Well, at least they're protesting it.

quote:

The provincial government is considering the use of sharia in settling Muslim family disputes such as divorce. Opponents see it as a threat to women's rights and want to maintain a clear separation of church and state.

Ontario has allowed Catholic and Jewish tribunals to settle family law matters on a voluntary basis since 1991. The practice got little attention until Muslim leaders demanded the same rights.

Now officials must decide whether to exclude one religion, or scrap the whole idea of religious family courts.

I�m not quite clear what it means to allow Catholic and Jewish tribunals to settle family law matters? Does that mean that, say, divorce decrees and custody issues handled by these tribunals are recognized by the state? Without delving deeper into the implications, at least from a conservative point of view, this seems to be a very good thing. And such practices probably work fairly well because Judeo-Christian customs and practices are quite consistent between these religions and state laws. (Because we are, after all, Judeo-Christian cultures for the most part.) But one can see the difficulties that crop up if, say, Mormons start settling family law matters by engaging in bigamy. And, of course, you�ll run into the same culture problems with Islamic practices. Neither of these are good fits in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

One can see how, logically, we might, in the interest of justice, have to pull back a bit and decide some of these issues (such as what is a legal marriage and punishments for adultery) via the consensus decision of the legislatures of the state as guided by, and limited by, such constitutional structures such as the U.S. Constitution�s "bill of rights".

What we�ve seen in reality, though, in the west is quite a different thing. We�ve seen outright hostility toward Judeo-Christian values and the elevation of other values. This elevation is done because is either serves nefarious notions of multiculturalism, is a way to act out the self-hate of one�s culture, or both. Perhaps the rise of Islamic fundamentalism will slow this self-destructive tendency of western liberals (although I don�t hold out much hope for the true leftists). Islamo-fascism could stop or slow the persecution and demonization of the Judeo-Christian ethic as the left is faced with having to legally address Islamic culture. They might then see that those Judeo-Christians had an awful lot right to begin with.

Well, at least they're protesting it.

Good point. I was a bit surprised by that as well. I didn�t think anyone cared or dared anymore � at least in those regions.

The squeaky wheel still gets the grease. It doesn�t take much, particularly in Canada, for the left to find an excuse, legitimate or otherwise, to try to role back the influence of people of faith and to harden the influence of leftist ideology in government.

What is surprising to me is to see how Muslims work the system with the same skill, cynicism, and aggression as any other special interest group, particularly matching the skill and temerity of those on the left.

One might wonder how a pluralistic culture could exist for any length of time if it can and must accommodate factions who have the very destruction of that plurality as a goal. When we see changes such as this occurring I think it is right to wonder whether it is a sign of the destruction of our democracy or a sign of the strength and flexibility of it as it bobs and weaves to accommodate even the anti-democratic constituency of large elements of Islam.

Ostensibly this whole issue is about Muslims obtaining the same rights as Catholics and Jews. Do I believe that the majority of Christians who want the Ten Commandments displayed on government buildings also have as their ultimate goal a Christian theocracy? No. Not at all. That�s not what they want. That�s not what they specifically invented as a government just over two hundred years ago. They had their chance and they did not do it because that is not what they wanted. But do I think Muslims have that as their ultimate goal? Yes, I do, at least among the activist Muslims. And it seems the rank and file Muslims probably wouldn�t object because they typically don�t and haven�t loudly objected to radicals amongst them. So this is all, at least in my mind, an instance of Muslims finding a loophole and exploiting it. And because some Muslim family practices are so atrocious that even reasonable democratic people understand that that the nature of fairness and law means that what is good for one has to be good for another, so there seems little choice but to revoke the apparently long-held practices (and seemingly harmless ones?) of Christians and Jews to accommodate this challenge by exploitive and opportunistic Islamic activists.

I agree. Radical, and politically-inclined Muslims have gained a victory in Canada via the weakening of Christian and Jewish influence in civil and political life.