One way to insure knowledge of the law of the land would be to require a course given in all schools to cover the law of the land and how it affects the student. Human rights as provided by law would be an essential part of the course. Elimination of the chaplaincy program could fund the course.

Yes, agree. We don't need to impose any law totally foreign to our way of thinking or natural justice.
Also agree with David F, and a long overdue bill of human rights, which would naturally place women beside men as equals!

Clearly, the Chaplains need to be relegated back to the church, where they belong, (one out all out,) least we introduce Preachers, who'se real goal, (raison d'etre,) is to recruit and radicalise clean skins?
Who then go on to slaughter innocents, with guns if legally available, or totally indiscriminate and vastly more lethal bombs, if not?
I believe it was Marx or Lenin who said, even a vast ocean liner can be sunk, with a tiny hole that goes unnoticed.
Rhrosty.

Ms Scutt is on the right track here; while it is true, as a previous commentator notes, that Christianity is still present in schools via the Chaplaincy program of far greater concern are private religious schools.

My experience with private Christian schools is that while religion is pushed that push is anemic compared with the vigour with which Islam peddles its theology; after all Christianity has a New Testament; Islam is firmly stuck in the Old Testament equivalent position.

There is no doubt that Islam poses a continuing threat to not only the position and status of women generally in Western socities but also to the social structure of Western society itself. Islam is not a benign philosophy which can exist under the tolerant umbrella of multiculturalism; Islam uses that tolerance to replace it with its own intolerance.

Feminists like Ms Scutt need to focus their outrage on Islam and not the usual suspects in the West.

Polygamy? You've got to be joking. Surely most men would agree that having one wife is already a step or two too far.

And if you also happen to be a religious man, you have some mythical God telling you what to do and making out your private thoughts are sinful and will lead to eternal damnation and burning and some cleric most likely molesting your kids!

Let's ban marriage and religion, put the broom through our society, make a fresh start.

After all, we're intelligent...so someone said.

Dear cohenite,

In an important aspect Islam is much more New Testament then Old Testament. Both Christianity and Islam in their present form are missionary religions that emphasise spreading their respective gospels. Both Christianity and Islam maintain that one attains salvation by accepting their belief. In contrast Judaism is not a missionary religion and regards it as more important that one leads a righteous life rather than accept their brand of mumbo jumbo.

David, you say:

"In an important aspect Islam is much more New Testament then Old Testament. Both Christianity and Islam in their present form are missionary religions that emphasise spreading their respective gospels."

I am well aware of the proselytising imperatives of both Christianity [which I am not defending by the way] and Islam; but in the context of my New and Old testament statement would you care to comment on the different of methodology in proselytising between Islam and Christianity.

In a more literal sense the Koran has no updated or revision portion as the Bible does; again I am not defending Christianity and I am a supporter of a secular society, bearing in mind Christianity has played a part in the evolution of the secular state.

generally Christian men treat their wives a lot better than secular men. Just look how easy many of our front benchers dump and trade their husbands and wives for newer models. Me think secularist should get their disgusting act together before judging everyone else.

The author may be forgiven for having no clue about religion and what it means, learning about it only by hearsay but no first-hand experience, thus ignorantly equating it with some primitive customs and belief-systems.

The strive for God has been there before mankind, before planet earth was formed or all galaxies for that matter. Religion, the pull toward God, is inherent in every elementary particle, in space and time themselves even. Unbeknownst, religion is also working within the author herself.

What a sad joke it is then to claim that...

"Religion cannot operate without regard to or above secular law. It cannot promote, in its name, unlawful conduct nor support any unlawful status"

- You will have to drink up the ocean and reverse gravity before claiming that some silly state/secular law can overcome religion. It's not the first time that kings and states have tried to oppress God's people and bring about massive suffering and martyrdom, but they will never succeed forever. Religion is at the core of the universe, its very reason to exist in the first place - and religion will always end up victorious. Ultimately, God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven!

