While I am not actually frightened I am concerned and I think that others should be as well. My source certainly has an opinion but this doesn't mean that their information is wrong. All of the punishments listed are acceptable under some interpretations of Sharia.
And slavery is acceptable under some interpretations of Christian Law. So what?
We're talking about something specific. And for reasons I've given and I'm just waiting for formal concession on, the corporal punishments are not part of Canadian law.
How do you go about changing the requirements for a women to seek a divorce under Sharia law?
No need. Variety in said requirements already exists, so pick your poison. But if you must know how you can do it - just become an Islamic scholar and say it is so and your job is done.
The alternative is for the government to concern itself with laws that apply to everybody in the country.
That's not an alternative, it is already the case. Also, the government doesn't 'concern itself' with Sharia Law, it just says 'if you want to settle certain disputes using it, you are free to do so {within limits}'.
The point is that there are 2 sets of laws and that is ridiculous
My point is that there are not 2 sets of laws, so it is not ridiculous. There's just the Arbitration Act {or its equivalent, your country may vary}. Different mediators will mediate on different principles. The proposal is to allow religious principles to be used. Both parties agree ahead of time what principles are being used, which person or persons they want to act as mediator/arbitrator and agree to be bound by the decisions. By law, an appeal can be made to civil courts if there is standing to so.
Is allowing people the freedom to choose their mediators such a terrible thing? Is limiting freedom here worth it, just because the dominant culture doesn't generally like something it read in the papers or saw on TV?
What people do is their own business as long as it does not contravene the standing law that should apply to everyone.
That's what the Ontario Attorney General suggested and you complained about it (
Message 136)! Now I'm utterly perplexed as to what your problem with their position is! Have you read what the Attorney General was proposing yet?
Enshrining some weird religious beliefs in secular law is like injecting someone with an incurable disease.
Fine. But since this isn't happening I don't know why you bring it up.
What I understand about Sharia law is enough for me to reject it out of hand.
Great! Guess what? You are free to do so!
And if someone else has an understanding of it that means they accept it, then that's their business as free adults, right?
Do you want to reduce freedom by saying people can't live by Sharia rulings if they so choose?
I think that this is an excellent point and I am not sure how we should address it but I don't think that instant capitulation under the name of tolerance is the answer.
What capitulation? Allowing people to arbitrate their communal and familial problems in their own way if they want and providing legal oversight, certain rights, and avenues of appeal? How is that capitulating? Seems to me it's being proactive and 'handling' it. Capitulating would be to let it go on and be essentially self-regulated, allowing the older male Muslims of communities complete latitude to say what they want and rule how it advantages themselves, with no transparency whatsoever.
We have our standards of equality and principals of law for a reason.
And they still exist, and Muslim women can utilize them if they so choose, or not as they wish. Just like you have a right to remain silent upon being arrested, but you can waive that. As you can waive your right to representation if you are deemed a competent adult. So to can you waive your rights to equitable {by our standards} distribution of finances in divorce proceedings, if you want.
That is to say - you have a right to not exercise your rights.
If my wife cheated on me and assaulted me, I have a right to a divorce. And the right to continue the marriage. My choice, right? I could divorce my wife and agree to give her all of my money and property in exchange for the cat, if I so chose to do so. I could go to a mediator who overvalues feline assets, and believes women are better with money and men better caregivers, who might decide to rule this. I could appeal, depending on laws, on the grounds of it not being in the interests of the animal's welfare - or I could choose to accept the ruling.
My choice!
Those women are clearly in a crap position if they find that worth celebrating, but that's how it is. I prefer to have regulatory oversight and the requirement for documentation and legal avenues for disputing rulings clearly being communicated to all parties, the allowance of legal representation and encouraging those kinds of avenues than the coathanger-in-the-alley equivalent which I would suggest is more harmful to women.
This is like the abused women saying that she does not want to press charges because sometimes he is really nice.
Those women are clearly in a crap position if they find that worth celebrating, but that's how it is.
I agree that we need to keep this behaviour out in the light but I don't think that we should excuse it or accept it.
I guess I'm a fan of letting consenting adults choose how to live as long as it is within the law. I don't think that is excusing it. It is accepting it, I suppose, but not without criticism, of course.
I mean, Arbitration is more of a grey area in the USA than in the UK it seems - but it exists. And religious arbitration exists. There is Peacemaker
Ministries whose mission is to glorify God by helping people to resolve disputes". They state they do about 100 arbitrations a year (
Religious Arbitration in the United States and Canada, Nicholas Walter, 2012) and have led at least
one group astray when they were involved in arbitrating over two child abuse claims.
quote:
...we unwisely used a Peacemaker model for conflict resolution. This resulted, put them on an equal plane — get the log out of your eye, get the log out of your eye, go for the speck, go for the speck — this resulted in the victim’s family being corrected when they should have been gently cared for as sufferers.
A
blog post with lots of links about it.
Beth Din in America mediates about 400 family matters and a 100 commercial matters (Walter, 2012). They don't generally advise people they have a right to legal representation, and bringing a lawyer to a Jewish court can be considered bad taste.
quote:
In D. G. v. J. G.,' 4 1 the threat of a siruv was imposed in a proceeding involving, among other issues, the delivery of a get. Ms. G.'s testimony revealed that she initially refused to sign the arbitration agreement because she was solely interested in procuring a get from the process, and wanted to deal with the financial divorce is- sues in a secular court proceeding that she had already commenced. A letter was issued to her from the beth din that a siruv {shunning} would be set out against her if she did not withdraw the civil court proceedings for spousal support. Realistically speaking, if Ms.G. wanted a get, she would not have cooperation from the beth din if she ignored the siruv. By this vehicle, the beth din managed to pressure her into entering binding arbitration without implicating Mr. G. at all. If Mr. G. committed duress in forcing her to go to the beth din by threatening to withhold a get, the arbitration agreement would be invalid. These actions by the beth din, however, do not constitute duress. The disparate result is based on who imposes the duress, here it was not the beth din itself, it was thus demonstrating how the implementation of the law to this new area can run counter to common sense notions of justice.
The Collision of Church and State: A Primer to Beth Din Arbitration and the New York Secular Courts, Ginnine Fried, Fordham Urban Law Journal, 2003
This has been going on
for considerable time!
Are you proposing to single out Islam, or just ban all religious arbitration from having any legal standing?
My neighbour can beat his wife quietly in the dark but he better not let me see him doing it.
Sure, but then assault is a criminal offence, so is entirely irrelevant to this particular discussion.
I get this but the first sentence from your quote is enough for me to dismiss it as anything that I could get behind.
I'm not asking you to accept Sharia law, just understand it and its interaction with secular governments. I suggest you read the rest of it. I think you'll find the author, The Rt Hon. The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers KG PC, is not a Muslim and doesn't actually believe that Sharia is the actual law of God, he's just describing it to an audience of Muslims and is clearly adopting their perspective for rhetorical purposes.
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