Hapless Rowan

So, Rowan Williams has suggested that sharia law is inevitable in the UK and now is having to face the angry mob who just don’t understand him.

The thing it, Rowan Williams is quite logical in suggesting that a special religious law could be part of the law of the land – we already have such things. The churches have carefully got the state to agree to just such provision over the centuries. Thus we get a situation where church buildings, property and people are treated differently under the law than if they were not religious. It is our own Christian version of sharia law. This covers everything from clergy receiving housing without it being regarded as a taxable benefit, to churches reserving the right to discriminate in employment in areas which are repugnant to people of good will in society. What the hapless archbishop has not realised is that this is a concept which is pretty unpopular when you articulate it and not only with people outside religious communities.

Us secularists have to stick together. Fr Archbishop has a good point – Islam could well call for special cases to be made in the law on the basis that Christians have them. He is quite wrong to think that it is right.