Presidential candidates explained using D&D character sheets

[Username17]

But Sharia "courts" in Europe and the United States are only for when both parties agree to them. They are a form of binding arbitration, not actual judges with the power to put people in jail and shit. So again: why do you care?

Two people can choose anyone they want for a binding arbiter. Since they can already choose "a random person off the street", why do you care if people can specifically select an Imam, a Rabbi, or a Minister? Are those people not also random people off the street?

Personally, I would never go to a Rabbi to act as an arbitration liaison. But some people would, and is it really so bad if there is a room for them to do that in if there is demand?

-Username17

[infected slut princess]

Fuchs,

I'm confused. Are you against people using Sharia courts as such, or merely "let[ting] sharia law into the [existing] court system"?

If the former, then I think your argument proves too much. It seems to be "this kind of court is bad because the court might make bad decisions." But that's true of the American court system, or ANY court system. I mean, the American system is biased against certain groups, just like you say the Sharia system is biased against women. What does the ghetto black dude do when he's up on bogus murder charges in the American system? Because the system is pretty harsh on people in his group.

If it is the latter, then that is different, and you are right that you need judicial decision-making to settle conflicting claims. But this is not really an argument against allowing Sharia courts to interact with "regular" courts. You could have a group of Christians who choose to settle their disputes with a Christian court system, you could have a group of Muslims who use a Sharia court system, and you might have hippies who have a secular court system. And because these groups could come into conflict, the three courts would need to have provisions for conflicts between Christians and Muslims and hippies, or whatever groups you want to use as an example. But if a court always produces decisions that are regarded as total bullshit, then everyone would just stop recognizing the validity of its rulings.

Having different court systems would probably help disadvantaged people protect themselves from victimization in the legal system.

[Fuchs]

But Sharia "courts" in Europe and the United States are only for when both parties agree to them. They are a form of binding arbitration, not actual judges with the power to put people in jail and shit. So again: why do you care?

Two people can choose anyone they want for a binding arbiter. Since they can already choose "a random person off the street", why do you care if people can specifically select an Imam, a Rabbi, or a Minister? Are those people not also random people off the street?

Personally, I would never go to a Rabbi to act as an arbitration liaison. But some people would, and is it really so bad if there is a room for them to do that in if there is demand?

-Username17

It's a bad system since it's not equal, and uses a lot of peer pressure or worse to make people adhere to it. You cannot expect people from religious families to be objective. A girl raised by fanatic christians or muslims can and often will be conditioned to think herself as worth less than men. Letting her use a religious court is just enabling abuse.

So, fuck sharia courts, fuckl religious laws, fuck religion, period. We should not let such harmful delusions have any clout.

[Username17]

I do not see how specific provisions for when you can choose to have a religious leader in a funny hat act as a binding arbitrator in a civil disagreement could possibly be any worse than having vague provisions that someone in general be chosen.

Example: you have a rule that an Imam can be chosen iff both parties agree. Alternately: you have no provisions at all. In the second case, a court could decide to appoint an Imam "because both people are Muslims" if the two parties did not agree on a specific arbiter and the court was asked to select one for them. In the former case, that would not happen.

I personally am fiercely against religion. But the anti-Sharia-in-Europe crowd do not have a leg to stand on. Secularization does not come from marginalization. Remember shit like this actually happens. But it doesn't happen because Sharia is given a well defined tiny corner to play in, it happens because Sharia isn't mentioned at all and judges are given vague orders to respect cultures.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

Letting people "agree" on choosing an iman or rabbi or priest as an arbiter just means that women and children are more likely to be abused since they are conditioned or peer pressured to accept.

They should not respect religious cultures, not at all. They should only respect and adhere to secular laws. Religious beliefs or other delusions should not have any clout at court. The only well-defined corner they should be allowed to play in is the trash bin of the court.

[DSMatticus]

Letting people "agree" on choosing an iman or rabbi or priest as an arbiter just means that women and children are more likely to be abused since they are conditioned or peer pressured to accept.

