Multi-culturalism boon or bane?

[inked]

Just came across this:

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/Art...651783,00.html

Hamas is not behaving as a government at all.

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by inked

CC, "for the state to recognise their marriages or divorces, Jews have to marry or be divorced according to English law just like everyone else. If sharia courts were to operate in this way, there would be no problem. Why should anyone care, after all, what minorities are doing in the private sphere as long as it doesn’t break the law? But the crucial difference is that such Muslims want their rulings to be accepted by the state as having the same legal authority as English law — and Dr Williams is endorsing this."

I assume that you mean "But the crucial difference is that such Muslims want their rulings to be accepted by the state as having the same legal authority as English law" as the part you disagree with. In which case, we are agreed. In the cited context of Jewish law and English law are clearly related in such a fashion that the law of the land is supreme. It bothers me that the request of the Muslims is that their desire is for their law to have the same authority as English law - in which case it effectively supplants English law.

Otherwise, I would say that the same relations as Jewish law (in the cited case) should be held valid.

Do you think it would be or should be?

Inked, I agree with you that it SHOULD be held in the same relation to the English law as Jewish law is. Where we disagree is that I also believe that it IS being treated that way (and again, I've quoted the Times quoting the Muslims saying it is) while you continue to argue that it isn't. I think you'd be happier with the situation if you looked past the headlines and deeper into how the situation is actually being handled. It matches up much more with what you think should happen

[inked]

This is a very interesting article from the NYT about how mental illness is viewed in various cultures and the impact of the particularly American views. I had no idea that this was occurring.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/ma...0psyche-t.html

Fascinatingly, the result seems to be other than the intended one due to various cultural assumptions embedded in the basic assumptions regarding mental illness.

Very thought-provoking.

[inked]

Gee, Saudi Arabia is gonna ask the age of the bride on marriage licenses! What an invasion of privacy. This is gonna raise the bride price/dowry on those 8 year olds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10217619.stm

[GrayMouser]

They need more like this one:

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition. But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop. According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/...y_a_girl_again

[Earniel]

Unfortunately the poor girl's probably going to be arrested for assault, and if the guy she was with was not her husband or brother, she's likely to get some more punishment on top of that as well. But for a short moment, that 'cop of virtue' certainly got his just reward.

[inked]

The USA, Australia ... unbelievable..........

http://wn.com/genitalmutilation

[BeardofPants]

Do NOT get me started on FGM.

[inked]

Multiculturalism is definitely a bane in Egypt by court order which cannot be appealed...

http://www.seattlepi.com/national/11..._israelis.html

[GrayMouser]

Yes, it's terrible when countries pass marriage laws singling out one particular nationality or ethnic group for discrimination.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20030811.html

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by Khamûl

But everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's Day!

...and then there's the few who really are...too bad there's no difference, everyone just likes to wear green. I'm sure 99% of the people wearing green on that day have no idea who St. Patrick was...it's a disgrace to him and what he accomplished.

(sorry I just realized I quoted from 5 pages ago )

[BeardofPants]

Who cares who he is... BEER.

[inked]

How about singling out the aged?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion...ka3kByU8H9sxBK

[inked]

Gosh darn that European Court!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100625/...e_gay_marriage

[inked]

When a culture meets a culture, a runnin' through the rye, eh?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/02/...potter.attack/

"London, England (CNN) -- The father and brother of a Harry Potter actress will appear in court later this month in Manchester, England, on charges of threatening to kill the young star, prosecutors said Friday.

"Abdul Azad, 54, and his son Ashraf, 28, are accused of attacking actress Afshan Azad earlier this month because of her relationship with a Hindu man, a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service said. The family is Muslim.

"The alleged attack happened May 21. The father and brother are charged with threatening to kill the actress, and her brother is also charged with assault, the prosecutors' spokesman said."

[inked]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/...eo=true&hpt=T1

Language barrier? No problem.

[The Gaffer]

What a nasty racist little troll you are, inked.

[inked]

Really? I don't think so...

http://hosted2.ap.org/WORAM/GeneralN...d6ca1d9fe95488

That's the AP, Associated Press, report. It's not like one has to make this stuff up, Gaffer. It's just that somehow reality gets missed.

Unless of course honor killings are the wave of the future or some such. Because even the Archbishop of Canterbury has recommended Sharia Courts for England. It was all the news last year or so.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

And now, suddenly, the ABC has started taking more conservative stances, promising to fight for English conservative Anglo-Catholics for some modicum of allowance given to their views, and things like that. Can't make up his mind. That's what happens when you follow the via media, I guess.

[Comic Book Guy]

In accordance to the recent trends in this thread, perpetuated by certain individual posters, I've found an article recording recent events that seems to meet the right criteria of these trends to the letter. These criteria being:

1) A report of a story about religious fanatics using the rule of law to impose ideas or practices, often to the cost of other peoples liberty, that hark back to the ignorance and barbarism of centuries ago. Or alternatively, a story about something that due to our own prejudices, we just don't happen to like, and don't have to provide a rationale for posting it here.

2)This story must take place in a country or civilisation other than our own. We have a right to sneer and tut-tut at events beyond our responsibility and control, and it distracts us from the more honest effort of looking at what is happening in our own spheres of influence, something responsible citizenship requires us to be concerned about.

Strap yourself in and get your exclamations of faux-outrage ready!

http://ncse.com/news/2010/07/comer-loses-appeal-005612

In a decision issued on July 2, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court's decision that the Texas Education Agency's policy requiring "neutrality" of its employees when "talking about evolution and creationism" is not unconstitutional. The case, Comer v. Scott, was filed by Chris Comer, the former director of the Texas Education Agency, who was forced to resign from her post in November 2007 after she forwarded a note announcing a talk by Barbara Forrest. In June 2008, Comer filed suit, arguing that the agency's neutrality policy violates the Establishment Clause. Her lawsuit was dismissed in March 2009, but she appealed the decision, and oral arguments were heard in April 2010.

Writing for a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit, Fortunato Benavides explained (PDF, pp. 11-12), "Upon review of the record and applicable law, we cannot conclude that TEA's neutrality policy has the 'primary effect' of advancing religion. The fact that Comer and other TEA employees cannot speak out for or against possible subjects to be included in the curriculum ... does not primarily advance religion, but rather, serves to preserve TEA's administrative role in facilitating the curriculum review process for the Board. ... Thus, we find it hard to imagine circumstances in which a TEA employee's inability to publicly speak out for or against a potential subject for the Texas curriculum would be construed or perceived as the State’s endorsement of a particular religion."

Those craaazzzy Yanks eh? They sure have some serious cultural challenges facing them in the upcoming years. Unless superstition and ignorance is "the wave of the future, or some such".