Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on February 11, 2008, 06:49:57 am
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I recently heard about a speech the Archbishop gave on February 7 about how the acceptance of Sharia law in Britain is "inevitable". Any thoughts about this issue or anything related?
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IIRC he wasn't endorsing Shariah, merely stating that it may be inevitable due to demographics and such. But I still fault him for it, because the proper response as a British citizen, much less a high representative of the Church of England, ought to be "not of my ****ing watch!".
edit: is this the same guy who debated Dawkins and constantly retreated his position until he basically ended up agreeing that maybe not every single religious person is necessarily evil, just deluded and ignorant? It was definitely a Brit and a CoE bigwig, but I don't remember if it was this guy specifically.
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His point was that Sharia courts are and should be an accepted part of the legal system for mediating disputes between two willing participants. He wasn't calling for a twin tier system or any of the other bollocks that idiots have been saying he is.
If two Muslims with a dispute decide that they'd rather get a Sharia court to mediate between them than a criminal prosecution how is it anyone else's business?
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Man, **** the Archbishop of Canteberry.
Those are my thoughts. They aren't the most eloquent of thoughts, but they convey the point well I think.
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If two Muslims with a dispute decide that they'd rather get a Sharia court to mediate between them than a criminal prosecution how is it anyone else's business?
Because it fails to address power inequalities in Muslim societies and the coercive effect of the family circle.
Example: Muslim woman is raped by Muslim man. Man wants to be in Sharia court. Woman's family agrees. Woman then has no say.
Common Law has its flaws in criminal matters, but it's a damn sight better than any other alternative. Sharia law has no place in any society that cherishes liberty, equality, and justice. I don't care whether that's their traditional culture or not - you move to a democratic society, you embrace the laws and founding principles of that society.
I'm all for cultural tolerance but when it comes to that unholy mess that is the Sharia law issue, a firm stand needs to be taken and upheld or we risk allowing the principles of justice to take a serious slide. If the implementation of such a system can guarantee the rights of all parties to a fair and unbiased system, then fien - but thus far, we have seen no examples of such an implementation.
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Example: Muslim woman is raped by Muslim man. Man wants to be in Sharia court. Woman's family agrees. Woman then has no say.
Except that in that case we're not talking about both parties agreeing are we? Besides it's not as if the same case would go to criminal court under the current system anyway.
Man, **** the Archbishop of Canteberry.
That tends to be my position on the matter in most things actually.
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Just read this. Now i'm just giving an example of a common problem in SE london, imagine an argument escalated into serious assault, criminal damage and even death. Two muslim gents fighting over a muslim lady on a friday night. IC1's would do time. IC(3 or 4 i forget) would plead shariah law and get a more lenient reprimand surely?
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That should say "i've just read this" at the start, it kind of sounded like a word of command. Apologies for that; and the double post :)
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That tends to be my position on the matter in most things actually.
Hmm, now that I recall it, it seems mine too. (http://kotaku.com/354833/british-pm-gets-arse-kicked-by-his-four-year+old-son#c4141899)
I should probably enhance my vernacular.
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I am a muslim my self and i think that sharia laws are a piece of crap. I mean come on, how the hell can someone follow laws that haven't changed for almost 2000 years. Women are totally defensless in a country that practices sharia laws.
Laws are made to be changed.
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True true. Obviously it's not my place to say how. My stance is if people wan't to live by a legal system which protects them, ie- american or british. Then they should embrace it fully. I'm not saying give up heritage or religion here. Just the legal / judicial system. :)
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I found his predicition quite telling. And I'm getting angrier and angrier when I think about the implications.
If his prediction turns out to be true, this will be a dangerous precedent against any western court systems ("If they get it we can get it too!") and will result to the rule of mob in any uncivilized countries. I.e. this is a reason to get angry, and for a long time it is indeed a good reason. Either our law system applies for everyone or it applies for no-one. Unfortunately, in this case it is pretty much black and white.
