No Need for Separate Legal Systems

Agree with Prof. Giles to keep a clear speration between State and church in the US-but not Cheney/Bush style!! US constitution does that if not abused:it sperates and protects religion-unlike some "Muslim" states such as Kamalist Turkey where religion is oppressed and vanished altoghter and where a form of militaristic secularism is the religion and not a western style democracy-also in Tunisia.

In saudi arabia,it's tribalism and fuedalism rather than Islam that reigns-except for rituals and worship, while a tribal herditory regime has an absolute rule based not on Shariah but on total monopoly over the means of violence.

"Honor Killings" or crimes of passion & "Female genital mutilation" have absolutely nothing to do with Islam-these are cultural variants,the former even takes place in western countries as a "crime of passion" and the later is an animist African practice-no where do such terms exist anywhere in Muslim legal litreature or tradition.

Christians in Arab states have had their own denominiational courts and laws from the days of the Prophet in Medina as people of the book-which do not conflict with state laws,which states are presently more secular than Islamic thou secular/civil law is built into Shariah.

Thou there are some 1.6 billion Muslims in the world-Islamic law is rarely upheld:it is either confined to a tightly cenored mosques or restricted to family status issues such as marraige,inheritence etc...

East is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.

Georgetown is a Roman Catholic establishment. There must be learned theologians thereabouts. I've been trying to get an answer to a question regarding law -not all that different to Shariah law. Maybe you or someone there at Georgetown can give me an answer?

How many times must robbed merchandise/money need to change hands before it no longer belongs to it's original owner(s)?

Case in point. The Conquistadors murdered and robbed native Americans. They removed boat loads of gold, silver, and other valuables bringing it to Spain, (some got re-robbed by the English). We know there is a church in Spain that boasts a solid gold altar.

Don't you think it's a bit unholsome to sacrifice the son of God on an altar made of gold drenched in innocent blood? Don't you expect Devil just loves the idea of sacrificing the son of God? Don't you imagine Devil made the Conquistadors do that and the church accept the loot as 'gifts to God.'

Yep. http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul kinda explains it all. Moses beat the murder rap by doing a big deal with the biggest Devil of them all, Lucifer.

I really hope that's not so but no one seems to have anything except faith to counter. So while we're pondering the end of democracy, ecumenical so the pope can make/approve all laws and bring the Muslim brethren on board maybe we should ask just which supernatural being Muhammad made his deal with. Don't you or anyone else at Georgetown think?

I agree with Mr. Gillis's calm and rational analysis.

But the voices of reason on accommodation with Islam should not blind us to the larger issue, toward which we so far have chosen to turn a blind eye. That is the question of how many Muslims a Western society can comfortably accommodate at any one time, given the undeniable fact that Islam (and the Shariah) as currently practiced is incompatible with Western liberal democracies.

I suggest that the furor over the Archbishop's proposal shows that Great Britain is already behind the curve in dealing with that problem. We Americans need to face the fact: the fewer Muslims we have in the United States at any one time, the better off we will be.

Sometimes profane people decide in a topic but it may be very harmful for all humanbeings. In this case, universal moral laws may help us. From where can learn these? I think the religions as Islam, Judaism and Christinaity give moral stipulations and these are may be helpful for ones who don't know where is the truth. Because the present picture of west in particular doesn't look like very hopeful, yours sincerely...

unverm@omu.edu.tr

If anyone understands the inherent dangers of theocracy, it should be a Catholic. The world still shudders with fear and revulsion at the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, rampant Antisemitism, torture, extortion, bribery, murder and political intrigue during Roman Catholic rule in Europe. It was no less toxic than Nazism, but far more insane by virtue of the fact that it was all done in the name of Jesus Christ.

"Canon Law affects only practicing Catholics. Choose to reject Canon Law and you simply make yourself not a Roman Catholic"

Hmmm, I'm a Roman Catholic, but If I choose not to obey canon law, I do not make myself non-Catholic. I will still attend Mass and take communion when and whenever I want to. Who's going to stop me?

This claim that Muslim courts in Britain would somehow be able to claim jurisdiction over, and impose an enforceable judgment against, non-Muslims cries out for a citation from some unbiased source. Otherwise it is no more than a straw-man argument.

