If all they're looking for is the same rights given to christians and jews in britain, so that muslims don't have to get married and divorced twice (legally and religiously), than I don't know what the big deal is. Now, if they want to make marrying a second wife legal, that is obviously more complicated due to local law and custom.
the big deal highlighted in the article seems to be the inequality in the law between the rights of men and women.
Also, I am guessing, that a lot of people don't want to open the door to the more extreme punishments of the Islamic law coming into the country, which the interviews show is also a desired result of the integration. Those who spoke in the article really feel that Britian would be better off with floggings and amputations.
Now, I'm not in Britian, but in the US you can get married in any church/religious way you wish so long as you first procure a state marriage lisence and then have the officating clergy sign off on it with witnesses... and divorce, legalities of finances etc are handled only by the state so I know I don't fully undrestand what is going on with the other religions and state integrations... however I'd be wary too of any group that treated women as inferior and favored extreme physical punishments for perpetrators of moral crimes.
The law of the nation will always come before religious law (in most western countries anyway), so as long as they pick and choose which where muslim law may has legal weight (just like with other religions), they should be able to work it out. Both of the other major religions give women fewer and different rights, and we dealt with them pretty well...
The problem may come when/if the country says "Your religion may hold legal sway so long as it conforms to our current secular law," in which case I imagine many Muslims would balk at that, just like many christians would dislike it if a country said "You may only continue performing legal marriages if you begin to offer same sex marriage, because same sex marriage is now a legal right in our hypothetical country."
It's just interesting, and I hope Britain can treat Muslims as they would any other religion, without special treatment, negative or positive.
I agree with that. I think all religions should have equal weight and eithther they're allowed into the law making process or not.
Now, to be part of British law, though, at least with marriage, divorce and finances, the Muslim law WOULD have to conform to the quality of the sexes that the Western world (at least theoretically) embraces... and that I think would be the thing holding the process up the most. The Muslim clerics/judges would either have to give women the same rights as men or they would have to take rights away from men.
This could work WELL, in that if they choose to give women the rights of men in these instances, then perhaps some of the social injustices that come along to other countries with the immigrating populations would begin to dissolve, but somehow I don't think it would go quite that way.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the entire sharia law in Britain discussion - I don't live there, and like others, I find the idea somewhat frightening, probably because of the world press attention on the barbarity of Muslim traditions.
What I do know, however, is that in a couple of ways, Muslim women had better rights than Christian women for a thousand years. It was in the 9th century that Muslims gave women the right to inherit property and the right to own property, rules that didn't reach Britain until the 19th century. Now I'm not saying that I think that Muslim women are treated equally, because I don't believe that it's true. But it is something to think about, and something that nobody ever hears about because the west is so keen on promoting anti-Islamic views.
I'm not Muslim either, BTW, a Canadian Christian who doesn't attend church, to be precise.
To be honest I think the best solution is to stop having secular marriages - if you want your partnership recognised by the state then you get a civil union, and anything spiritual is between you and your religious leaders, nothing to do with the state.
That way you avoid the potential slippery slope to floggings and amputations, avoid the "religion x can do this but not religion y, that's not fair" problem, and make it an awful lot easier for same sex couple to get legal rights and protection.
Am I the only one more interested in the comments at the end of the article than in the article itself? Because I found those to be incredibly entertaining, since most were posted by angry people who apparently hate Muslims (although there were a few intelligent responses).
As to the article itself, I don't think I have an opinion until I do more research into the topic
Religious Freedom to flog, amputate, burn in a Wicker ManbrockulfsenJanuary 21 2008, 23:13:58 UTC
Obviously every religion should get the same treatment, get one of the nut-job Druid Revivalists or Odinists to point out how he looks forward to full-on Sharia Law, and the same right to impose religious law for other Religions. How being able to burn Moslems as Unbeleivers at the Solstices would be most pleasing to his gods
( ... )
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Also, I am guessing, that a lot of people don't want to open the door to the more extreme punishments of the Islamic law coming into the country, which the interviews show is also a desired result of the integration. Those who spoke in the article really feel that Britian would be better off with floggings and amputations.
Now, I'm not in Britian, but in the US you can get married in any church/religious way you wish so long as you first procure a state marriage lisence and then have the officating clergy sign off on it with witnesses... and divorce, legalities of finances etc are handled only by the state so I know I don't fully undrestand what is going on with the other religions and state integrations... however I'd be wary too of any group that treated women as inferior and favored extreme physical punishments for perpetrators of moral crimes.
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The problem may come when/if the country says "Your religion may hold legal sway so long as it conforms to our current secular law," in which case I imagine many Muslims would balk at that, just like many christians would dislike it if a country said "You may only continue performing legal marriages if you begin to offer same sex marriage, because same sex marriage is now a legal right in our hypothetical country."
It's just interesting, and I hope Britain can treat Muslims as they would any other religion, without special treatment, negative or positive.
Reply
Now, to be part of British law, though, at least with marriage, divorce and finances, the Muslim law WOULD have to conform to the quality of the sexes that the Western world (at least theoretically) embraces... and that I think would be the thing holding the process up the most. The Muslim clerics/judges would either have to give women the same rights as men or they would have to take rights away from men.
This could work WELL, in that if they choose to give women the rights of men in these instances, then perhaps some of the social injustices that come along to other countries with the immigrating populations would begin to dissolve, but somehow I don't think it would go quite that way.
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What I do know, however, is that in a couple of ways, Muslim women had better rights than Christian women for a thousand years. It was in the 9th century that Muslims gave women the right to inherit property and the right to own property, rules that didn't reach Britain until the 19th century. Now I'm not saying that I think that Muslim women are treated equally, because I don't believe that it's true. But it is something to think about, and something that nobody ever hears about because the west is so keen on promoting anti-Islamic views.
I'm not Muslim either, BTW, a Canadian Christian who doesn't attend church, to be precise.
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That way you avoid the potential slippery slope to floggings and amputations, avoid the "religion x can do this but not religion y, that's not fair" problem, and make it an awful lot easier for same sex couple to get legal rights and protection.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080120/ap_on_re_mi_ea/saudi_forced_divorce
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As to the article itself, I don't think I have an opinion until I do more research into the topic
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