One of the fundamental pillars of modern, liberal democracy is equality under the law: every citizen, no matter their race, gender, religion, wealth, ethnicity, heritage, etc., is supposed to be constrained in the same ways by the same laws. No one is supposed to be exempt from any laws and no one is supposed live under special laws. We can't all be equal in every way, but for a democratic state to work we must all be equal in the eyes of the law, the courts, and the government.

Any effort to undermine this bedrock principle of equality under the law is also an effort to undermine modern democracy and liberalism. When religion comes into play, it's also an effort to undermine modern secularism; not all of this may be immediately obvious, but it's a necessary implication. This is what observers must understand when they read about how Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a member of Britain's House of Lords, has publicly insisted that Muslims should be allowed to live in part under Shariah law rather than democratically chosen secular, civil law.

Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion. For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

Source: BBC

So, there will be greater unity between Muslims and non-Muslims in Britain if they don't have to all follow the same laws and rules, or if they don't all have the same legal protections? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Just the opposite is the case: when people live under separate laws and rules, they are only further divided than before.

As British Humanist Association chief executive Hanne Stinson has said in response to William's comments: "Fundamental to the principle of equality before the law that the same rights and processes of law be available to all and this automatically rules out any possibility of delegating the rights of some citizens to unaccountable religious authorities. Singling out certain groups for separate treatment will also surely undermine work towards good relations and social cohesion rather than assist it."

Everyone either has the same rights and legal protections or they do not; if they do, they cannot sign away those rights. A person might privately agree not to exercise all rights under the law, but those rights still exist such that a person is free to break that private agreement. This might lead to private consequences, like excommunication from a religious congregation, but it's nothing enforceable by the courts or state.

If Rowan Williams simply wanted Muslims to be able to enter into private agreements that are stricter than what he law demands — for example by making a religious divorce that's harder to get than a civil divorce — then he could have said so. This would be reasonable and I'd be surprised if it's not already the case. That, however, is not what he said. His specific words were that there is a "danger" to not allow anything that "commands your loyalty or allegiance" in the "process of the courts" — by which he means the civil courts of the land, not the processes of religious institutions.

This means he's calling for the introduction of religious doctrines into civil court procedures, not merely allowing members of religious communities to freely enter into private agreements based on religious doctrines.

Comparisons have been made with Britain's Jewish community, which is in principle legitimate but I don't think they are valid here. Jews who appear in British courts do not — as far as I know — get to appeal to Jewish law as a reason for doing something or not doing something. Jewish women may not be able to get a divorce if their husband refuses, but that is and should be irrelevant to the courts. The same woman should be allowed to remarry in a civil ceremony if she gets a civil divorce. This is because civil marriage laws should apply equally to all, regardless of religion.

Believers may be free to accept extra marriage rules created by and regulated by religious authorities, but this requires also being free to disregard those rules at any time. Otherwise, one is not truly free and cannot be said to have freely adopted them in the first place; if a person is forced to live under them through social or familial pressures, the courts and state should not abet that force.

He says Muslims should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty". ...Dr Williams adds: "What we don't want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people's religious consciences."

There will always be times when civil law conflicts with religious beliefs, but the state is not obliged to give insular religious groups special laws to live under so as to eliminate conflicts. Sometimes religious exemptions to laws may be legitimate, but Rowan Williams is going a step or two further by recommending the formal introduction of entirely different rules for some to live under.

Believers who disagree with civil laws can not only seek religious exemptions, but they can even seek to change the laws entirely. If there is anything valuable in Shariah law, why not debate it openly in the Parliament and have it passed into the general law so everyone can benefit; if there is nothing in Shariah law which will benefit everyone, why should the Muslim community have to endure it?

Why does Rowan Williams talk here about "cultural loyalty" in the context of Shariah law? Shariah is supposed to be applicable regardless of culture — a desire to live under Shariah law is supposed to be a matter of religious conscience, not cultural loyalty. I wonder if Rowan Williams is trying to appeal for the support of multiculturalists with such language?

Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger".

I don't think that Rowan Williams means that anything else that commands one's loyalty or allegiance should be relevant. For example, I don't think that Williams is trying to argue that loyalty to one's race or allegiance to the aristocracy should suddenly become legally relevant — so relevant that they should justify introducing new rules for such people in the court system. Instead, I think that Williams is only thinking of religion here — religion and nothing else.

Not long before he made these comments, Rowan Williams also called for new laws that would punish speech that is "cruel" or "insensitive" to religious believers as a replacement for unworkable blasphemy laws. What exactly is Rowan Williams driving for with these ideas? I hardly think that they are completely separate and independent. There is surely a connection, but what is it?

"We don't either want a situation where, because there's no way of legally monitoring what communities do... people do what they like in private in such a way that that becomes another way of intensifying oppression inside a community."