Obviously no rational secular society would permit such a thing, nor would any rational person of any faith espouse it. Nobody would willingly allow themselves to be judged according to some other faith's moral code.

The realistic issue here is whether co-religionists could voluntarily take ordinary civil disputes before a legal tribunal that follows their mutual religious beliefs. We are not talking about mandated loss of life, limb or liberty. Such sanctions must always be reserved to the larger secular society operating under a shared body of secular law.

As a liberal Christian, I stress "shared, secular law" because there's another way, besides setting up a completely parallel legal system, in which the law could be hijacked by religionists.

Namely, secular law could be co-opted by those selfsame religionists. For example, Prof. Gillis mentions that Catholics, if they wish to obey their faith's dictates, must abjure abortions -- and they may do this freely without violating civil law. So far, so good.

But then he fails to acknowledge the Catholic Church's decades-long efforts to write their beliefs into secular law so that all non-Catholics would have to adhere to an alien theology or suffer severe consequences.

Efforts like these, to enshrine particular religious beliefs within a secular code of law, represent a much more tangible and imminent danger to American jurisprudence than all this fearmongering about Sharia and parallel legal systems.

"Muslims themselves apply sharia to their own community and do not impose it on non-Muslims,..."

An unmentioned problem is that the "Muslim community's" courts in Britain will undertake to determine who is a Muslim subject to the Muslim court's jurisdiction, and who is not, even over and against the will of the individuals involved in a particularly controversy.

A person who considers himself not to be a Muslim may be determined to be one by a Muslim court and subjected to its jurisdiction.

How, Archbishop Rowan, does that square with traditional British liberties and the civil law?

"permission to be absent from public school on certain Muslim holy days "

Wow, what a way to overcomplicate something... Just do it like a lot of private companies... Everyone gets x days of 'excused' absence. Paid time off, so to speak... When those days are taken are up to the pupil/parents, and any tasking scheduled for those days is worked out amongst the teachers/pupils.... No religious holiday need be 'observed' or 'respected' or given special status.

Four or five days per year out of school for socializing wit family and community, observing sacred traditions, is hardly going to lead to a life of certain ignorance. It's actually a more holistic approach to education...
Neutrality/secularism is much, much easier than some here are trying to make it..

If Sharia were only religious law obligatory to Muslims, there would be no need to discuss accommodating it to any civil or criminal law codes anywhere. As long as the only people subject to the law were adherents to the law, except where the law requires behavior that violates external law, (Like Mormon Polygamy) they may have any law they like.

The desires to "accommodate" Sharia, however, seek to give Muslims the ability to impose Sharia on non Muslims.

"Muslims themselves apply sharia to their own community and do not impose it on non-Muslims, though the law has some stipulations for non-Muslims who live in countries where sharia is normative."

That is the problem, because the radical conservative leaders of Islam seek to install Sharia where it is NOT normative. Thus Muslim women in non Muslim countries don't have all of the rights they might otherwise have in those countries. Women who violate family rules in Sharia are sanctioned, even up to "Honor Killings" in countries where such killings are properly capital murder. female genital mutilation is imposed, where possible, even in the United States, where it ought never to happen. It is justified as "That is our culture" and therefore to be accepted in place of U. S. law.

Those who seek to impose Sharia ought to stay where Sharia is already imposed.

Claiming that Sharia is somehow analogous to Roman Canon Law is disingenuous. Canon Law affects only practicing Catholics. Choose to reject Canon Law and you simply make yourself not a Roman Catholic. There is no temporal consequence. An excommunicate is barred access to the Church and the Sacraments, but is otherwise free to behave as he chooses. (We won't argue the non temporal consequences. Catholics believe they know what those are. those who study Catholicism also know what they are. The non cognoscenti don't, and don't care. NO TEMPORAL CONSEQUENCE.)

Muslims may follow their religion until the point where a Muslim authority tells my daughter she may not go swimming in the pool two houses from his Mosque in a normal bathing suit, or with men and boys. And it is the accommodation to permit them to do that that those who seek to permit Sharia to function along with secular law seek.

No, no accommodation. They may live according to their law, but leave me totally out of it.