>>No, Walter, what clear is that you are ignoring the reality of sharia as it gets put into practice. Read your own Wikipedia citation, and tell me: is that the kind of thing you'd be okay with having imposed in your country, even if just for Muslims?
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>Again you fail to read my messages. I've told you at least three times my standpoint. As long as you fail to read what I say there is no point in continueing this discussion, which BTW was created by yourself to distract from the original post.
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>Walter,

That's called weaseling. The fact of the matter is you have no standpoint, other than to bash me for my supposed "ignorance."

FYI: http://www.cfr.org/publication/8034/#1

Many Islamic countries acknowledge Islamic law in their constitutions by making Islam the official religion of the country or by stating that shariais a source--or the source--of the nation's laws. For example, Article II of the 1980 Egyptian constitution states that Islam is the religion of the state and "Islamic jurisprudence is the principal source of legislation." Iraq's interim constitution, passed under the U.S.-led occupation, makes Islam "a source of legislation" and stipulates that no law may "contradict the universally agreed tenets of Islam." The 1992 Basic Law of Saudi Arabia states that the nation's constitution consists of the Quran and the sunna, the actions and sayings of the prophet as recorded in the hadith. Article IV of the Iranian constitution states that "all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria." And Article 227(1) of the Pakistani constitution reads, "All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and sunna ... and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such injunctions."

You cannot point to any country that (a) has enacted any degree of sharia constitutionally and (b) does not suffer from major human rights problems. Law must apply to all members of a population or they become discriminatory.

Here's another conundrum: sharia in any form takes away a Muslim's right to decide "how Muslim" they want to be. It takes away personal choice, and puts it in the hands of government, or worse yet, some non-governmental agency like the mutawa'in in Saudi Arabia.

Regardless, for a government minister to blithly state that sharia is ok if 2/3 of the population wants it displays a great deal of ignorance, not only of sharia and its various schools, but of the potential for institutionalizing discrimination and abuse. His backpedalling to some "explanation of democracy in action" is simply a coverup. And your defense of his remarks do you no credit.