Dear cohenite,

The beginning of the Dark Ages was when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was marked by the persecution of those who would not accept the state religion. An early example of that was the murder by Christian monks of Hypatia, a brilliant scientist and philosopher, who did not want to become Christian. Although some Christians were for a secular state most were against it. The secular state arose in spite of, not because of Christianity.

Two online opinion articles on the development of the separation of church and state are found at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10725 and http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10790. The first tells of the growth of the separation in Europe, and the second tells of the development of separation in North America.

Christianity with the Inquisition, the wars of the Reformation and the execution of heretics and followers of other religions has been historically much less tolerant of religious dissent then Islam.

The New Testament is not a revision or updating of the Jewish Bible. It is the sacred book of another religion although it incorporates ideas found in the Jewish Bible. Eg Leviticus 19:18 … thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

My point David, while not defending Christianity, is that it has undergone a Reformation whereby the New Testament, whatever its origin, has worked to blunt the severity and intolerance of original Christianity, the history of whose outrages and offences I am not interested in pouring over again.

Islam has not undergone such a process which is why it is the most aggressive and intolerant religion in the world today.

Or are you saying that is not the case?

Dear Cohenite,

I do not understand you. You wrote:

"My point David, while not defending Christianity, is that it has undergone a Reformation whereby the New Testament, whatever its origin, has worked to blunt the severity and intolerance of original Christianity, the history of whose outrages and offences I am not interested in pouring over again."

There was no Christianity before the New Testament. It was original Christianity. Jesus was not a Christian. Paul made a new religion out of the worship of Jesus who was not a Christian.

It is amazing that the UK is supposed to be secular law and yet Sharia Law has infiltrated England. Freedom of speech is now limited and blasphemy laws rule, so woe to the person in the UK who gives his negative opinions of Islam. It is considered "hate speech."

So far the US has one up on UK and the EU. We still have freedom of speech although we are constantly having to fight to keep it. Sharia is also trying to creep into the US!

Society is broken up into two groups: one small group which embraces reality and thinks rationally, and a very large anachronistic group which embraces a mindset that was common two thousand years ago, a time when humans knew little about themselves or the world they lived in and allowed their minds to be filled with superstition and fantasies by cunning religious conmen.

I find it difficult to believe that many educated humans in 2012 cling to these myths about God or various Gods (which number in the hundreds of thousands) and ridiculous promises of eternal life and winged Angels who wander about singing hymns for eternity.

Sorry, Santa doesn't exist and neither does God. It's time to grow up and accept reality, folks!

It's not so bad.

How sad.

An intelligent woman, who appears to have legal training, thoughtfully raises some very important issues about the 'thin edge of the wedge' as far as the danger of sharia law making its first subtle inroads into Australia.

Individual Muslim women in Australia can be protected from trauma, abuse and even from death by murder, by a system that will uphold human rights vigorously, and strenuously highlight the distinction between secular law (the law of the land) and religous "law" which applies only to those who choose to believe in it by faith, and which cannot and will not be enforced by the state . . .

Why has this discussion degenerated into whether God exists or not, withGod-believers kicking God-deniers and vice versa?

How pathetic.

The law of the land is meant to protect all people in the land.

No sharia law - not even one tiny bit in Australia!

A 'marriage' to a person who is already married is not and never will be a marriage in Australia.

Maybe this should be a part of the citizenship test instead of "Who is Ian Thorpe?" and "What are the words to Advance Australia Fair?"

I agree Dunc; the shift to the irrelevant, utterly idiotic minuta of the theology, history, myths of whatever the religion is that the commentator is espousing is the classic trolling technique of the religious troll.

It does not matter because in a secular society every ratbag can believe whatever theology he wants; the problem is that some religious adherents are not content until their reality is everyone's.

As I said at the beginning Ms Scutt, as a feminist has a role to play in revealing what an abhorrent social blight Islam is. Any attempt to distract from that point is reprehensible.

