That's A Turnabout

When I first started writing this blog, Michael Coren was a regular target for my ire, especially when he would go off spouting right wing talking points about gay marriage.  Quite frankly, I saw little difference between his columns published in the Sun newspapers and the tirades of his then ally Charles McVety.

About a month ago, I saw a segment on CBC's Power and Politics (starts at 1:39:00) where McVety and Coren were talking about Ontario's new sex-ed curriculum.  I was shocked at the irrational flailing about of McVety, and even more stunned by how reasonable Mr. Coren was sounding.  

It turns out that Mr. Coren has had quite a change of heart.  

I applaud Mr. Coren taking steps to change in light of new evidence and information.  While I don't expect to agree with him on all matters in the future, I applaud his thoughtful, reasoned approach.  I wish him well.  

Prentice's Bill 10: A Legislative Trojan Horse

There is little doubt that the Prentice government is getting its ass handed to it on the editorial pages of newspapers across Canada with respect to its hastily written Bill 10 counter response to Liberal MLA Laurie Blakeman's Bill 202.

After looking at Bill 10 for a little while, I have come to the conclusion that this is far worse than being a simple ham-fisted counter-response to Bill 202, it is in fact a legislative Trojan Horse which will create enormous problems in Alberta for years to come ... at least until someone has the political spine to remove S11.1 and a couple of other clauses that are being slipped in.

Let's take a closer look at how Bill 10 will change Alberta's Bill of Rights, shall we?

Off the top, the government wishes to amend S1 of the act.  Before Bill 10, S1 reads as follows:

Recognition and declaration of rights and freedoms
1 It is hereby recognized and declared that in Alberta there exist

without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely:


(a) the right of the individual to liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;

(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;

(c) freedom of religion;

(d) freedom of speech; 

(e) freedom of assembly and association;

(f) freedom of the press.

After Bill 10, this will read as follows (emphasis added to changes):

Recognition and declaration of rights and freedoms
1 It is hereby recognized and declared that in Alberta there exist

without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion, sex or sexual orientation the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely:


(a) the right of the individual to liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;

(b) the right of the individual to equality before the law and the protection of the law;

(c) freedom of religion;

(d) freedom of speech; 

(e) freedom of assembly and association;

(f) freedom of the press.

(g) the right of parents to make informed decisions respecting the education of their children. 

Please note, this is not the Alberta Human Rights Act, but the more foundational BILL OF RIGHTS. Section 2 of the Bill of Rights legislation clearly states that all other legislation in Alberta is assumed to operate in compliance with this act unless specifically stated to do so.  In other words, the Bill of Rights is one step removed from the Constitution in terms of legal hierarchy.

Whose bright idea was it to slide in clause (g)?  A clause like this will be used by the religious wingnut factions to object to everything from sex ed in schools to teaching evolution in biology classes.  This is a broadening of the effect of Section 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act (a different piece of legislation that Minister Blackett amended in 2009.  This will open the door to lawsuits the likes of which we usually hear about coming out of Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Section 11.1 exits the Alberta Human Rights Act, but it is far from dead and gone.  Instead it resurfaces in the Education Act as Section 58.

Section 58 exists under the rubric that there is some kind of "parental right" not to have their kids learn about sexuality.  This is nonsense.  It was nonsense in 2009, and it's nonsense today.  As a parent you have an obligation to your children to ensure that they are educated and literate.  There is no "right" to keep your children ignorant about their own bodies and sexualities.

By adding clause (g) to the Alberta Bill of Rights, the Prentice Government has not only reinforced S58, but in fact has opened up every aspect of Alberta's education system to being challenged by anyone who "objects" to some aspect of the curriculum for one reason or another.

It will also place a chill on teachers as a whole, who will find themselves basically threatened with rights challenges at every turn.

Bill 10 does precious little to protect LGBT youth in our schools, as its provisions for the creation of GSAs (and other student led bodies) is such that the obstacles to appeal are far greater than most students would have the ability to effectively enact an appeal of their school's decision, much less taking said appeal up to the level of the provincial courts.

Instead, it further reinforces the worst aspects of what the Stelmach government did to the Alberta Human Rights Act in 2009, and deepens a set of legislative clauses which are a sop to the narrow-mindedness of a small group of Albertans who seem to think that their religious beliefs have something to say about how children should learn.

