I’m overjoyed at the news that Ontario will NOT be going ahead with a plan to allow Islamic Sharia law to be used to settle family disputes. Moreover, all faith-based arbitrations will now be ended. In the words of Premier Dalton McGuinty, he’ll make the boundaries between church and state clearer by banning faith-based arbitrations.
Religious leaders will squawk unpleasantly, howl outrageously, and spit venemously. But I have news for these people:
1—Religion has a terrible track record of dispensing justice. Centuries of inquisitions, burning, stonings, pogroms, fatwas and excommunications are more than ample proof that religions are not interested in justice, but in punishment, humiliation, and social control;
2—The current climate in the United States, with rising fundamentalist religious thought reverbrating all the way to the Supreme Court, is a cautionary tale of what happens when religion becomes too powerful, and the separation of Church and State begins to blur. This is a path Canadians should avoid;
3—It may not be perfect, but our legal system is not only something to admire, but to cherish. The only faith that matters in a case of law and justice is faith in the criminal code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such laws apply to ALL citizens, fairly & equally, regardless of background. Religion isn’t concerned with equality rights and freedoms…it is simply concerned with protecting its own precepts and power base. As Homa Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant who has launched a campaign to stop sharia in Ontario, says very bluntly and very accurately:
“Women’s rights are not protected by any religion.”
Faith is a powerful force in the lives of many people…but it’s not a substitute for the rational, dispassionate work of courts and judges. We don’t live in the 16th century…we live in the 21st…and the sooner those of us who long for a harsher, simpler time of medieval paternalism and cruelty realize this, the better off everyone will be!
