I would oppose their marriages being incorporated into civil law, this has not been done for jewish marriages, we all have to sign a civil register, but there should be no problem registering a mosque for marriages any more than there should be at a hotel or stately home. there is no legal issue with this, everyone still has to go through the civil registration and administration process the same way. the issue with divorce, however, is that if the object of divorce is to free the partners from each other, that *cannot* be accomplished in practice without a *religious* divorce. a civil divorce should not be granted without a viable religious divorce, because that would lead and has led to compulsion on the part of one because they are not actually free in reality despite the state’s interest in it being over.

I am still working this all out for myself; and I would look forward to a blog from you on this issue.

This demo is not opposing the AM style mass imposition of Sharia but the existence of Shariah courts.

in which case, i cannot support it. to try and abolish them is an infringement of civil liberties insofar as they relate to private, consenting alternative arbitration, just as jewish batei din, relate and ACAS do. furthermore, it would be impossible to ban them, they would just go underground, just as batei din would if they were outlawed – in fact i would suggest that outlawing batei din woul probably mean i and a lot of other jews would have to leave the country if there was nobody that could be trusted to ensure, for example that meat was kosher, which is no more controversial than the ISO being able to certify whether an organisation is compliant with its 9000 standard, for example.

I would actually make all legal marriages a matter of “popping down the local town hall.” Equally, the same secular character of divorce should legally prevail.

i would oppose their marriages being incorporated into civil law, this has not been done for jewish marriages, we all have to sign a civil register, but there should be no problem registering a mosque for marriages any more than there should be at a hotel or stately home. there is no legal issue with this, everyone still has to go through the civil registration and administration process the same way. the issue with divorce, however, is that if the object of divorce is to free the partners from each other, that *cannot* be accomplished in practice without a *religious* divorce. a civil divorce should not be granted without a viable religious divorce, because that would lead and has led to compulsion on the part of one because they are not actually free in reality despite the state’s interest in it being over.

in france, everyone, including christians, have to have two ceremonies. if that were the case here, then fair enough, but it isn’t. the fact that christians can sign their register in church with a civilly registered official present is a matter of convenience to all (not that that has ever mattered to the french state) and if others are to be prevented from doing so on spurious grounds (which would also mean the inability to hold civil wedding ceremonies in hotels, for example) that is an unacceptable intrusion of the state into what we all agree is a private affair.

it is, perhaps, something i should consider blogging about myself.

b’shalom

bananabrain

I am a secularist and I do not support the right of any religious group to special favour under law (save in terms of their reasonable protection as Believers to worship freely and without let or hindrance).

I would actually make all legal marriages a matter of “popping down the local town hall.” Equally, the same secular character of divorce should legally prevail. If one wants to affirm one’s faith with a religious marriage or divorce, that is one’s own private affair. It should not be of interest to the state in general.

Such is the case in France, for Christians, Jews, Muslims, tree-huggers and worshippers of earth, wind, fire, or water. It does not seem to concern unduly the faith of Believers of any stripe in France – why should it be of such concern in the United Kingdom – almost uniquely, in fact?

Religion is best a private matter – it is not a concern of the state; save its duties to preserve the peace and protect the citizenry from persecution or oppression on the bases of their reasonable and held beliefs, practices or origins.

Where I write of reasonable and held beliefs, practices or origins – I mean, loosely, those items that do not harm others in their activities or service. Others may reject (or even find objectionable on moral or other grounds) one’s beliefs, practices or (even) origins – but toleration demands that unless these items can be shown to effectively harm others that these items must be allowed. Of course, this cuts both ways: opposition to such items must not be allowed to veer into persecution, oppression or the preaching of hatred of the Other.

As far as I am aware – and please correct me if I am wrong – most Muslim groups in the UK are merely calling for Islamic marriage/divorce rituals to be incorporated into British law. This would mean that the Nikkah ceremony would suffice for Muslim couples wishing to get married – ie, they wouldn’t have to pop down to the local town hall afterwards to get a civil ceremony done.

Furthermore, many Muslims object to the twisted, totalitarian interpretation of Shari’a that is being aggressively pushed by Islamists.

Until Shariah can be formulated into one codified corpus that *ALL MUSLIMS IN BRITAIN* agree to comply with, Shariah courts should not be allowed to practice.

Most Muslims consider the Shari`ah, commonly translated as ‘Islamic law’, to be divine. Yet, there is nothing divine about the Shari`ah. The only thing that can legitimately be described as divine in Islam is the Qur’an. The Shari`ah is a human construction; an attempt to understand the divine will in a particular context. This is why the bulk of the Shari`ah actually consists of fiqh or jurisprudence, which is nothing more than legal opinion of classical jurists. The very term fiqh was not in vogue before the Abbasid period when it was actually formulated and codified. But when fiqh assumed its systematic legal form, it incorporated three vital aspects of Muslim society of the Abbasid period. At that juncture, Muslim history was in its expansionist phase, and fiqh incorporated the logic of Muslim imperialism of that time. The fiqh rulings on apostasy, for example, derive not from the Qur’an but from this logic. Moreover, the world was simple and could easily be divided into black and white: hence, the division of the world into Daral Islam and Daral Harb. Furthermore, as the framers of law were not by this stage managers of society, the law became merely theory which could not be modified – the framers of the law were unable to see where the faults lay and what aspect of the law needed fresh thinking and reformulation. Thus fiqh, as we know it today, evolved on the basis of a division between those who were governing and set themselves apart from society and those who were framing the law; the epistemological assumptions of a ‘golden’ phase of Muslim history also came into play. When we describe the Shari`ah as divine, we actually provide divine sanctions for the rulings of by-gone fiqh.

from: Ziauddin Sardar, Rethinking Islam

http://www.islamfortoday.com/sardar01.htm

Not a Muslim Group, but how about the the ministry of Communities and Local Government under John Denham?

OK, that was a joke (partially), but following Denham’s latest pronouncement, I think it’s more important than ever to go the “One Law For All” rally this Saturday.

Also, who decides what “universal rights” are? Are they the same as the UNs deceleration of Human Rights?