OUR MIXED-UP DEMOCRACY
The "Economist" reports some government has just said NO to groups of Catholic, Mennonite, Jews and Muslims wanting to arbitrate disputes involving family law.
Does this mean that government with its lawyer/politicians and bureaucrats have greater skill and sensitivity on family matters than these faith groups? Or is this the old, old story of governments wanting to control everything including family disputes?
One wonders why these faith groups even bother with the government. They have the families. They’re in the local communities. They are not in some government office tower.
Maybe we have become conditioned to look to government for handling all our problems. They have most of our money.
Or, maybe, key groups in the community haven’t yet learned to work together.
We have a whole string of hot family issues, separation, child custody, divorce, abortion, gay rights, and euthanasia. Why in the world do our faith groups keep running to governments with petitions, placards, marches and emails - as if government has the wisdom or knowledge to help. Governments are mostly good at turning local issues into political, vote-getting schemes.
The community faith groups can avoid these political swamps by learning to pool resources and work together. In fact, they can use these key community family needs as occasions to work together - which they normally don’t do. If they teamed up, they would find governments in much better moods.
So why don’t we urge our local faith group to pick a current need and team up for families? Www.newhopecovenants.org can help that group focus on it’s goal and follow through to achieve it.
Join us for this ongoing discussion of our THE FAMILY CHALLENGE.
posted by New Hope Covenants @ 11:25 a.m.
3 comments
3 Comments:
I looked with interest at the lead article on lack of government support for religious law applied to domestic situations. I was opposed to the Muslim desire to have Sharia law introduced in Ontario to deal with family issues because of the issues surrounding Sharia law. That said, any group is free to use whatever tools that they have to solve problems, and I generally agree that getting the state out of our lives is a good thing. That said there is often much intolerance within religion and sometimes a much too dogmatic approach to issues. Many religions do not deal very well with the concept of women and their rights, and that must be guarded against. Religions of the book are particularly egregious toward women.
I agree with the previous poster who is oppesed to Sharia law being allowed to resolve disputes. It would no doubt be a system that would work against women. Beyond that, it would be contrary to the laws of the land which do not allow discrimination on the basis of sex. However, I am not opposed to groups, be they religious or otherwise, solving disputes without going to the courts. It happens all the time via various mediation and arbitration processes in many areas of personal and business life. As long as the laws of the land are not infringed upon, non governmental solutions are most often the best route.
These comments are both constructive and well balanced. It looks like we will have fewer political problems if we take fewer of our personal problems to governments to try to solve
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