This comment on cultural relativism (the view that people within certain ethnic groups or social groups have different rights and responsibilities) is one of the big issues of the decade. It impacts particularly within religions, where religious or ethnic leaders like to maintain their own standards of morality, and promote those standards as a way of demonising others who dont follow those standards. Effectively they can deny their followers the legal and social rights that other members of society have.

I believe that western governments are coming to the view that all their citizens are equally entitled to protection under the law. This means that civil divorces will take precedent over religious divorces, and minorities will have to go outside their leadership, or change aspects of their their culture, to achieve social equality.

freda