The Forgotten
An article on Christian persecutions:
We live in an age of Christian persecution. Did you think I meant persecutions by Christians of non-Christians? Oh no.
We live in one of the greatest periods of anti-Christian violence in world history. Is it not odd that those who call for ever more strict layers of separation between Church and State never seem to want to separate the Mosque from the State?
Here, for example, is the Archbishop of Canterbury, discussing the ways in which the Common Law and Statues of England might be accommodated to accept certain parts or provisions of Sharia Law of the Islamic subjects of Her Majesty, much as has been done with other religious groups, Jews or Catholics, within Britain.
Perhaps you can tease out the meaning of this quote. To me, it sounds like a reservation or qualification to the principle of equality before the law:
… a lot of what’s written suggests that the ideal situation is one in which there is one law and only one law for everybody; now that principle that there’s one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a Western liberal democracy, but I think it’s a misunderstanding to suppose that that means people don’t have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and the law needs to take some account of that, so an approach to law which simply said, ‘There is one law for everybody and that is all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or your allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts’. I think that’s a bit of a danger.
And here the Archbishop mentions that there is already a Shariah Council in the UK, much in demand for making rulings on marital claims.
As an attorney, I have no problem with qualifying or limiting general principles in specific cases where justice and peace demand it. But this particular case at this particular time, a time of holy war by Mohammedans against all other faiths and nations and laws and civilizations, the sentiment strikes me as oddly out of touch with reality.
Let us compare and contrast: this article reports that a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit has ruled it is unconstitutional for the Mount Soledad Cross war memorial honoring World War One veterans fallen in the service to our nation to continue to stand.
The planting of a Christian Cross to honor the Christian dead one is perhaps one of those “anything else” things that commanding our loyalty or allegiance but which is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts of which the Archbishop of Canterbury speaks.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
