.... As I have written on Conservative Home, Muslim women do get a raw deal from the asymmetric divorce rules in Islam. There are clear remedies, mentioned in my article, but they need better publicity and more take up. However, ignoring the importance of religious belief, as the 197 signatories do, means that their prescriptions are simply unable to engage with the real problems.
As a simple example from another religion, one of my Roman Catholic friends had a failed marriage. Obtaining a civil divorce was straightforward. However, he was unable to get married to the Roman Catholic woman who is now his second wife until the Church had formally annulled his first marriage.
The British state had no power to give him that annulment, and no amount of feminist complaining that it is not fair that the male-dominated RC Church has the power to decide such issues would make any difference. Religious beliefs matter, because the people who hold those religious beliefs think they matter.
Simply wishing that Muslim men and women did not hold religious views that influence their behaviour, which is clearly the implicit (though not explicit) position of the 197 signatories results in their complaints being frankly vacuous. [ConservativeHome] Read more
