Calls are going out for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign over his remarks on Sharia law. I’ve got to at least suspect that the timing of the Archbishop’s ill-conceived plea had something to do with the public revelation last Sunday of the British government’s previously secret decision to recognize foreign polygamous marriages. At that point Archbishop Williams probably came under some pressure from traditional Anglicans to speak out against the decision, which in turn may have prompted his de facto public explanation of why he would refuse to take such a step.

Archbishop Williams quite correctly pointed out that Sharia law is already in some significant respects recognized in Britain, and no doubt he had the polygamy decision in mind as an example when he said this. Despite the furor over Williams’ remarks and the calls for his resignation, there have been very few public outcries in Britain since the Telegraph revealed the government’s quiet polygamy decision. So while the anger and Williams is a good sign, the general British reluctance to oppose the government’s polygamy move shows that Williams may only be drawing the conclusion of an already strong accommodationist trend.

I’ll likely have more to say about the British polygamy decision down the road. Obviously it’s a token not only of a loss of cultural will on immigrant assimilation, but of the extent to which the British family has weakened. And of course the two trends are not at all unrelated.