Canada "Just Says No" to Shari'a

[unixronin]

Dalton McGuinty, premier of the Canadian provice of Ontario, has ruled against a proposal to allow Moslems to use Shari'a law in family disputes.  "There should be one law for all Ontarians," says McGuinty.

Mr McGuinty said he would introduce "as soon as possible" a law banning all religious arbitration in the province.

Ontario has allowed Catholic and Jewish faith-based tribunals to resolve family disputes on a voluntary basis since 1991.

Mr McGuinty, who had been studying Ms Boyd's report since last December, said he was concerned religious family courts could "threaten our common ground".

He told the Canadian Press news agency: "There will be no Sharia law in Ontario.  There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario.  There will be one law for all Ontarians."

I have long maintained that, contrary to the proverb, when in Rome, you need not necessarily do as the Romans do; however, you're in a damned poor position to complain about the Romans doing as the Romans do.  This is a case where this principle does not apply; while you're not obligated to do as the Romans do when visiting Rome, if you decide to go to Rome to live, you'd damned well better be prepared to comply with their laws, and not expect to be allowed to bring your own with you and declare yourself to be a special case.

No, it's not religious discrimination.  It's the opposite of discrimination: it's called fairness.  Everyone gets to play by the same set of laws.  You don't get to pick and choose which ones you have to comply with based on your own personal religious affiliation.  If you want to choose to comply with additional laws imposed by your religion, so long as they don't conflict with the laws of the land, that's your free choice.

Comments

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

And yet Americans, as a class, seem not to feel that that principle applies to them once they leave their country, especially when they are going to places where religious law is the law of the land, such as in most of the Middle East. American women will dress 'modestly' (by American standards), but will not don the hijab; nor will they accept the requirement of a male escort when out in public, nor the prohibition on driving, and so on.

I also wonder why this is coming up NOW, when Moslems want the same privilege long accorded Christians and Jews - quite frankly, I smell bigotry in the decision, even though the outcome is quite the opposite.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

There's a certain delicious irony in that, frankly -- being compelled to drop special privileges for your own favored group in order to avoid having to give someone else what you've already allowed yourself.

Unfortunately, there's few moral points awarded for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Does this mean that Catholics in Ontario will no longer be allowed to obtain a religious annulment of marriage?

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Why wouldn't they?

It's an above, beyond, and in addition to action. It isn't in place of civil law. Or in Onatrio was it such that one could get a religious annulment and the state would recognize it instead of making you get a civil annulment or divorce?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That's a good question, to which I don't know the answer.

Personally, if -- as so many people claim -- marriage is a religious institution in the eyes of their deity anyway, then (a) I don't think the state has any business either restricting or recognizing it, and (b) it shouldn't carry any particular legal weight as far as obtaining any special benefits. In other words, religious marriage and civil union (for lack of a better term) should be entirely legally disjoint, one should not automatically confer nor require the other, and those to whom religious marriage is sacrosanct can bar whoever they like from sharing in their religion's marriage ceremony but should not be able to place any restrictions upon who may partake of a civil union -- and it should be the civil union, not the religious marriage, that conveys any such things as tax benefits or legal next-of-kin standing.

cymrullewes says that a Catholic marriage annulment requires that you obtain a civil divorce or annulment beforehand anyway; all it does is allow you to remarry in the eyes of the Catholic church, and so, being entirely confined in its effects to what happens within the church, I don't see any particular problem with it. About the only cliflict I can see is if you obtain a divorce and then your church refuses to grant an annulment because your Bishop doesn't think you should have gotten divorced, or something along those lines, leading to a situation where perhaps you want to remarry and your church says you can't; in which case, frankly, I'd consider anyone fully justified in telling their church to butt out and going someplace else.

(I do realize that for many people, choosing between their church and remarriage may not be an easy decision. But then, I really have never comprehended the churchgoing mindset anyway. Organized Western-style religion has never made a whit of sense to me.)