and the traditions of Islam.
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Clusters of protesters and counter-protesters gathered on four corners of an intersection at a memorial to the slain, yelling and waving American flags and posters proclaiming various causes. Counter-protesters gathered as well.
Opponents of anti-Muslim demonstrations said the events stoked unfounded fears and a distorted view of Islam.
Both marches began around noon about a block apart just south of the Oceanside Pier, and marchers passed each other peacefully at times.
Anti-Muslim incidents rose 57 percent past year, including a 44 percent jump in anti-Islamic hate crimes, CAIR said in a report released in early May.
Organized in part to memorialize the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, the multicity demonstrations aimed to raise awareness of what ACT sees as the negative effects of Muslim immigration to the United States. Around 300 counter-protesters turned up, according to the paper. The group held anti-Sharia rallies in more than two dozen cities Saturday; in NY and Chicago, a few dozen anti-Shari demonstrators were also outnumbered by counter-protesters.
It could in fact be stated that Sharia law does not exist as Americans think of law, as a coded set of rulings set down by a single authority. We want to make sure that the radical Islamist ideology did not hijack the peaceful Muslims here in this country.
"We learned something about Islamic culture, we had singing and dancing and showing different cultures, different faiths", he said.
A march had been planned for Portland, but an organizer moved it to Seattle after Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler called on the federal government to deny a permit.
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