If Sharia is okay, what about Halakha?

by Clifford F. Thies

In the United States, the government is supposed to both protect the exercise of religion and oppose the establishment of religion. While there are differences of opinion regarding how to do both simultaneously, religious law as such is not followed. However, there are those who today say Sharia should be recognized.

It is not unusual for governments to recognize religious law. For example, in Israel and in several Arab nations, religious law is recognized. In Israel, to get married, you have to follow religious law. If you and your partner are, for example, are Eastern Orthodox Christians, their rules govern. Ditto Maronite Christian. Indeed, there are a total of nine Christian traditions recognized by the state of Israel, as are (orthodox) Judaism, Islam and Druze. The set-up wasn't devised by Israel. Rather, it was inherited from the Ottoman Empire.

Problems abound with inter-religious marriages, which usually are resolved either by one of the parties converting to the religion of the other, or by the parties going overseas to be married (often, to Cypress). These marriages are usually recognized by the state of Israel, and are known as civil marriages.

With regard to Jews, some special rules should be mentioned: Only orthodox Judaism is recognized and all marriages between Jews are governed by orthodox Jewish law or halakha. Anybody born of a Jewish mother is, by birth, a Jew and cannot convert to another religion. Furthermore, children born of Jewish women who are not married by halakha (including civil marriages) are considered to be mamzers, a kind of illegitimacy, and restricted as to their rights to marry.

There was a time when the system of state recognition of several religious laws was considered tolerant. It allowed people of different religious traditions to live amongst each other, and engage in trade and other relations, and perhaps even to convert or cross-over from one tradition to another. With such systems, Jews lived in many places in Europe and the Middle East for many years prior to the Holocaust in Europe and the expulsions of Jews that occurred in many Arab nations following the formation of the state of Israel.

But, we, in America, took another step in the evolution of freedom: that the state would neither establish any single religion or any multiplicity of religions. Rather, the state's relation to us as citizens was to be direct and irrespective of religion. Recognizing sharia or, for that matter, halakha, would be a step backward. There should be no conditioning of our rights as citizens according to religious traditions.

Image from our friends at Gates of Vienna blog