Ontario rejects Sharia law.

Toronto -- After months of intensifying controversy, the Ontario government--declaring "one law for all"--decided on September 11, 2005 to not recognize Islamic Sharia law. In so doing, it pleased a bevy of feminist campaigners, legal figures and moderate and "progressive" Muslims, who had lobbied in favour of such a rejection.

Religious Muslims were predictably disappointed and vowed to fight on, while Jewish groups were angry over Premier Dalton McGuinty's additional comments that not only would Sharia go unrecognized, but Ontario would, as soon as possible, rescind the authority, of any faith-based tribunals in settling family disputes allowed under the 1991 Arbitration Act. They face the outlawing of their decades-old rabbinical courts (beit din).

The December 2004 report was produced by former NDP provincial attorney-general Marion Boyd. It recommended that Muslims be allowed to establish Sharia-based tribunals. The recommendation generated a backlash, mainly--and ironically--from the same sort of feminist elements Boyd strongly supported during her stint as Ontario's attorney-general between 1993 and 1995.

Among the media, the Jewish-owned National Post--conscious of a threat to Jewish-run tribunals--favoured Sharia, opining in a September 9, 2005, editorial that there need not be a fear of it in Ontario. The Globe was strongly in favour, having argued in a December 22, 2004 editorial that, "Muslims can be trusted with the same rights and duties that others have." The Toronto Star, attempting to offend neither its ethnic nor its feminist constituencies, mildly favoured Sharia, while citing the "natural tensions" that exist between the propositions that all citizens are equal and the majority should respect the rights of

minorities. The Toronto Sun said, "No to all religious courts" (September 9, 2005).

Catholic representatives were more tempered, if not outright supportive of the Ontario government's action. As noted by Toronto Star journalist Lynda Hurst no known Christian church has made use of Ontario's 1991 Arbitration Act to settle marital breakdowns or child custody disputes. Annulments within the Catholic Church are purely a church matter.

Comment:

LifeSiteNews characterized the entire imbroglio as "an exercise in multi-culturalist vs. political correctness run amok" (September 14).

In our view, Sharia law is reactionary, unacceptable, and inappropriate not only in Canada but throughout the world, in Muslim as well as non-Muslim countries. In many parts of the Islamic world, Sharia law has been detrimental to the position of women, while other parts of this law make Christians third-rate citizens in Muslim countries.

Aside from that, we are also suspicious of Mr. McGuinty's back-handed slap at religion. Supposedly a Catholic, he rejects natural moral law across the board.