Last Weekend

[da]

(I've linked this to the writeups by melted_snowball, since he has the ability to write quickly and briefly on each day's events. Unlike my strategy, which is, um, to not.)

Friday night, d. and I went out to dinner at a newish restaurant. It's a converted church. They kept the stained glass and a lot of exposed wood, and put in cool chandeliers and a dark stone floor. The food was good- not stupendous, but good. Great atmosphere, though.

Saturday night, we went to the philharmonic for a concert of the Sea Symphony by Vaughn Williams and Poulenc's Gloria. By far the best part was the soprano soloist, Measha Brueggergosman, who is amazing. She's 27, and has the stage presence of a diva. *worship* *worship*

Sunday night, we hosted a party for d's two graduating PhD students. I was honestly surprised at how smoothly it went, probably because it was planned by my well-organized sweetie ( ^*worship* ). roverthedog got to meet Paul, and vice-versa, which only took three years to arrange. Paul is one of Rover's biggest fans-from-afar; he even used her as a "virtual sponsor" of a booth at a local computer trade-show. Paul also brought a yummy jar of salsa made by mynatt, who, come to think of it, I met due to Paul. (Huh, never thought of that. Thanks Paul!)

It was nice catching up with a few people, most notably somebody I know from the local Interfaith Group, who has lately become an advocate against the recently defeated Provincial bill to make a subset of Sharia Law one of the legal systems supported by binding arbitration. That bill has been defeated, but she thinks there will likely be another round eventually. I clarified her position, and I'm still not 100% clear on my position. On the one hand, Canada values multiculturalism very strongly, and already there are binding arbitration processes set up for other religions, so adding some form of Islamic arbitration seems fair. On the other hand, there are clear problems if ordinary sharia laws disenpower some classes of Canadians, such as women, young people, gays, and so on. Back on the first hand, it isn't clear to me exactly what parts of Islamic law would be included- at one point the newspaper said just those portions that are compatible with existing Canadian law? Can that be accomplished equitably? I don't know.

Comments

Shari'a

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

I followed the Shari'a issue closely, so I'm going to correct both you and that BBC article :)

• Mumtaz Ali was not the "first Muslim to qualify here as a lawyer", but rather the first to swear with his hand on the Qur'an when admitted to the bar.
• The proposal was to use shari'a in a limited number of family law cases, and only when both parties agreed.
• At no time could a judgment contradict ordinary Canadian law, and the arbitration process has never been "binding"; both parties would have been free to appeal the decision using either religious (eg. shari'a) or ordinary family law.
• It wasn't just orthodox Jews using these laws, it was a large number of religious groups, including old-order Mennonites.
• The proposal wasn't just defeated -- McGuinty saw the writing on the wall, and scrapped all religious arbitration. B'nai Brith complained (apparently on the grounds that Jewish laws were good and Muslim laws were bad), but everyone else accepted that it was the only fair solution. I don't think this proposal stands any chance at all now of being accepted.

At first I was in favour of this plan, but I became convinced that some young women from Muslim families would be co-erced into "choosing" shari'a, which wouldn't treat them as well as ordinary Canadian law. So I'm glad McGuinty took the only reasonable option, without waiting for a lengthy legal process to force him to do it.

Re: Shari'a

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That clears up a lot for me. I remember now reading that it was only for limited family-law cases. But I didn't know that the judgements were non-binding.

(I find myself wondering how many of my misconceptions would've been cleared up if the CBC hadn't been on strike through the end of this issue? Most of what I learned, came from the Globe&Mail, early in the morning when I wasn't entirely awake. And it hasn't exactly been a simple issue...)

I agree about the coercive aspects of the plan, and more fundamentally, laws shouldn't be unfairly coercive to citizens; though government certainly does its share of "coercion for the greater good".

I'm less clear on whether state-supported ethical coercion is de facto wrong because of that, though. :)