Islamic Group Calls for Use of Koran to Take Oath

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


When a muslim wishes to change the judicial system of the United States, I don't take much stock in it, since we see how their justice works back home. Up in Canada, Muslims are now insisting that they be granted specific rights to appear before a Muslim court rather than a secular one, yet to have the force of the secular courts behind the Muslim ones, in order to enforce the decisions.

So the folks defending the separation of the church and state, are not going to find much in common with the Muslim concepts of either the state or the courts.

So you guys dont have the concept of incorporating private arbitration into a contract up there? Thats all it is. Something which, IIUC, the Orthodox Jewish community in Ontario (as down here) already does.

Lets review - at least here in the US (and I think in the Great White North as well) two companies that want to avoid the hassle of the courts can write into a contract that all disputes will be resolved by a specified private organization - here, its usually the American Arbitration Association. If a party to the contract then refuses to abide by the AAA ruling, the other party can go to govt court, to enforce the ORIGINAL CONTRACT, which specified following the ruling of the AAA. Now if you prefer, instead of the contract specifiying the AAA, you could write it to specify the Orthodox Bet Din (Jewish court) of Greater Baltimore, say. And Orthodox Jews sometimes DO write contracts like that. And AFAIK, if you prefer to specify a Sharia court, you can do that as well. Up in Canuckland, apparently the govt has to approve of arbitration bodies - and the dispute was about the muslim one in particular. It was NOT a case of Sharia becoming state law in Canada, as some made out.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DanS


I think this view has some merit, but let's face facts. Swearing on a koran might mean something different than swearing on a Bible or swearing on a portrait of Vishnu or whatever. Since I am not a full participant in the ritual, I cannot know the full import of their oath.

and quite frankly, I dont know what the full import of an oath to a Christian - see my difficulty responding to MTG above. And i suspect that import is different for liberal Protestants, Fundies, Catholics, etc. Hell, it wasnt THAT long ago that there were Protestants who had VERY sharp things to say about what an oath meant to, say a Jesuit, IIRC.

Now you could say that argues for "I affirm" by all - but I dont know that everyones import for I affirm is the same either. I dont see what is lost by the religious oath (other than maybe the secular nature of the court, which is a different issue) even IF not all give the same import to the oath.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


So you guys dont have the concept of incorporating private arbitration into a contract up there? Thats all it is. Something which, IIUC, the Orthodox Jewish community in Ontario (as down here) already does.

Lets review - at least here in the US (and I think in the Great White North as well) two companies that want to avoid the hassle of the courts can write into a contract that all disputes will be resolved by a specified private organization - here, its usually the American Arbitration Association. If a party to the contract then refuses to abide by the AAA ruling, the other party can go to govt court, to enforce the ORIGINAL CONTRACT, which specified following the ruling of the AAA. Now if you prefer, instead of the contract specifiying the AAA, you could write it to specify the Orthodox Bet Din (Jewish court) of Greater Baltimore, say. And Orthodox Jews sometimes DO write contracts like that. And AFAIK, if you prefer to specify a Sharia court, you can do that as well. Up in Canuckland, apparently the govt has to approve of arbitration bodies - and the dispute was about the muslim one in particular. It was NOT a case of Sharia becoming state law in Canada, as some made out.

Exactly.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS


Yeh, well. I'm not muslim and it's just an ordinary book to me.

And I'm not a Christian, so the Bible is just doggerel to me....

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Spencer:

What I find it funny that the folks who value the separation of the church and state, are siding with the Muslims who want to infuse the act of swearing in an oath with much more religious significance than previous.

Of one wishes to abolish swearing of oaths to maintain the secularism of the courtroom, thats a different issue, which isnt really being argued here.

Rather we have
1. Assuming an oath should be sworn on a holy book, should the Koran be included.

and then we have the following odd side argument
2. Dans proposition that an oath being a "public" ritual, its appropriate in a largely religiously homogeneous society, but not in our current one.

Which some of have been arguing against, more for its logical oddness, than out of a real problem with Dans policy suggestion.

[Ben Kenobi]

Do you wish to qualify this statement so as to not come across as a bigot?

Why is it bigoted? Christians are persecuted in Muslim countries, while Muslims in Christian countries are treated no differently than anyone else.

[DanS]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
And I'm not a Christian, so the Bible is just doggerel to me....

That's not even close to my viewpoint with regard to the Koran. I think the Koran is a fine book, but it's nothing special to me. It has some historical significance, so I find historical value in it at least.

[Ben Kenobi]

Up in Canuckland, apparently the govt has to approve of arbitration bodies - and the dispute was about the muslim one in particular. It was NOT a case of Sharia becoming state law in Canada, as some made out.

For starters, we don't have state laws in Canada. We have Federal and Provincial layers of government, each with different jurisdictions.

Secondly, the question that got raised is whether one Muslim who wished to leave Islam, would be properly protected by the secular courts, or would they be required to submit to the Islamic arbitration body? I agree that many groups do have arbitration bodies, whether formally or informally, (Mennonites tend to have informal bodies, to work stuff out between each other), but neither the Orthodox Jews, nor the Mennonites, have such stringent policies against converts from their religion.

That is probably the biggest difficulty with Islam, is that to convert from the religion means you have shamed your family.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by JohnT
I'd rather give up swearing on the Bible than allow people to swear on that piece of doggerel.

Sorry. Mixed you up with JohnT for some reason. Damn conservatives with first name, then last initial. You're all the same to me...

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Whoha
Islam should be kept as far away from our legal system as possible.

Not only islam - all kind of religion should be kept far away from a legal system.

Originally posted by DanS


Nothing. Just that I don't share a belief in god as they view him. I'm not denigrating their belief, just making clear that I don't share their belief. We should have an oath on a belief that everybody shares.

Ummh, maybe a bunch of dollar bills would represent a belief that all shares and respect ?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by DanS
That said, it's a legitimate complaint that this is state establishment of my view of religion, which is unconstitutional. So everybody must do the affirmation and religion must be dereferenced in the oath.

[KrazyHorse]

Ben, you're full of ****. Just thought I'd mention that again.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


"For starters, we don't have state laws in Canada. We have Federal and Provincial layers of government, each with different jurisdictions. "

D'uh man. I meant state law in the generic sense, as opposed to religious law. Do lefties in canuckland translate "The state is the agent of class opression" into "the province is the agent of class opression"?



"Secondly, the question that got raised is whether one Muslim who wished to leave Islam, would be properly protected by the secular courts, or would they be required to submit to the Islamic arbitration body?"

IIUC it got raised by people who didnt understand what was actually proposed.

[Ben Kenobi]

D'uh man. I meant state law in the generic sense, as opposed to religious law. Do lefties in canuckland translate "The state is the agent of class opression" into "the province is the agent of class opression"?

I thought that was the case, but wanted to clarify.

IIUC it got raised by people who didnt understand what was actually proposed.

Well, I don't recall that issue ever getting addressed. How does the contract work, and is the contract enforceable, if one of the parties convert?

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Why is it bigoted? Christians are persecuted in Muslim countries, while Muslims in Christian countries are treated no differently than anyone else.

The US isn't a Christian country, as it enforces seperation of church and state. The US has no official religion, so can't really be compared to a Muslim country where they have an official religion.

If there was a Christian country, they may persecute Muslims. It just doesn't exist.