>>The law of the land is meant to protect all people in the land.<<

Too right: the last thing we need is some archaic religious legal system operating at cross-purposes to the secular laws of this nation.
Unfortunately we already have one which is firmly established and probably isn't going anywhere: Catholic Canon Law. This is the legal system under which the most severe punishments for child rape were until quite recently to be moved to a new parish or - in the most serious cases - to be defrocked: to be discharged from the priesthood so they can get a job in the secular world. No doubt running amusement park rides or working in schools.

So why do people get so worked up about Sharia law while turning a blind eye to abuses and injustices occurring under Canon law? I would have thought that most people considered child rape a worse crime than bigamy.

>>the problem is that some religious adherents are not content until their reality is everyone's.

As I said at the beginning Ms Scutt, as a feminist has a role to play in revealing what an abhorrent social blight Islam is.<<

I think you're mistaking Islam for Christianity. I've met plenty of Muslims and none of them have ever tried to convert me. Compare and contrast this with those religiously intolerant bastards from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and their Jehovah's Witness mates: waking people up at 7am on weekends when they're hungover to share the good news about Jesus certainly counts as an abhorrent social blight in my book. When Islam starts sprouting off weirdo sub-cults that come around to wake me up and tell the good news about Mohammed I'll get concerned but at the moment they seem mostly harmless. Except for the violent extremist psychopaths. But there's plenty of abortion-clinic bombing Christians who fit that bill and I don't see it as a reason to tar all Christians with the same brush because most Christians - like most Muslims - aren't crazy. Dangerous lunatics are thankfully rare.

Cheers,

Tony

Dear Dunc,

<<Why has this discussion degenerated into whether God exists or not, withGod-believers kicking God-deniers and vice versa?>>

It started with the article itself and the "intelligent woman" has only herself to blame:

Sharia law is not on the cards for Australia and nobody in their right mind claims otherwise, so it's simply a non-issue. The humanist government of Australia is already ruling with an iron fist and would allow none the like, certainly in the area of marriage where they don't even allow gay-marriage, how less so polygamy. Polygamy is also a non-issue because although Islam allows it (up to 4 wives per man), it does not mandate it. One can be a perfect Muslim while having just one wife (or none). Even if polygamy/polyamory is ever introduced in Australia it will not be a result of Islam or religion, but more likely as a Green push.

Why should the author then burst into an open door?

Because the discussion of polygamy and Islam is only a pretext, a cheap opportunity to attack religion as such, to "show" religious people who is in charge, who holds the big end of the stick in Australia, to scare us that we should follow the secular regime rather than God, or else...

Any religious person respects God way above and beyond the secular authorities. No true religious leader would advise his flock to put the state's laws before God. Tyrants come and go while God's light shines for eternity.

Maybe polygamy's not a bad idea. Is the West's much more prevalent institution of adultery superior? At least polygamy is out in the open; we need only ensure women have the right to divorce should the husband, or indeed the wife, choose to take another partner. Better still, women should abandon the institution altogether and stand on their own two feet.

We admit refugees escaping oppression in their own country. Often they bring their families, who endure the same hardships and fears to get here.

On arrival here, the men are free, however, for most women and girls the oppression they endured previously remains the same. Unlike their menfolk,they are not free in any sense of the word.

There is something very wrong with this picture.

'But there's plenty of abortion-clinic bombing Christians who fit that bill and I don't see it as a reason to tar all Christians with the same brush because most Christians - like most Muslims - aren't crazy. Dangerous lunatics are thankfully rare.'

Thats funny I know of no murder clinics being bombed in Australia and yet Tony says their are 'plenty'. Stick to the secular dogmas to confirm your predjudices Tony.

