Christians should marry Muslims to tackle Islamophobia, a senior former judge has said. Lord Scott, who formerly served in the Supreme Court, said that his own family, in which two of his children married Muslims, is an example of how interfaith families can succeed, according to the Express.
Speaking during a debate on how to improve relations between the Muslim community and the rest of British society, Lord Scott, who sits in the House of Lords as an independent crossbencher, said: “Of my two sons one has become a Muslim and of my two daughters one of those has become a Muslim, and I have 12 lovely grandchildren, seven of whom are little Muslims.
“The family relationships since those events took place have been as happily familial, as close and as good as any parent or grandparent could wish,” he added.
“I do just wonder that if an improvement is needed between the faith groups, one way of promoting that might be to encourage interfaith marriages.”
Baroness Warsi, the Minister of State for Faith and Communities, responded by saying: “It’s important that we allow people to marry somebody of their choosing whatever faith they belong to, and that’s why I’m incredibly proud that the Government has done so much work on the issue of forced marriages, including criminalising a practice which should have been criminalised a long time ago.”
Some Christian denominations, especially Catholicism, require parents to raise their children in that denomination, even if one of the parents is of a different faith. Many Muslims also believe that, in the event of mixed marriage, the children should be raised following Islam.
This could potentially cause tensions if the wider public were to follow Lord Scott’s idea.
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