The actual laws already being discussed say to use the culture of the parties in question to make decisions. As in, if two Sharia Law Muslims show up in your court, you are legally obligated to use Sharia Law to make your ruling as a judge. That thing you're afraid of, about religious beliefs having power in court rulings? That's the current status quo in many of the places these laws are being proposed.

Any law that specifically addresses when and where Sharia law cannot be used is actually going to be a written limit, not a written expansion.

I.e. you want this. Read the fucking article Frank linked. As the laws are written, Sharia law is already admissible against the will of both parties. As in, that woman had a Sharia law ruling shoved in her face without being in a Sharia court.

[Fuchs]

I read the article. It's what I am afraid of - abusive religious beliefs given power in court. You should not use sharia laws, christian beliefs, or other cultural shit in court at all.

Though I do not agree that this was actually admissible in law, I do think the judge made a terrible mistake, and the higher courts will correct that.

In Switzerland we don't have such rulings. Even when our law states to use foreign law to make a decision, the law in question still has to match basic standards. Citing the koran to claim beating your wife is ok and no grounds for a divorce would not happen here.

[DSMatticus]

The laws explicitly say to consider the cultural beliefs of the parties involved. That is what the laws currently say. Now, you're making the case that the laws are dumb, so they will be ignored. Cool. Generally, though, the point of having a law-making body is to have laws that are not dumb. It's also a lot more reliable than counting on judges to ignore laws.

The only thing Sharia courts could possibly end up getting, by the way, is a power they already have: mutually-agreed upon arbitration. Two people can already agree to select anyone as an arbitrator. What you're actually proposing is "anyone who is religious in anyway be excluded from a civil right that everyone else already has."

I don't think stripping civil rights from groups we disagree with is a path we want to let our governments go down, no matter how right we think we are. Especially considering it won't even solve the "peer pressure" problem you refer to, because if their subculture can pressure them into seeking legal arbitration from a biased judge, it can pressure them into seeking informal arbitration from the same biased judge instead of legal arbitration. You wouldn't actually solve anything, you'd just be providing legal precedent for formal civil inequality. That's pretty much guaranteed to bite you on the ass.

[Fuchs]

Hold it. I didn't say laws should be ignored - I said you should not use sharia laws and simialr relgious nonsense in court. That means chaning those laws, if they actually exist. They do not in my country, for once, and I hope the US is not suffering from such dumb laws either.

Also, this is not about stripping civil rights from groups we disagree with - this is just making sure that fuckers who believe, as Frank puts it, that the great sky fairy allows and mandates them to beat their women and daughters will be judged by a court of law, and not by idiots who also believe that the muddled writings of asshoels who made up the great sky fairy thosands of years ago take precedence over human rights.

By allowing sharia law or the bible's commandments to have a clout in court you are actually stripping people of their civil rights. "Mutually agreed upon arbitration" is an illusion when dealing with abusive communities who will beat and even murder their children for refusing to obey their parents.

And yes, the danger of those subcultures seeking informal arbiters is there - and that's something we need to stamp out. We need to make sure there are no subcultures where human rights are ignored in favor of religious nonsense, not tolerate those assholes.

[Fuchs]

If you hear of a christian nutcase abusing his children you don't respect his weird religious beliefs that claim this is ok, you arrest the asshole and get the kids away from him.

If you hear of a religious nutcase forcing his daughter into a marriage you don' respect his believes that his faith mandates this, you arrest the asshole and free the daughter.

You do not let them handle this within the same abusive community that enabled and manadated that kind of shit.

[sabs]

Except, in America.. we totally do that.. ALL THE TIME.
We create laws around Christian Nutcases all the time.

We also agree to let some Corporate Shark Lawyer do binding arbitration between us and our employer, or us and Sony Entertainment.

US Law is already filled with people being forced into binding arbitration with nutjobs who are out to screw them.

[RobbyPants]

Except, in America.. we totally do that.. ALL THE TIME.
We create laws around Christian Nutcases all the time.