>>Thats funny I know of no murder clinics being bombed in Australia<<

That's funny I never mentioned Australia in my comment about abortion clinics but runner says I did. Maybe he thinks it will make him look intelligent if he falsely attributes an incorrect statement to me then points out that it is incorrect. Or maybe he just didn't - possibly couldn't - read my post properly. They do have classes in adult literacy these days runner. I think you should attend some: you might come across as less of an idiot if you brush up on your reading skills.

Cheers,

Tony

'I think you should attend some: you might come across as less of an idiot if you brush up on your reading skills.'

Must hurt when even an 'ídiot' can see through your deceit Tony.

Squeers,

"...Better still, women should abandon the institution altogether and stand on their own two feet."

But most heterosexual people still get together to raise a family as a partnership. The modern age in the West has skewed arrangements to a degree, but I believe that's still the prime motivation for getting together. Or do you think women, having achieved a degree of autonomy are now poised to take on the load of reproduction and years of nurture unencumbered by a male counterpart. It does seem the modern practice of tossing the tots into daycare lends itself to "women standing on their own feet" by earning a crust.....but how can a women with small children be blamed for relying on her partner for support if she and her partner choose to bypass the option of childcare?

All those men who call Dr Scutt Ms are boorish clowns with worthless opinions,
gentlemen, cheap shots at women pong.

The conundrum of rights, religion and entitlements to law is the outcome of an imbalance of male power,
not men, Islam, Jews or Jesus.

The solution is governance by agreement between women’s and men’s legislatures.

But then again, Squeers, I think I may have misconstrued the point in your last - no need to respond.

Poirot,
Sorry for delay, but worth responding to rhetorically.
“But most heterosexual people still get together to raise a family as a partnership”.
Do they? Perhaps they do, I don’t know. I’d have thought we’ve grown out of the injunction to replicate. The call of the modern age is (faux)individualism, development and indulgence, and the white picket fence mentality is now a lived cliché, at least in the West. According to Gore Vidal, “Men and women are dispensable carriers, respectively, of seed and eggs; programmed to mate and die, mate and die, mate and die. One can see why “love” was invented by some artist who found depressing the dull mechanics of our mindless mission to be fruitful and multiply”. It seems to me we’re being reprogrammed, to consume abortively, and needn’t “take on the load of reproduction and years of nurture” with the same mechanical attitude. Indeed from our present vantage, how can we reflect on marriage as anything but a make-shift and disastrous institution from the beginning? Maybe daycare’s a better option for kids than generally dysfunctional families? Now that women are protected by law and welfare, or can combine careers and families, surely we can segregate the sexes and hand the prime responsibility of child-rearing over to professionals and the State? This is women’s logical next step, from the dubious protection of men to the haven of the State. Jocelynne Scutt bemoans the “struggle against the imposition of religion and the notion that women are and should be subject to male authority”, yet she’s trying to preserve the integrity of a religious institution and the nuclear family—a redundant patriarchal compromise, opposed originally against the greater dangers of nature and the elements.
If women aren’t prepared to change the world, to take charge of their own destiny rather than feign individualism in the shopping mall, they have to accept to some extent the realities that underlie the clichés and illusions they cleave to. If women really want to be free of paternalism, let them stand up and apart from their programming, at least in the West

Women have to stop being passive in their own interests. It’s absolutely ingrained; that men are women’s big problem. “Men” have to be reformed, have to comply with women’s needs, ‘twas ever thus, and now the big male, the law, has to fix it.
What are “women” going to “do” to help themselves and to change the world? Instead of women wanting everything done for them—poor helpless things—by the state and its ideological apparatuses, let them use democracy to reconstruct it. But there’s the rub; first they have to deconstruct it, and few modern feminists are doing that. And thus they have no idea how to change it, or what to change it into, in fact probably don’t really want to change such a cosy nest.

Squeers,

I see I didn't misconstrue your point.

"....I'd have thought we've grown out of the injunction to replicate..."

