LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
navytron89)
Ok, here is something from AU to show what goes on in a theocratical controlled government. Please note this woman wanted to change faiths from Muslim to Christian to marry her future husband and was denined it.
Religious Freedom is something we take for granted here in America and should protect vigilantly. This also offers us a possible look into what would happen if the Fundies and Domies ever ruled America and turned us into a Christian Nation.
Notice what would happen to this woman if she tried to go to a Sharia (Islamic) court, she faces everything from fines to possible death.
Could you imagine the same thing here if the Dominionist rule, segragation would come back and be forced on to the citizen of this country.
Its LJ community like this that helps educate and inform others as well as provides us support from religious tyranny like this.
audotorg Malaysia’s highest federal court earlier this week refused to recognize the conversion of a Muslim-born woman to Christianity. The panel ruled 2-1 that the decision was beyond the secular court’s discretion.
Lina Joy, 43, converted from Islam to Roman Catholicism in 1998. Her troubles began shortly thereafter when she tried to change her religious affiliation on her national identification card. Because Islam requires adherents to marry within the faith, Joy would not be allowed to wed her Catholic fiancée if she was registered as a Muslim.
Government officials denied the request, forcing her to turn to the courts. The Boston Globe reports that the six-year battle for her most basic right, the right to believe, came to a close on Wednesday. Writing for the majority, Federal Court Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim admonished “[She] can’t at whim and fancy convert from one religion to another… She must follow rules.”
Justice Richard Malanjum, the panel’s lone non-Muslim, protested that Joy’s “fundamental constitutional right of freedom of religion” had been denied. Malaysia’s constitution is conflicted on church-state relations because it simultaneously establishes Islam as the official religion and defends free exercise of other religions.
Her options, the majority said, were to face a Sharia [Islamic] court or flee the country. She could face fines, imprisonment or execution if she goes before the Islamic tribunal.
The decision shocks the conscience because Malaysia is considered one of the world’s most modern and forward thinking majority-Muslim democracies. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs, representing about 40 percent of the country’s population, have lived peacefully with Muslims for decades.
Joy’s case marks a disturbing trend in church-state relations around the world, and reminds us that democracies are not immune to theocratic control. The American constitutional principle of church-state separation protects us from egregious violations of conscience such as that suffered by Ms. Joy. But we must remain ever alert to the forces of religious extremism within our own borders that pose a threat to that most precious freedom.