This is not the only European example of bending a little too far, IMHO. A German judge recently ruled that a domestic abuse case he was hearing was entirely permissible conduct under Shari'a law (the news item was from March 2007, so direct links to news feeds have long since disappeared - Google "German judge rules Koran" and you'll find plenty of reaction from other bloggers).

The more conservative voices out there are trumpeting this as the zenith of multicultural dipstickery and a legal system run amok, and I have to admit that they've got  a point, much as it galls me to do so. This is the sort of thing that has European social conservatives up in arms, and leads to stuff like the Freyja Aswynn posting that got so much blog time among the Heathens last week. There's a very real sense of fear out there that the foreigners are 'taking over' - and while I don't share that fear myself, I see where it's coming from.

Thing is, one judge's opinion (even in Germany) isn't the final say - and neither is the opinion of the Archbishop of Canturbury. Whenever two (or more) cultures come into contact, there is a period of adjustment - and these are symptoms of that adjustment, not signs of the End Times. Legal bodies have already denounced the Archbishop's pronouncement, and the Central Council of Muslims in Germany is on record denouncing the German legal decision (see? Moderate Islam - right there in print and on the record). If you'll pardon the descent into academic language for a minute, it's the Hegelian dialectic in action. You have a Thesis (Western Law), an Antithesis (Shari'a Islamic Law), and they're butting up against each other on the way to a new Synthesis. This doesn't mean that everyone will be subject to Shari'a in the future, or that Western Law is going to ignore Muslim social mores and religious sensibilities in its traditional paternalistic style (which is the very real fear on the other side of the coin) - most likely, IMHO, there will be some recognition that within traditional communities, Shari'a will continue to be the local standard <i>right up to the point that civil authorities outside the community are called in to get involved in a dispute</i>., at which point the local standards will have to accommodate civil standards. That, in a nutshell, is how pluralism is supposed to work in theory (like, f'r instance, States' Rights in a Federal Republic, or National Law vs. International Law). It's a gross oversimplification, but that's the basic theory as I understand it.

And that's why I'm fairly confident that, in the long run, we'll figure out the Theses, Antitheses, and Syntheses in our own country as well. We've done it before (in some cases far more successfully than others - ask Vine Deloria), and I think we'll do it again. .