Letter sent to The Globe and Mail

[rfmcdonald]

Editors:

Ouahida Bendjedou, in her article "Who's afraid of sharia?", asks whether shari'a is "more generous, or simply different." In at least one area, that of gay rights, shari'a is significantly less generous. The Hanafi school of Islamic legal thought, for instance, demands that homosexuals be punished through harsh beating; if they repeat their acts, they are to be executed. Similarly, in the Shafi`i school, if a homosexual is married he is stoned to death, while if single, he or she is whipped 100 times.

The question of same-sex rights remains contested in Canada. I'd like to think that all Canadians, regardless of their stance on this issue, would agree that the implementation, in whole or in part, of a legal system which would require the judicial torture and murder of up to a million Canadians, is completely unacceptable.

Randy McDonald
Toronto ON