Based on what? The blip on the evolutionary screen that represents our own culture?...which is more of a swerve or detour in social construct than anything that could be sustained as an alternative human paradigm. As if that is going to override the reality of our biological imperatives, as mundane as is their reality.

Of course, I get your point. If, as is the modern penchant, we institutionalise our children from infancy to adulthood, why the need for the social construct of marriage....excepting all those "educative" institutions right from their inception only ever sought to work on the minds of children and were never interested in taking on the broader responsibilities of providing material necessities for their charges, like (out-of-hours) shelter and clothing.

It seems to me that Western women, in attempting to take advantage of their relative power, have managed only to ape the traditional male paradigm. I'd like to know exactly what your idea is of women "taking charge of their destiny" is? And how are they to go about it without cooperation from the complementary side of the bargain - men?

Squeers wrote: "According to Gore Vidal, “Men and women are dispensable carriers, respectively, of seed and eggs; programmed to mate and die, mate and die, mate and die."

Vidal's language is questionable. It used to be thought that the active principle of life was in the male effusion, and the female was merely the carrier of the male seed. Actually, a seed results from the union of sperm and egg in plants. In humans a being results from the union of sperm and egg. The fact that a child may resemble its mother was expained, before the mechanism of heredity was known, by the environmental influence of the womb. The Bible story made the denial of the female role explicit in having woman created from a man's rib. In that fairy tale man gives birth to woman. To refer to sperm as seed preserves this archaic perception, and you can't eat archaic and have it, too.

Squeers,

"....poor helpless things...."

You do realise that all Western children are herded into institutions in order to be indoctrinated as to the way they should go. If women are "poor helpless things" who have decided to travel upon the prescribed route to "fulfillment", why do you lay the blame at their feet? Our "system" is expressly designed to dissuade both genders from independent thought and analysis. Why should it be that women are more at fault because they are programmed to embrace the culture as it is presented to them?

Frankly, until both genders realise that we are in this together and learn to respect the frailties and strengths inherent in the opposite sex, then we're on a hiding to nowhere - and that makes us all "poor helpless things".

"...and you can't eat archaic and have it, too."

Brilliant. Should be nominated as a finalist in the OLO Frank Muir/Denis Norden pun of the year award.

My only surprise with Jocelynne Scutt's article is that she has not recommended the obvious solution to dealing with questions of rights, religion and entitlements in law…

Which must necessarily be the total adoption in policy, conventions, statutes, regulations and the application in all these of complete legal gender neutrality.

Such a principle automatically enshrines equality of rights and entitlements to everybody under the law – regardless of whether they are a woman or not.

So-called 'religious law' would be valid only if it conformed. Problem solved.

Just home again, temporarily.

Thanks, Poirot and particularly your comment, WmTrevor, which I agree with entirely! and I think my history of comments on this topic bear that out. Don't forget I said, 'it's worth responding to "rhetorically".
It's absolutely true that we're driven by primordial and ideological imperatives, and that's what we need to transcend. Scutt's solutions actually reinforce our illusions.
And yes, davidf, thanks for that witty rejoinder at your countryman.

Yes WmTrevor, but if a law is to achieve complete legal gender neutrality it must be enacted and interpreted with complete legal gender neutrality, accomplished by agreement between women’s and men’s legislatures and with courts of women‘s and men’s jurisdiction. The current arrangement of law enacted and interpreted in legislatures and courts men allow women to attend is the antithesis of neutrality.

Tony Lavis
"Too right: the last thing we need is some archaic religious legal system operating at cross-purposes to the secular laws of this nation.
Unfortunately we already have one which is firmly established and probably isn't going anywhere: Catholic Canon Law. This is the legal system under which the most severe punishments for child rape were until quite recently to be moved to a new parish or - in the most serious cases - to be defrocked: to be discharged from the priesthood so they can get a job in the secular world."

You are misinformed. Catholic Canon Law does not give anyone the right to misbehave or to cover-up misbehaviour.