Revisions:

3/12/14 11:24   Corrected link to Alberta Bill of Rights instead of Alberta Human Rights Act

Confusing Freedom With Imposition

Canada's "Association For Reformed Political Action" came to my attention this past week.  Just from the name, you can tell that this is one of the groups that is seeking to turn Canada into a theocracy much like the far right is currently doing in the United States.

I decided to spend a little time sniffing through their website, and found a fair bit of interest.

First is an explicit and clear sense of just how deeply these groups are connected with the Harper Government.

... a speech to the ARPA groups from cabinet minister Jason Kenney

Do you think you would find Jason Kenney speaking to a feminist group, or an LGBT group?  Come to think of it, how many conferences have you heard about being held on Parliament Hill in recent years ... besides those which are connected to the religious lobby?  Kenney is well known as a speaker on the "pro-life" circuit, but he is very careful to make sure that no public records of his speaking engagements are readily available.

Parliament Hill was abuzz with close to 70 representatives of ARPA chapters from across the nation who gathered last week and sat down with approximately 50 Members of Parliament and Senators to discuss issues close to our hearts.

In itself, there isn't anything particularly wrong with this group lobbying the government.  In fact, all groups should be able to lobby the government.  The real question is what does an organization lobbying the government actually represent?

Well, in this case, one doesn't have to go too far to start building a picture, and it is one which all Canadians who respect what is good and decent in this land should be concerned by.

Let's start with the following "public policy submittal" from ARPA's website:

Canada is a nation in search of an identity. We don’t publicly recognize any god as supreme, let alone the Christian God. We follow leaders and ideas for a time, only to move on to the next person or thing that stirs us. But hockey, donuts, and beer aren’t exactly symbols on which to build a nation.

Over the decades Canada has divorced the Christian God from our public institutions and replaced Him with self- worship, state-worship, and earth-worship, among other things. Yet we continue to lay claim to, and benefit from, many of the political and legal by-products of the Christian faith, including fundamental human rights, much of the Criminal Code, and the concept of rule of law.

Ah ... this would be the plea for their particular faith to be granted supremacy over all others in the nation.  After all, we were all "Christian" at one time, weren't we?  Ah, here we are:

In a nutshell, civil governments are called by God to be his servant for good, to bear the sword to punish criminal wrongdoing and to promote justice and righteousness (see Romans 13:3-4). The goal for civil government is to allow for citizens to enjoy a peaceful and quiet life (1 Timothy 2:1-2), not to convert souls or eradicate false religions.  

One reason for this limited role of the civil government is because there are other governments instituted by God and described in the Bible. Each of these governments has their own roles and responsibilities. For example, the family is a governing institution that is accountable directly to God, not to the State. It is entrusted with the duty of raising and educating children, among other things. The State has no business telling parents what their children must be taught. The family unit is not subservient to the State. Both are accountable directly to God. 

Ah yes.  The classic arguments that "God" has all the authority, and therefore the state has no reason to intervene in such trivial matters as education.  (after all, there's nothing like teaching your children fables like creationism instead of actual, objective science)

Now, in large part, this looks like the usual religious freedom claims.  More or less, the state has no right to dictate what religious doctrines are taught to children, and that people should be free to do as they please in such matters.

This suggestion that the God of the Bible is the authority from which all human authority is derived sounds radical. But the status-quo is not all that different. Much of what is guiding public policy in the provinces and our nation today is also religious – it’s just hidden under a superficial veneer of neutrality.
Religion is “an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group.”2 Every official is guided by his or her own beliefs or worldview – it is why you entered public office. As historian Link Byfield noted “All laws – not just laws concerning sexual behaviour – are based upon some moral principle. The entire Criminal Code, for starters, is an anthology of morality. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not murder, all these rules are moral principles.”3 In many regards Feminist MP Niki Ashton is no less religious than self- described evangelical Christian Stephen Harper. As a result, the policies coming out of our Parliament and Legislatures are also religiously based, though some are more explicit than others (see the example on the right). For example, the belief that health care should be distributed “freely and fairly” is a religious conviction based on a view of human worth and the role of the state.