As I have said before, when you apply for a nationality in a country, you should pretty much understand that it is you who has to adjust to current law system and culture, not the otherwise around. I cannot even fathom why should this kind of requests be even tolerated or published by media. Kick those people out or make them sit in the school until the lesson is learned. Preferably in in-your-face-style, like "This is the reason you are still in the stone age and this is the reason why we are now constructing towers made of ivory." For further grounds, one could say they are hindering the productivity of others and outsource them from the destination country - this tends to be happening on the corporate level, so why not on personal level?
Besides, law system change requests like these (I recall a poll conducted here which asked Muslims if they preferred Sharia law or the current law and the result was Sharia) make me feel that we have actually given refugee only to the criminals that had money to escape the country, leaving those who actually need the refugee places in the way of harm. Every single person who is actively pushing forward the Sharia law should be kicked out without any remorse. Of course, one has a right to opinion, but when it goes to actively supporting things which undermine the law system, it is pretty much clear what should be done. Also, part of me says that pushing for a law system within the current, democratically supported law system would be a treason at least.
Mika
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I've got to blame our [uk] government as they can be downright idiots. Ie give captain hook a 4x4 and a mansion. In short D'oh. . . :(
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Just read this. Now i'm just giving an example of a common problem in SE london, imagine an argument escalated into serious assault, criminal damage and even death. Two muslim gents fighting over a muslim lady on a friday night. IC1's would do time. IC(3 or 4 i forget) would plead shariah law and get a more lenient reprimand surely?
According to the Daily Mail, yes. According to what the Archbishop was on about, no. What people fail to consider is that Sharia law is already practised in Britain in exactly the way the Archbishop was on about. The British courts already allow religious courts to arbitrate in matters between willing participants of the same faith.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7238890.stm
Here. For those who don't actually understand what's being discussed.
And besides who the **** thinks Sharia law is more lenient? :p
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According to the Daily Mail, yes. According to what the Archbishop was on about, no. What people fail to consider is that Sharia law is already practised in Britain in exactly the way the Archbishop was on about. The British courts already allow religious courts to arbitrate in matters between willing participants of the same faith.
What I, and perhaps others, am saying is that the so-called "willing" participants may not be at all. Any system which simultaneously actively represses the freedoms of certain members (e.g. women) and tries to say it's a responsible even-handed forum is totally full of ****.
It's hard to tell who's willing when coercion plays such a large role in women's lives in a traditional/fundamentalist Muslim family group. I think it is irresponsible for a larger society to allow arbitration or criminal matters to appear before a cultural body when freedom of choice, equality, and justice principles cannot be guaranteed.
I'm not against traditional justice measures entirely; I'm very much in favour of restorative justice initiatives pioneered by aboriginal groups in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. I am firmly opposed to allowing Sharia law a foothold because of the basic status of women in cultures which practice Sharia law. When and if they can transparently demonstrate that women are making the choices to use such a court of their own free will without the coercion of family members then I might reconsider my position.
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Now, I'm as much against the arbitrary imposition of state power as the next guy. Probably more. But when a sizeable minority begins to set up parallel institutions, they become a threat to the very existence of a state. A state is defined by, among others things, a uniform code of justice. One law to rule them all, one law to bind them. If that goes out thw window in a significant way, the role of the nation is subverted and is open to further erosion.
The reason it's OK for, say, Jews or Ba'hai and not for Muslims is not because Shariah is unfair towards women. But rather because Jews are a tiny enough minority in Britain that they can in no way challenge the role of the state, ever. Muslims are a large and growing demographic. Allowing for the use of a parallel legal system only encourages a separatist (anti-assimilationist) mindset. And when one day, a few decades from now, 25% of the population considers itself Muslim before British, or anything before British, you are going to have a very large problem.
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Please defend this Karajorma:
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the bishop of Rochester, warned on January 7 of the spread of "no-go" zones in England that non-Muslims dare not enter. As a result, Nazir-Ali has received death threats against himself and his family and requires protection.
