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It's not easy to revamp religious laws because now the source material is nearly impossible to change (in the day of mass-printed holy books). It would be impossible for the Pope to go back and cross out a bunch of crazy stuff in Deuteronomy because it doesn't fit modern sensibilities. The Hadith are a bit more fluid because certain ones can move in and out of favor, but any particularly unpopular rules from the Qur'an are going to be impossible to change without pissing off a lot of people. Muslims believe that the Qur'an is perfect, similar to Christians believing the Bible is inerrant.
What you end up with, in my understanding of history, is the fundamentalists that take everything as gospel (ha! religious pun!), and the moderates that take some of it as gospel and dismiss other parts because they're outdated or offensive. The problem is that the moderates don't really have good reason to abandon parts of their religion, at least not reasons they're willing to admit. My mother, a Catholic, supports abortion, supports divorce, supports contraception, supports homosexual rights, etc. So what does that mean when she opens up the inerrant word of the Christian God and sees these things basically set in stone? She won't admit it to herself in such blatant terms, but she thinks parts of the Bible are flat out wrong. She thinks things that the Vicar of Christ says are flat out wrong. She disbelieves inerrancy. She probably believes that Jesus died on the cross for her original and subsequent sins, but that's hardly the only thing in the Bible. Worse still, when she's confronted by a fundy armed with specific Bible verses, there are things she just can't reconcile, so she reverts. I've actually seen her change her stance on homosexuality (temporarily) when confronted by a nutter wielding a Bible and calling out specific quotes about homosexuals. It kinda sucked.
My point is ultimately those archaic, cruel laws are going to be sticking with us for the foreseeable future. Sure, moderates will use what little wiggle room there is to drag their faiths kicking and screaming into the present, but the verses don't change. It's because of that inflexibility that religious law, imho, can't work. It's why I love the Constitution so much; it's a living law.
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