Claiming Equal Religious Personhood: Women of the Wall’s Constitutional Saga

Sacralising the patriarchal family in the monotheistic religions: ‘To no form of religion is woman indebted for one impulse of freedom’

“…19 Importantly, there are clear directives at the international level subordinating cultural practices or customs to the right to gender equality: CEDAW's Article 5(a) creates a clear hierarchy of values, requiring states parties to take all appropriate measures '[t]o modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men and women'; 'Cultural practices' clearly include religious norms, (Raday, 2003) and the HRC has determined that the right to freedom of religion does not allow any state, group or person to violate women's equality rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, later reiterated in the ICCPR, established the equal rights of 'men and women of full age' to marry and to found a family, and their entitlement to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.…”

“…Three major critical themes emerge. I have argued elsewhere that these arguments do not take account of the fact that secular human rights explicitly provide for the right to religious and cultural freedoms and that 'secularism's utopian wars' were not fought in the name of human rights (Raday, 2003 What is crucial to remember, and is marginalised or ignored in the liberal anti-secularist literature, is the impact of religious pluralism on women (Raday, 2009), gay men and lesbians. The second is the claim that secular intolerance constitutes a threat to peace, as evidenced either in secularism's utopian wars (Grey, 2007) or reflexively, as a result of the religious fundamentalist violence which secularism incites (Almond, Appleby and Emmanuel, 2003).…”

“…Until such time as reform has occurred within and across the monotheisms, the potential for hermeneutic reform cannot justify postponing realisation of the right to equality in the family, with access to the courts to enforce international and constitutional human rights to such equality (Raday, 2007). Human rights law has extended the right to equality and moral autonomy to all family members, repudiating patriarchal hierarchy in the family.…”