The British authorities will take measures to protect bishops from the threat of violence, but they leave to their own devices thousands of Muslim women. According to a February 2008 report by the Center for Social Cohesion, Islamist groups and individuals frequently link ideas of honor with the welfare of the Muslim world. By using words such as Ird and Namus in a political context, they imply that by protecting the chastity of Muslim women, the security and collective honor of Islam and Muslim states and individuals can also be defended. This politicization of women's bodies helps create an environment where the abuse and control of women is tolerated.
Muslim communities, the report documents, terrorize women who refuse arranged marriages or otherwise break with social norms:
Almost all refuges dealing with Asian women report on the existence of informal networks which exist to track down and punish - with death if necessary - women who are perceived as bringing shame on their family and community. In many cases, women fleeing domestic violence or forced marriages have been deliberately returned to their homes or betrayed to their families by policemen, councilors and civil servants of immigrant origin.
Muslim coercion against women extends to psychiatric hospitals, the Times of London's religion correspondent Ruth Gledhill reported on February 7 (cited in Rod Dreher's indispensable Crunchy Con blog, .) Glenhill quoted a women's rights advocate as follows:
The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing Western clothes. There can be many reasons. The women are sent for assessment to a hospital. The GP [general practitioner] referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned (committed to a psychiatric ward). She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?
That brings us back to the archbishop of Canterbury, who acknowledged the fact of coercion of women in his February 7 address, but insisted that because it belonged to "custom" rather than "religious law", he preferred to change the subject:
Recognition of "supplementary jurisdiction" in some areas, especially family law, could have the effect of reinforcing in minority communities some of the most repressive or retrograde elements in them, with particularly serious consequences for the role and liberties of women. The "forced marriage" question is the one most often referred to here, and it is at the moment undoubtedly a very serious and scandalous one; but precisely because it has to do with custom and culture rather than directly binding enactments by religious authority, I shall refer to another issue.
But honestly, Rictor and MP Ryan do have a point, it is quite detrimental to society when you have a large immigrant minority unwilling to adapt to their new countries practices and customs. If they aren't willing to live in the 21st century I don't see what business they have in a first world nation. Something is wrong when a minority group can get away with making violent threats against anyone who questions their ways.
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Now, I'm as much against the arbitrary imposition of state power as the next guy. Probably more. But when a sizeable minority begins to set up parallel institutions, they become a threat to the very existence of a state. A state is defined by, among others things, a uniform code of justice. One law to rule them all, one law to bind them. If that goes out thw window in a significant way, the role of the nation is subverted and is open to further erosion.
The reason it's OK for, say, Jews or Ba'hai and not for Muslims is not because Shariah is unfair towards women. But rather because Jews are a tiny enough minority in Britain that they can in no way challenge the role of the state, ever. Muslims are a large and growing demographic. Allowing for the use of a parallel legal system only encourages a separatist (anti-assimilationist) mindset. And when one day, a few decades from now, 25% of the population considers itself Muslim before British, or anything before British, you are going to have a very large problem.
So you believe that the Mexican women who had their voting rights removed had to rise up and declare their own suffrage but Muslim women don't? So you believe in the principle of allowing populations to keep their own culture only when it suits the majority?
What makes me laugh is that I doubt anyone actually read the link I posted.
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My thought on the article:
In principle, laws should be understanding enough and religionless enough that disputes can be settled regardless of the person's religion, or even local culture. I'm not talking 'understanding' in a touchy-feely way, but more that the law acknowledges that not everyone thinks the same way or even follows the same principles.
But the point of the law is to be a means of binding people together (yes, insert LOTR quote here) and making it OK to go to another court 'if both parties agree' that follows different laws doesn't seem right at all. If the daughter of one Muslim family chooses to turn her back on Islam and is killed by another Muslim, does that mean that the trial can take place in an Islamic court simply because both parties agree? Would it be right or fair to resolve disputes in a different way based solely on someone's religion?