Frankly, this is a sloppy attempt to say that "everything is religion" - a rather ludicrous reductio ad absurdum claim.  To make such a claim, one has to presuppose that morality is only informed by religion.  A more clear-headed view of the world would realize that someone can arrive at various "moral" positions through paths other than religious teaching.  For example, an atheist whose worldview is informed by empirical evidence and observation may arrive at the proscription against theft on the basis that stealing something harms the other person by depriving them of the fruits of their labour.  This is not a religious position, but rather one which can reasonably be arrived at without even so much as opening a religious text of any sort.  Is this a "religious" position?  Not in the least.

The claim is made (frequently) that our entire system of laws is rooted in religious codes that have been around for centuries.  This is partially true, but to claim that Christian religion uniquely informs our legal traditions is to ignore the fact that human society has had a social contract for millennia, and through many different religious traditions.  In many respects, one might view religion as having evolved from the abstract social contract as a means of ensuring a degree of consistency over time.  In terms of law, we traditionally credit the Babylonian king Hammurabi with creating the first known written legal code.  One might imagine that prior to this, there were laws that encompassed the likely violations of the social contract in various societies, but they were maintained orally.  Further, we know that the Greco-Roman concept of religion was highly legalistic, with various rituals forming a "contractual bond" between humans and the various Gods.  The Romans would claim that their authority was derived from the contractual endorsement between the Gods and man, just as Christianity claims authority from "the eternal God".  It is in fact this reality that causes me to assert that religion is a reflection of the society from which it emerged.

Now, things get interesting.  To this point, what we have is a group running about lobbying politicians to enable their religious freedoms.  Not entirely invalid, and per se, I have no real objection to this.  They should be perfectly free to believe as they wish and practice their faith in peace.

Then we come to some of the other campaigns that ARPA is connected to:

We Need A Law :  A "Fetal Rights" anti-abortion lobby effort.  Headed up by Mike Schouten.

The Truth Is:  An anti-abortion campaign of ARPA, with an associated "Pregnancy Help Line" (a la the misleading "Pregnancy Crisis Center" model the far right in the US has adopted to undermine Planned Parenthood.

Human Rights Commissions:  Part of a far right campaign to dismantle human rights codes and commissions that are enacted both federally and provincially in Canada.  The claim is largely that these bodies unreasonably constrain religious freedoms (which mostly turns out to be it constrains a religious "freedom" to discriminate against people who the religion doesn't like very much - like the LGBT communities).

Here is where the problem arises.  It is not that ARPA wants religious freedom at all.  It is the desire to impose their worldview on others by restricting what others who may not share their worldview are able to do.

For example, the arguments against abortion are largely based on a religious claim that life "begins at conception".  Of course, the definition of "life" is left open, allowing for much shifting of goalposts in debate.  However, making such restrictions effectively deny women's agency in setting up their lives and managing them.  While someone who happens to have the same religious philosophy as ARPA professes to may well not pursue an abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy, someone whose worldview is informed through a different set of drivers may well wish to do so for their own reasons.  In this situation, we have a problem.  The ARPA group is demanding that the agency of others in their own lives somehow unreasonably impinges upon their religious sensibilities and therefore must be limited.

Likewise, the complaints about the human rights laws (which are subservient to the Constitution and Charter - and to my knowledge have never been overturned by challenge before the courts), basically boil down to a complaint that their ability to bully and abuse others who they disapprove of is being restrained by these laws.

So, on one hand they are demanding that nobody, especially the state, impose itself upon their religious freedoms and on the other hand they are demanding that our legislators write laws which reflect their worldview and as such impose that same worldview upon all Canadians regardless of their own individual world views.

Apparently, they have not understood the distinction between individual rights and freedoms and the much broader social contract of cooperation that is needed in a diverse country in order for all members of society to be able to participate fully and freely.

More concerning is that groups like this seem to have far greater access to our current government than those who do not share these beliefs.  

Dear SCotUS: You Blew It

When you ruled that Hobby Lobby could implement its ownership's personal religious beliefs as policy imposed upon the company's employees, you really opened up the door to a world of abuse.