I hope that by "oppression inside a community," Rowan Williams is referring, at least in part, to the oppression suffered by women in Muslim communities. Forced marriages, genital mutilation, and honor killings are just a few of the serious problems facing Muslim women and girls. Is Rowan Williams really suggesting that the best way to deal with unofficial oppression that occurs with Shariah law is to legalize it and bring it out into the open?

Is it really better to know about the oppression going on rather than try to fight it while it continues to occur in secret? Maybe he thinks that it would be easier to fight the oppression by bringing it into the open, but I would think that legitimizing in this way would actually make the fight harder. Williams is an archbishop, though, so maybe this is one of those "faith-based" conclusions that a secular atheist like myself just can't understand.

Fortunately, British politicians don't agree with or approve of these ideas:

Gordon Brown's spokesman said the prime minister "believes that British laws should be based on British values". ...The spokesman also said: "There are instances where government has made changes - for example on stamp duty - but the general position is that Sharia cannot be used as justification for committing breaches of English law nor can its principles be used in civil courts."

Source: BBC

I wonder if Gordon Brown was tempted to ask aloud "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

For the Conservatives, shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi said: "The archbishop's comments are unhelpful and may add to the confusion that already exists in our communities. "Of course the important principle is one of equality and we must ensure that people of all backgrounds and religions are treated equally before the law. Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices. "But let's be absolutely clear. All British citizens must be subject to British laws developed through Parliament and the courts."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "Whilst having an enormous amount of respect for Rowan Williams, I cannot agree with his conclusions on this issue. "Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another. There is a huge difference between respecting people's right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law."

Even some leading figures of the Anglican Church are upset — upset enough to call upon Williams to quit:

Col Edward Armitstead, a Synod member from the diocese of Bath and Wells, was among those calling for Dr Williams to step down, telling the Daily Telegraph: "I don't think he is the man for the job. ...One wants to be charitable, but I sense that he would be far happier in a university where he can kick around these sorts of ideas."

Alison Ruoff, a Synod member from London, said: "Many people, huge numbers of people, would be greatly relieved [if he resigned] because he sits on the fence over all sorts of things and we need strong, Christian, biblical leadership right now, as opposed to somebody who huffs and puffs around and vacillates from one thing to another. He's a very able, a brilliant scholar as a man but in terms of being a leader of the Christian community I think he's actually at the moment a disaster."

Source: BBC

Abstract discussions about the rule of law and equality under the law should not distract us from the reality that religious laws sought after usually mean adult males exercising greater control over women and children — especially female children. Religion is the last bastion of male privilege, so efforts like this to advance religious privilege are also necessarily efforts to advance male privilege as well. As Yasmin Alibhai Brown writes:

What [Rowan Williams] did on Thursday was to convince other Britons, white, black and brown, that Muslims want not equality but exceptionalism and their own domains. Enlightened British Muslims quail. Friends like this churchman do us more harm than our many enemies. He passes round what he believes to be the benign libation of tolerance. It is laced with arsenic.

He would not want his own girls and women, I am sure, to "choose" to be governed by these laws he breezily endorses. And he is naive to the point of folly if he imagines it is possible to pick and choose the bits that are relatively nice to the girls or ones that seem to dictate honourable financial transactions.

Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations.

Source: Independent

Already, without Shariah, there are reports that Muslim men with a little bit of power and authority are effective in oppressing Muslim women. Ruth Gledhill writes:

A few weeks ago, I was chatting to a woman who works in an advocacy role for Muslim women in an area that, quite independently of the Bishop of Rochester, she described as a 'no-go area' for non-Muslims. Her clients were women in the process of being sectioned into mental health units in the NHS. This woman, who for obvious reasons begged not to be identified, told me: 'The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing western clothes.There can be many reasons.

The women are sent for assessment to a hospital. The GP referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned. She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?'

My interlocuter went very red and almost started to cry. Instead, she began shouting at me. I was a member of the press. 'You must write about this,' she begged.

'I can't,' I said. 'Not unless you become a whistle-blower. Or give me some evidence. Or something.'

She shook her head. 'I can't be identified,' she said. 'I would be killed. And so would the women.'

So there you have it. After weeks of wondering what to do, inspired by the Archbishop, I've taken her word that she is telling the truth, respected her anonymity, and written it anyway.

And this, I imagine, is what the Archbishop wants for the whole of England.

Source: The Times, emphasis added

Apologists for Rowan Williams have been quick to reassure the public that these proposals would be largely limited to marriage and family law, which sounds like code for "we're not trying to oppress you (yet), we're just just make it easier for us to control our uppity women." It's not men who will have to endure greater restrictions on their liberty, but women and girls. They are one of the groups to have benefited most under modern, liberal, secular law so they are among those with the most to lose if equality under the law is replaced special religious laws. This might be hard for Rowan Williams to understand or sympathize with.