IMHO, it is a big can of worms that is best left closed. If the laws are unjust enough that it's considered appropriate to set up another independent and state-endorsed judicial branch, then I think that it's probably worth looking into changing the laws that caused the situation to arise in the first place.
Of course that may be a little more Libertarian than what most people actually want.
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Here we go again. Yet another person who thinks this is about a two tier system of justice.
I give up.
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Here we go again. Yet another person who thinks this is about a two tier system of justice.
I give up.
While it may not be that way now, it could potentially evolve into that. Even so, Sharia for civil matters in Britain is just........wrong.
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Here we go again. Yet another person who thinks this is about a two tier system of justice.
I give up.
Oh, I see. I was unaware that the number of tiers in a law system was more important than its morality or fairness.
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Your entire comment about a murder victim was a strawman. And not the first such one on this thread. To do that would be to have a two tier, immoral unfair system. It's not at all what the archbishop was on about.
But some people hear the words Sharia and immediately assume he's saying that Muslims in the UK should be able to behead people.
It's actually pretty sad that even on a board which is supposed to be devoted reasoned discussion of a subject that people can't be bothered to actually figure out what the man was saying before saying he's wrong to say it. :rolleyes:
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I can't believe you're surprised. :P
Happens on the time, everywhere. :(
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Now, I'm as much against the arbitrary imposition of state power as the next guy. Probably more. But when a sizeable minority begins to set up parallel institutions, they become a threat to the very existence of a state. A state is defined by, among others things, a uniform code of justice. One law to rule them all, one law to bind them. If that goes out thw window in a significant way, the role of the nation is subverted and is open to further erosion.
The reason it's OK for, say, Jews or Ba'hai and not for Muslims is not because Shariah is unfair towards women. But rather because Jews are a tiny enough minority in Britain that they can in no way challenge the role of the state, ever. Muslims are a large and growing demographic. Allowing for the use of a parallel legal system only encourages a separatist (anti-assimilationist) mindset. And when one day, a few decades from now, 25% of the population considers itself Muslim before British, or anything before British, you are going to have a very large problem.
Which is why Texas has to drop these stupid anti-immigrant policies that are just forcibly isolating mexican immigrants from the rest of the population. Assimilation must take priority above everything else.
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Now, I'm as much against the arbitrary imposition of state power as the next guy. Probably more. But when a sizeable minority begins to set up parallel institutions, they become a threat to the very existence of a state. A state is defined by, among others things, a uniform code of justice. One law to rule them all, one law to bind them. If that goes out thw window in a significant way, the role of the nation is subverted and is open to further erosion.
The reason it's OK for, say, Jews or Ba'hai and not for Muslims is not because Shariah is unfair towards women. But rather because Jews are a tiny enough minority in Britain that they can in no way challenge the role of the state, ever. Muslims are a large and growing demographic. Allowing for the use of a parallel legal system only encourages a separatist (anti-assimilationist) mindset. And when one day, a few decades from now, 25% of the population considers itself Muslim before British, or anything before British, you are going to have a very large problem.
So you believe that the Mexican women who had their voting rights removed had to rise up and declare their own suffrage but Muslim women don't? So you believe in the principle of allowing populations to keep their own culture only when it suits the majority?
What makes me laugh is that I doubt anyone actually read the link I posted.
He simply thinks other countries shouldn't interfere with what isn't happening on their soil. This, on the other hand, is quite different, cause it's happening inside Britain.
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Assimilation must take priority above everything else
We are the Borg Americans. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.
But seriously what if immigrants in, say Saudi Arabia, demand that they use English common law instead settle disputes? Do you really think the muslim majority would stand for it?
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Assimilation must take priority above everything else
We are the Borg Americans. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.
Your point being? :p
But seriously what if immigrants in, say Saudi Arabia, demand that they use English common law instead settle disputes? Do you really think the muslim majority would stand for it?