What laws are you thinking about (I'm not saying it doesn't happen; I'm just curious)?

[sabs]

Laws limiting abortion access.
In the 1980's wer had laws requiring the teaching of Creationism in Public School science class. We still have laws today that, "require equal emphasis on alternative theories" Which is a code word for Intelligent Design.

I lived in Pennsylvania which is a giant Blue Law state.
Sanctity of Marriage Laws.
Sodomy Laws.

I'm sure I could find some more if I did a bit of searching.

[RobbyPants]

Oh,yes. I don't know why all the blue laws escaped me. The county I live in has limitations on what types of alcohol you can buy and at what times on Sundays.

[K]

All the sodomy laws were declared unconstitional a while back. They may be on the books in your state, but they would not survive appeal.

Basically, in the US the history of the conflict between"religion" and "law" has had religion losing.

[Josh_Kablack]

sabs: the PA Liquor Control Board is the largest collection of Blue Laws we have here.

[sabs]

I know I live in PA (well, Lived, I'm in Delaware now)

[PoliteNewb]

Laws limiting abortion access.
In the 1980's wer had laws requiring the teaching of Creationism in Public School science class. We still have laws today that, "require equal emphasis on alternative theories" Which is a code word for Intelligent Design.

I lived in Pennsylvania which is a giant Blue Law state.
Sanctity of Marriage Laws.
Sodomy Laws.

I'm sure I could find some more if I did a bit of searching.

I'm not sure I understand how this is an argument against Fuchs. Are you saying "hey, we already have a ton of shitty religiously-influenced laws, why not a few more"?

I'm not anti-religious as Fuchs is, but I completely agree with him about keeping religion entirely out of our legal system. And yes, there can be all kinds of other influences in various forms of arbitration, but few influences are as broad-reaching, insidious, and often straight-up wacko as religious ones.

[Username17]

The problem is that Fuchs' stated positions are completely insane. He hates the idea of Sharia so much that he is literally aiding it to hurt people in actual practice. That might sound like some sort of weird Star Wars parable, but that is what is actually happening.

For starters, let's consider a real event that really happened:

A German woman of Moroccan descent wanted to divorce her husband on the grounds that he physically abused her. She had the hospital records to prove it. The judge decided not to grant an expedited divorce on the grounds that Islamic laws allowed men to beat the crap out of their wives, so the fact that she was being beaten did not constitute an unusual or unexpected circumstance. She filed to get a different judge on the grounds that that is batshit fucking insane, and was denied. Then she took the judge's ruling to the media who had a fucking field day with that, and outraged German Muslims put enough pressure on the government that a new judge was put on the case.

OK? That is a real thing that really happened. And it is extremely fucked up. And it did not happen because there was a provision for Imams to act as arbitrators with the mutual agreement of both parties. It happened because there are no fucking guidelines about when religious scriptures can be consulted, and some crazy bastard judge decided to bring them up unbidden in some misguided attempt to be culturally sensitive. "I guess you brown people beat your wives all the time, so whatever." It was condescending and insulting to the Muslim community (who rallied to the defense of the woman), and there were exactly zero Imams consulted.

The rule that people are talking about creating is to allow both parties to get a community religious leader to act as a binding arbitrator in purely civil disputes. Something that they can in fact do anyway because they can already choose any member of the community at all for that purpose. But in doing so, they would also create a safety fence around religion. Since both people would have to agree to have the religious leader come in, courts would no longer have the power to appoint some crazy Rabbi because "we herd u liek Jews" or to bust out 7th century religious texts when deciding what a "culturally appropriate" resolution of a civil dispute might be.

People like Fuchs and the Daily Mail really are campaigning against a measure that actually protects people from religious insanity in the name of fighting Islam. And that is both pathetic and unfortunate.

-Username17

[Grek]

Got to go with Frank here. "Only if both parties request it" is much, much better than "whenever the judge wants to" when it comes to deciding whether to apply Sharia law or not.

