Ellis wrote:

"surely no one seriously argues that we should in secular modern western governments."

There seems to be plenty of people in "the West" who claim we should do exactly that. We have what's been called an "anti-smacking bill" in Parliament at the moment. The main opposition to it is driven by the Christian belief "spare the rod and spoil the child". As for Sharia law. It's not really that long ago the Christian Church was burning people for disagreeing with it. I sometimes think extremists in the West believe we should still be doing it.