Yeah, this image of British docility in my head keeps getting stronger and stronger.
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But seriously what if immigrants in, say Saudi Arabia, demand that they use English common law instead settle disputes? Do you really think the muslim majority would stand for it?
They already do. It's called an out of court settlement.
That's all that is being talked about here. Yet people keep acting like it's referring to criminal cases. :rolleyes:
Again it's all a complete misunderstanding of the point. The correct analogy is would immigrants in Saudi Arabia put up with being told that they couldn't settle disputes amongst themselves and HAD to sue civilly in the Saudi courts?
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God forbid anyone should move over to our country and actually take make an effort to take onboard our beliefs, our values, and integrate into our society.
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There's a difference between integration and insisting that anyone that moves to the UK has give up their entire culture and religion as a result.
And that's before we get to the fact that the majority of people involved were born here What are you going to do? Ape the BNP's suggestion that we should send them back where they came from?
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The British courts already allow religious courts to arbitrate in matters between willing participants of the same faith.
I have difficulties in believing my eyes. Is this really true?
Most of the people have no trouble understanding the article. I think the discussion here is about what this out-of-court settlement system itself says it is or is supposed to be and what it actually is - i.e. the thing the well-known and respected tabloid magazine Daily Mail started. For some reason people don't believe it would be a good idea and the magazine is fishing of this fear or whatever feeling it is. Instead of calling people short-sighted or racistic, it would be a good idea to find out why Western people don't tolerate Muslim sense of court, yes no? And why, apparently, the Muslim world tolerates Western out-of-court settlements inside their countries? Oh, I don't believe racism is the answer here - I believe this is more related to the everyday transactions between common people and what they have experienced there.
Let the people who know something about this speak it out now.
Mika
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I'm inclined to believe that a country should be ruled under a single rule of law and thats how it works when you come here. Doesn't matter who you are...there are reasonably sufficient ways of modifying and changing the current laws of the land to adapt to the times that there is absolutely no need to have things change to a two tier system or a slightly more informal two parties agree kind of system.
It does seem like Muslims are in the news allot locally and internationally and this seems to be happening allot in the western world be it France or the US or Canada or elsewhere. A few weeks back a teenage girl living in Toronto was killed by her father for not wearing a headscarf to school...at least thats how the story has been framed...probably more to the story but its definitely been framed as a Muslim issue. It makes even the most tolerant Canadians a bit wary...and I imagine some of the same questions and emotions are running through people in the UK as well.
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They already do. It's called an out of court settlement.
But what if they want a seperate civil court that uses English Common Law?
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There's a difference between integration and insisting that anyone that moves to the UK has give up their entire culture and religion as a result.
And that's before we get to the fact that the majority of people involved were born here What are you going to do? Ape the BNP's suggestion that we should send them back where they came from?
OK, let's say this is merely on the level of an out-of-court settlement. Still, if a significant part of the population does not trust the legal system enough to settle disputes using it, does that not point to a segregationist mentality? Doesn't their preference for alternate methods de-legitimize the very concept of national law? If everyone else lives under set of rules, and a community of people quite politely, quite consensually set up institutions to replace them, is that not a problem?
This isn't a few Mennonites with funny hats we're talking about. It's 5-20% of almost every major EU country. Probably 15-30% in two decades.
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Europe is being overrun. :(
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It's actually pretty sad that even on a board which is supposed to be devoted reasoned discussion of a subject that people can't be bothered to actually figure out what the man was saying before saying he's wrong to say it. :rolleyes:
I know exactly what he's driving at, and I'm still saying that he, and others who are willing to concede the use of Sharia law for private settlements between "willing participants" are missing out on the fact that Muslim fundamentalists most likely to use such a system will not reat any female parties involved fairly.
This was a huge issue in Ontario within the past two years, and after some serious research and immense public backlash the Ontario Provincial government shoved through a bill that totally and absolutely quashed any notion of the use of religious legal institutions for that very reason - the problem of equality in a culture in which gender equality is even worse than your typical Western country.
