...and judge myself in my own religious court for stealing things, and not be punished.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear... you can't judge yourself under your own court unless the victim of the theft agrees to that. If you were the victim, you could't judge the case unless the thief also agreed to it. The only time you could be at an advantage would be if you're sueing yourself!

The law of the land is affected in that it is subverted--people are being tried, though consentually, under a different legal system. People should not be able, for better or for worse, to avoid the legal system just because of their beliefs.

No, no... in Canada, it's the SAME legal system. Look, it's like this. Assume my neighbour and I are both Jewish. I get into some minor dispute with him and we can't resolve it amicably. One solution is to go to court. But then there's a huge loss of time and money, plus the fact that I don't really want to sue my neighbour and humiliate him, and maybe I don't want to risk being humiliated in public. Perhaps he feels the same way. So we go to our neighbourhood rabbi, who has been trained in the Canadian legal system and in arbitration. He listens to our case and tries to solve the problem by dealing with it on the legal merits and his knowledge of human nature. He may, in addition, draw on any religous scriptures we both acknowledge to convince us that
his decision was wise. He may NOT, though, pass a judgement that violates the rights guaranteed to us under Canadian law. In any case, if we're dissatisfied, we can appeal his decision.

Also, Mediators / arbitrators often work out compromises, which is a different role from that of judges. For example, Norway is (or was) mediating between the government and rebels in Sri Lanka. The US should be mediating between Israel and Palestine.

That's ridiculous. For one thing, it panders to the large religions and screws the smaller ones--what's a wiccan going to do for divorce? And I'm an atheist, do they have to have special laws for me? And there's thousands of branches of major religions, many very different--laws for each of them, too?

The laws aren't all that different. Mostly it's just a minor change in response to religous sensibilities. Still may not be a good thing, though.

If you're passing a law, it should be because that law *should be there* on a national scale. Splitting it up between the major religions ain't right.

There SHOULD be a Uniform Civil Code. It certainly shouldn't be based on anybody's religion, though.
Glad we agree on this one