Hobby Lobby is a privately held corporation.  As are the majority of companies in both Canada and the United States.  Hobby Lobby is unusual in being a large operation with several thousand employees, where most corporations are quite small - a handful of employees at most.

However, I don't care what a corporation's owners "believe".  Frankly, I don't give a damn whether they believe that a condom is an abortifacient form of birth control or if the moon is made of green cheese.  They can believe the world if flat for all I care.

They still have no right whatsoever to stick their nose into my life outside of work.  PERIOD. This isn't just a matter of birth control.  It's a matter of privacy.  By permitting Hobby Lobby's ownership to pick and choose what forms of birth control the company health insurance plan will cover, your ruling allows the company ownership to impose its beliefs on the employees without any recognition of, or respect for, the individual lives that may be affected.  Frankly, I see no difference between Hobby Lobby's position on this and a refusal to provide insurance coverage for lung cancer treatment to a smoker on the basis that I believe that the smoker is making an immoral choice.

In ruling that Hobby Lobby can choose to make such limitations in the coverage of its health care, the SCotUS has provided a wedge that the right wing incrementalists will no doubt attempt to leverage.  We already know that their long term strategy is to incrementally erode rights a step at a time.

The religious right has been trying to dismantle Roe v. Wade for decades now.  You just handed them the tools to chip away further at the rights that Roe v. Wade so clearly set out in terms of women's reproductive health.

We have seen the religious classes argue against access to any kinds of contraception on the basis of their particular worldview.  In fact, in the last decade or so, they have expanded their scope from not just attacking abortion, but going after contraception as well.  Your ruling just handed them wording broad enough that we will no doubt see women's reproductive health pushed off the table in a great many workplaces - on the basis of the "beliefs" of the owners of the company.

How this will play out in cases like the Koch brothers where the company is "publicly traded", but controlling interest is held by the Koch brothers remains to be seen.  Could the Koch Brothers ram through a resolution at the annual general meeting to restrict access to birth control and have it stand?  The Hobby Lobby ruling is ambiguous in this respect.  It talks about the "probabilities", but it doesn't specifically rule out the Hobby Lobby ruling applying in such a situation.  I fully expect to see a series of proxy fights starting in various corporations as religious right groups try to flex their muscles on the AGM floor.

America's LGBT people are also justifiably wary of the Hobby Lobby ruling.  Religious objections have long been at the core of resistance to LGBT equality rights, and underly much of the systemic and explicit discrimination that LGBT people face daily - whether that is when ordering a meal in a restaurant, or trying to land a job.  Quite frankly, although the Hobby Lobby ruling appears to try and exclude such activities from the scope of the ruling, I guarantee you that someone is going to try it.  Religious objections have already been cited by a bakery which wanted to deny service to a gay couple, and I see no reason why this aspect of the Hobby Lobby ruling won't be challenged along these lines.

Let me be incredibly clear.  A corporation is not a person.  It cannot, and should never have been granted "rights" in the same sense that individual citizens hold them.  An individual citizen is possessed of a conscience, of beliefs and above all of individual autonomy.  No corporation can be said to have any of those attributes.  A corporation is a legal fiction designed for the express purpose of making money.  (Has anybody seen Hobby Lobby attending a church?  No, of course not.  Its owners can be seen in court, but one cannot say that the company attends a church)

Yes, a corporation does need certain rights legally supported.  However, those rights must be separate from, and subordinate to the rights of the individuals who participate in that corporation either as owners or as employees.  A corporation is a business intended to perform one function:  make money.  The corporation has a right to reasonable freedoms with respect to the execution of that fundamental goal.

However, those rights must be subjugated to the rights of individual citizens.  A corporation's actions absolutely should never be permitted to interfere with the private lives of citizens in any respect.  

Sincerity Is Hard In Politics

Apparently, PC Leadership Candidate Ric McIver hasn't learned that lesson.

After getting caught in a firestorm over ribbon cutting the "March For Jesus" event the same weekend that others were at the Edmonton Mayor's Pride Brunch, he issues the following rather flaccid retraction:

He says he blames himself for not doing his homework and calls the group’s rhetoric — quote — “ugly, nasty and mean-spirited.” 

He says he doesn’t believe in or support the Street Church anymore and his relationship with it is over. 