[Fuchs]

My stance is not insane - I simply want religious arbiters deemed illegal (or at the very least, subject to a thorough check to make sure they were actually chosen voluntarily). In our penal law code we have an article that allows a beaten wive to ask to spare her husband from punishment, but the judge has to make sure she was not pressured into requesting that.

And the point is to give sharia the finger. Even if both parties want it - if the case gets in front of a judge then there's a disagreement in the first place, and in that case sharia goes out, and the secular law takes precdence. At least this is how it should be.

[DSMatticus]

That is an unenforcable joke of civil liberty nightmares. "Hey, I disagree with your lifestyle, so... you're not allowed to make decisions for yourself." There's absolutely no way setting that kind of precedent for government authority could ever backfire. Not to mention it doesn't stop people from going to their communities for judgment and using the very social pressures you referred to earlier to enforce their rulings.

You will have solved exactly zero problems, and you will have created cases where communities have to work outside the law to follow and enforce their lifestyle, instead of encouraging them to seek redress through the legal system which can and will actually protect them from unfair rulings, and set government precedence for legally restricting the autonomy of people who engage in certain lifestyles or customs the lawmakers deem unsavory.

Yeah, your stance is insane. It's impractical, ineffective, and dangerous to the communities you're trying to protect and dangerous to civil liberties in general. It sounds like you just want to piss on religion, consequences be damned!

[Kaelik]

On the one hand, I would worry about the suggestive effect.

For example, Storm Lords are proficient with Martial Weapons and Tridents, so people use Tridents more, because I specifically brought it up, and that draws attention.

So saying, "You can consent to an arbiter that is anyone you want. Also, you can pick a religious leader," might have a similar effect.

However, for this problem, I think it's actually helpful suggesting, in the sense that a judge might wonder to what extent he should consider stupid people's religious laws.

So a law that says, "Sharia Laws only apply when both parties consent to arbitration by an Imam," precludes people ever using it under any other circumstance.

[Fuchs]

Yeah, your stance is insane. It's impractical, ineffective, and dangerous to the communities you're trying to protect and dangerous to civil liberties in general. It sounds like you just want to piss on religion, consequences be damned!

It's not insane. In our law system, judges have to approve agreements between parties all the time, like in divorces, to amke sure that they comply with binding laws. That's because we realize that people are not equal, and agreements could grossly exploit the imbalances.

There's a reason we have judges and not expect parties to pick their own "judge" for each case.

Frankly, you sound rather stupid to me. So, just because we might not be able to get all assholes hiding in religious communities we should give them free reign?

No. Reign them all in, make sure whatever shit they rule is checked and blocked by a judge if needed. Best would be to simply make their rulings illegal, and push religion out of those areas of life.

[DSMatticus]

There's a reason we have judges and not expect parties to pick their own "judge" for each case.

We do let them pick their own judges for certain civil matters. It's called arbitration. And if you want, you can have an actual judge be the arbiter. The current system is "you can have a judge, but if you don't want one, and it's minor enough, you can choose your own arbiter." That is what we currently do, religion aside.

So, just because we might not be able to get all assholes hiding in religious communities we should give them free reign?

What are you smoking? We're talking about civil arbitration. That means the actual power these courts have is really small, and you cannot be forced into them, both parties have to agree.

Now, you have this weird theory where people won't be able to defy their community, and they'll seek to resolve these disputes internally using arbiters when possible. But here's the problem: making religious arbitration non-binding doesn't solve that problem. You are presupposing that the social forces are great enough to pressure someone to choose an unfair binding arbiter, but also presupposing that those same social forces aren't strong enough to shame people into heeding the words of an unbinding arbiter.

Nevermind the fact that in the example we gave you, the Muslim community was with the victim, as opposed to attempting to pressure her into staying with the abusive husband.

Your concern about isolated communities coercing people into binding arbitration and abusing them through it is pretty much completely unfounded. There is more danger that you will be screwed over by a seriously unfair unemployment contract than that.