Our old friend the homophobic Norman Tebbit – sorry, Lord Tebbit – has put the right-wing cat among the Muslim pigeons with a remark about the hideous sharia law that is creeping into Britain.
The Daily Mail tells us how Tebbit has likened sharia tribunals to the kind of arbitration run by the Kray twins.
He told the House of Lords, “Are you not aware that there is extreme pressure put upon vulnerable women to go through a form of arbitration that results in [their] being virtually precluded from access to British law?”
Five sharia courts currently operate mediation systems approved under the 1996 Arbitration Act. Although their rulings are not legal under British law, once they’ve been through these kangaroo courts they can merely be approved by a proper judge.
As you would expect, Muslims don’t agree with Tebbit’s comment. The Mail says they’ve called it “baseless and ignorant”.
Well take a look a this post, and make up your own mind about sharia law. If they want to practise it, they know where they can bugger off to.
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FOOTNOTE: It may be necessary to explain for the benefit of non-UK readers the reference to bikes below by one of our commenters. Tebbit once notoriously suggested that people out of work should do what his father used to do, which was get on his bike and look for work. "On yer bike" became a catchprase associated with Tebbit after that.
3 comments:
Sharia Law? On yer bike!
Hmm, could catch on as a slogan
I think Tebbit came out as an atheist some time ago and given his vehement hostility to the frightful Sharia law which we all share, I can almost forgive his homophobia.
George
Norman Tebbit was anti-gay in a sly way. I remember him being interviewed on Radio 4's "Today Programme" in the late 1980s, around the time we were being softened up for what was soon to become "Clause 28", later "Section 28" of the Local Government Act (which outlawed the "promotion" of homosexuality by Local Government bodies).
Of course, Tebbit oiled his way around the charge of bigotry by telling us that he had "many homosexual friends" whom he "liked and admired" - he just wanted to see them subject to discriminatory laws that further underlined their second class citizen status.
His professed atheism is not too much of a surprise, as many right wing people, of a cynical disposition, find the nihilism and amorality implicit in atheism, attractive (he was very much of the "no such thing as society" school of Conservatism, once proudly scoffing that "People with consciences don't vote Conservative").
Atheism - the absence of belief in a God - may, or may not, carry with it the affirmative and altruistic Enlightenment values which are quite clearly signposted in the term "Secular Humanism", which is the term I favour.
To describe oneself as an "atheist" is like saying "I don't support Chelsea" or "I never holiday in Greece". It begs the question "What do you do instead?" Famous atheists include, not only Norman Tebbit, but also Pol Pot, George Bernard Shaw and Nigella Lawson. Doesn't really tell you very much, does it?
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