Legal settlements should not, under any circumstances, have a basis in anything but secular law. To allow otherwise is to create opportunities for silent miscarriages of justice among a population in which plenty already do occur due to the silence of victims and their families.
I brought up restorative justice initiatives earlier (as did the Archbishop in his remarks) and it should be noted that they follow secular principles and are derived from a society in which women were not treated as "lower" than men. Restorative justice is far different from the idea of Sharia law (properly implemented restorative justice results in a two-tier system, for one), and the fact that the Archbishop would even begin to compare the two makes it quite evident that he has not done his homework.
Religion has no place in the legal system under any circumstances, which is also why we need to get to work excising the various leftovers of religious moral codes from criminal law, which still has a great deal of meddlesome "save the sinner" legislation that has no place as a criminal statute.
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Your entire comment about a murder victim was a strawman. And not the first such one on this thread. To do that would be to have a two tier, immoral unfair system. It's not at all what the archbishop was on about.
But some people hear the words Sharia and immediately assume he's saying that Muslims in the UK should be able to behead people.
It's actually pretty sad that even on a board which is supposed to be devoted reasoned discussion of a subject that people can't be bothered to actually figure out what the man was saying before saying he's wrong to say it. :rolleyes:
Don't try to tell me what my comment was or wasn't when you clearly don't have the foggiest of where I'm coming from. (Either that, or you're intentionally misunderstanding me... :lol:)
I did read the news article you posted, and I saw very little that was relevant to the current discussion; the article did not discuss what would end up being changed at all.
For that matter, I never stated that he was wrong to say it. :rolleyes: All I did was express the views that I felt were pertinent. I never passed judgments on the statements or on the proposed changes, I simply stated what I agreed with and what I didn't agree with, in extremely generalized terms.
If you expect a reasoned discussion on the subject, you need to actually try to understand what people are saying, rather than jump to conclusions and stuff words in people's mouths. There is no way to have a reasonable discussion when I say that exploiting legal loopholes to get a lighter penalty for murder is wrong, and you respond by acting as if I'm saying that freedom of speech needs to be oppressed.
I don't have any clue what, exactly, the archbishop was suggesting would be added beyond "Civil codes", and I don't think anybody in this thread knows anything any more concrete than that. Hell I doubt he himself knows exactly what that would mean; it sounds more like an off-the-cuff opinion based on his knowledge and research, rather than a coherent plan of action to integrate Sharia civil codes into British legal infrastructure. So I don't see why you're going out of your way to accuse people of being just short of ignorant bigots for stating their general opinion on the subject, when nobody at all is qualified to discuss the specifics.
Given the liberal leaning of this board, I'd imagine that most people wouldn't be opposed to third-party arbitration for disputes that really only involved two people. But I think you'll find that there are a lot of 'private' disputes whose resolution would have an impact on non-Muslims, but who wouldn't technically be part of the case. If a business or a business owner is involved, what say do his customers get? If a man takes his wife to court for infidelity, does the lover get any say? What if Sharia civil code demands that the lover suffer some penalty? What if the religious civil code requires a punishment that's in violate of British law? What if someone is essentially forcced into attending the court based on social pressure? What if someone is treated unfairly because the system does not have the same built-in protections against abuse as the British judicial system (What those safeguards might be, I don't know).
What if the case involves a minor?
The key problem is that the reason behind setting the new laws into motion is that they would conflict with the legal system today. If that's true, you've basically got the state contradicting itself on the basis of religion - which doesn't seem fair at all. (Who gets to use the courts? Why do Muslims get their own court but not anyone else? Etc etc.)
Rewrite 'court' with 'third-party arbitration' if you see it as more appropriate. But so long as it operates due to a consistent set of rules, and acts like a court, and has the same authority as a (low-level) court, I don't see how you can claim that it's radically different from, well, what it is. For marital issues, it does make some sense, or at least it would if the situation is like here in the States - where the church has a strong influence over the institution of marriage (Maybe too strong - but that's another discussion entirely).