McIver plans to continue his run to become Alberta’s next premier and wants the group to remove his name and photos from its website.

Considering that McIver has appeared at these events for multiple years, it seems just a trifle implausible that he didn't know what the group represented.  In fact, given the known links between McIver and Craig Chandler (Chandler managed McIver's campaigns for Alderman in the 1990s, although publicly McIver distanced himself from Chandler after getting elected), and Pawlowski (the organizer of this march), it seems more than just a little unlikely that McIver didn't know what Pawlowski represented and believed.

More to the point, according to the National Post, McIver considers Pawlowski a friend:

Ric McIver is a regular at this city’s March for Jesus: In 2013, he cut the ribbon for the parade. Mr. McIver has said he considers the march’s organizer, well-known local evangelical Artur Pawlowski, a friend.

Let's be clear here, in the light of the long time connections between McIver and Pawlowski, McIver's dodges and attempts to minimize the meaning of what attending Pawlowski's march really means ring hollow.

Wingnut Education In Alberta

I have a problem with these "Lifestyle Covenants" that Christian Schools seem to be in love with.

It is not that these schools are publicly funded, although I do consider it a gross abuse of public resources for them to be used in this manner which so clearly flies in the face of both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and provincial Human Rights Codes.

My primary objection to these covenants is that they reach far beyond the walls of the school itself.  It creates an environment where both students and staff are subject to constant surveillance.  If they are seen by a classmate, staff or faculty member engaging in something "unseemly", they become subject to arbitrary sanctions in their education and professional lives.

While traditionally, students are held to a certain degree of propriety outside of the school in general (e.g.  students who are caught vandalizing the neighbourhood in which the school exists may find themselves suspended or even expelled from a school), it's far from the kind of restrictions that these covenants impose:

All teachers will uphold the sanctity of marriage, defined as that between a man and a woman, and abstain from homosexual relations and sexual relations outside the bonds of marriage. 

All teachers are expected to regularly participate in the corporate worship, fellowship and ministry of their church.

Think about these.  Both are very open ended, and place what I would consider to be unbounded constraints on the staff.  The definitions used are extremely vague, and are subject to arbitrary interpretation - something which should render them invalid to start with.

For students, they impose similarly arbitrary constraints and objectives which require interpretation:

To develop the "mind of Christ" toward godliness and sin, and to teach the student how to live an overcoming life through the exercising of self-restraint and consideration of others. 

To encourage the development of self discipline and responsibility in the student based on respect for and submission to God and God ordained authority. 

To help the student develop for himself/herself a Christian world view by integrating life and studies with the Bible.

One can well imagine that this creates an environment where the student lives in perpetual fear of being "caught" doing something "wrong", and being harshly judged for it by the school, their parents and their peers.

I take great exception to these schools exercising this kind of religious control over their students and teachers outside of the school walls.  This is ultimately teaching students nothing constructive except fear and control.

Should these schools have the right to create and enforce these covenants?  If they are a privately held school, funded by tuition fees paid by the parents, then I can (to some extent) look upon these covenants as private agreements between the parties.  I may believe that they set up an environment which is fundamentally abusive to the students and unreasonably invasive in the lives of staff at the school, but the participants in the agreement are free to enter into such agreements.

However, when public money is involved as it is in the two cases recently revealed, then it is my opinion that these schools should be held accountable to the human rights legislation in Alberta and Canada.  Failure to ensure that the schools abide by the same rules that other publicly funded organizations are held to creates double standards that are profoundly troubling.

Creating Hierarchies of Rights

Recently, we have had a series of stories where there have been arguments put forth that there should be "exemptions" in non-discrimination laws for religious beliefs.

Yesterday's column by Licia Corbella in the Calgary Herald positively oozed with a smug sense of religious entitlement, and attempted to hold atheists responsible for the acts of some truly vile members of humanity's past.  The column ended with a claim that Christianity has been discriminated against.

Then, on Huffington Post, we find the owners of a bakery in Oregon shutting their doors in the wake of refusing to provide a cake to a lesbian wedding.

"I think [the state labor commissioner] is going to have decide what's more important: The Oregon State Constitution, or the statute that was passed in 2007," he said at the time. "They dropped the ball by not putting in any exemption for religious beliefs."