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The British courts already allow religious courts to arbitrate in matters between willing participants of the same faith.
I have difficulties in believing my eyes. Is this really true?
Yes it does, So do the Canadian courts to almost exactly the same degree and it wouldn't surprise me given the high Jewish population if it exists in the US. That's why I find this entire debate so funny. It's people debating that the Archbishop was wrong to say that something shouldn't be brought in that already exists.
Now if you want to tell me that we should only have one law I want to hear people saying that Beth Din courts should be closed down too. Otherwise it's simply picking on Muslims.
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Yes, religious institutions may arbitrate. It's not at all the same thing as pronouncing judgement on or sentencing anyone. I agree that what Williams was suggesting was not that Shariah law may be substituted for British law... but the whole thing certainly came out that way to thuneducated masses. Regardless of his intent, he can now add this poorly worded spittle to his record, whose past deeds include:
From http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/02/rowan-williams.html:
In 2005, he attacked the internet and web-based media for playing host to free discussion of views close to, as he put it, "unpoliced conversation". Oh no! Unpoliced!
In 2003, he admitted having discriminated against Freemasons and declared that their beliefs were incompatible with Christianity (he later apologised).
In 2002, he wrote that “Every transaction in the developed economies of the West can be interpreted as an act of aggression against the economic losers in the worldwide game”.
In the same book, he wrote in reference to removing the Taliban that acting in defence of others was contrary to Jesus' call to "turn the other cheek" and argued that the 9/11 hijackers lacked the freedom we have to "consider whether or not we turn to violence".
Whatever his intentions may have been, pontificating on even the most minimal acceptance or integration of Shariah, an openly barbaric system of practices if not law, especially by someone so high up the ecclesiastical tree, is always going to provoke this kind of response in a country whose historic system of law is so diametrically opposed.
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Now if you want to tell me that we should only have one law I want to hear people saying that Beth Din courts should be closed down too.
Sounds good to me.
Personally, I'd just throw a copy of Leviathan in Dr Williams' general direction and hope some of it manages to be absorbed.
But that's just me and I hate religious based legal systems - no grey areas.
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Yes, religious institutions may arbitrate. It's not at all the same thing as pronouncing judgement on or sentencing anyone. I agree that what Williams was suggesting was not that Shariah law may be substituted for British law... but the whole thing certainly came out that way to thuneducated masses. Regardless of his intent, he can now add this poorly worded spittle to his record, whose past deeds include:
From http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2008/02/rowan-williams.html:
In 2005, he attacked the internet and web-based media for playing host to free discussion of views close to, as he put it, "unpoliced conversation". Oh no! Unpoliced!
In 2003, he admitted having discriminated against Freemasons and declared that their beliefs were incompatible with Christianity (he later apologised).
In 2002, he wrote that “Every transaction in the developed economies of the West can be interpreted as an act of aggression against the economic losers in the worldwide game”.
In the same book, he wrote in reference to removing the Taliban that acting in defence of others was contrary to Jesus' call to "turn the other cheek" and argued that the 9/11 hijackers lacked the freedom we have to "consider whether or not we turn to violence".
Which is why I said that usually I don't give a damn about what the man has to say. :D But I think this media circus over a single remark that obviously didn't mean what they were presenting it as is ridiculous.
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Yes it does, So do the Canadian courts to almost exactly the same degree and it wouldn't surprise me given the high Jewish population if it exists in the US. That's why I find this entire debate so funny. It's people debating that the Archbishop was wrong to say that something shouldn't be brought in that already exists.
I still find it difficult to believe. It is actually even worse than I imagined. How in the hell did you get into this sad state of affairs? Of course, the rest of such councils should be booted. How many separate court systems (here I count it even if it is only arbitrating) do there exist in UK or USA?
Mika