Which leads very nicely into the issue that I want to address.  Non-discrimination statutes usually end up existing because identifiable groups are being marginalized routinely by overt discrimination.

When someone makes a call for "religious beliefs exemption", what they are actually calling for is the right to continue imposing their religious beliefs on everybody around them.  This creates a false hierarchy of rights.

The point of civil rights is that they are equal across the board.  In order for this to be true, we must acknowledge them as clearly individual rights.  The notion of "Freedom of Religion" grants every person the free right to believe and worship as they see fit.  No problem.  What it does not grant anyone is the right to impose their religious beliefs on others who do not share them.

Similarly, non-discrimination laws, which often are based on gender or race but more recently have been written to include members of the LGBT community as well, essentially put into the language of law explicit protections for those who are often treated as second class citizens or have historically been denied full rights under law.

The problem that arises here is obvious.  The minute that there is an explicit exemption for one particular kind of right over another right, the law has created a hierarchy of rights where the very notion of equality itself precludes a hierarchy.

What is truly unfortunate is that so often religion is used as an excuse by those who engage in blatant discrimination.  Consider the following from the Oregon bakery incident.

In response to the complaint, Melissa Klein argued that turning away the couple was "definitely not discrimination at all." 

"We don't have anything against lesbians or homosexuals," she said in August. "It has to do with our morals and beliefs. It's so frustrating because we went through all of this in January, when it all came out."

Let me be utterly clear about this:  refusing service to someone based on a grounds such as the other person's sexuality is discriminatory.  Period.  It doesn't matter one iota that the refusal has its roots in that person's religion - especially when that person is running a business that serves the general public.  A bakery serves the general public, as does a florist.  The only way that I can see such a business getting away with such discrimination is if they structured themselves as some kind of "society" with restricted membership.  (How they would do that _and_ be a sustainable business is beyond me, but I suppose they could try)

The minute that laws are written which give "exemptions" based on other rights, we create an environment where Orwell's "Animal Farm comes to life, and some are more equal than others.

Reasons For A Boycott Of The Sochi Games

In light of John Baird's recent comments regarding Russia's recently-passed anti-gay laws which basically outlaw any "gay propaganda" (such as two people of the same sex holding hands), I'd like to spend a bit of time talking about why a boycott of the Sochi games, along with generally isolating Russia politically is needed right now.

Baird described how he saw the roots of the issue take hold during a meeting of G8 foreign ministers in May 2012. 

“I can recall being in Washington when (then U.S. secretary of state) Hillary Clinton was chairing the G8 foreign ministers meeting and we put, as part of our statement, support for sexual minorities. Russia put an asterisk beside it saying they were not on board,” he said.

“This did not just pop out of nowhere.”

 He's right about one thing - this didn't "pop out of nowhere".  While Canada's Foreign Affairs minister cannot point the finger at the source of this vile piece of legislation, I can.  Take a look south of the US border, in particular to one Scott Lively, who has been exporting the American evangelical version of homophobia since the 1990s.  In the mid-2000s, Lively made a speaking tour of Russia where he started the process of advocating for stricter anti-gay laws.

Make no mistake about it, Lively even goes so far as to try taking a significant amount of credit for the laws that Russia has recently passed in one of his columns for WND.

I am personally very pleased to see this development, having called specifically for legislation of this sort in my speaking tour of the former Soviet Union in 2006 and 2007. During that tour, which began in the Russian eastern city of Blagoveschensk and ended in St. Petersburg, I lectured in a variety of venues including numerous universities, churches and conference halls, and met with numerous government leaders at various levels of influence. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/the-key-to-pro-family-victory-if-we-really-want-it/#O7T36fR8MIvCQfQ0.99 

Now, the fact that this is an export of the worst aspects of American-style religious evangelism is almost secondary to the discussion.  LGBT people in North America are well aware of who Scott Lively is, and just what he represents.

However, this is the first of the reasons that I am going to raise as to why something stronger than diplomatic arm-twisting is required.  Whether we like it or not, Canada's current government is rapidly becoming seen as no better than the US when it comes to foreign affairs.  The positions taken are ridiculously absolutist, and worse often end up tacitly condoning activities which the majority of its population do not approve of.  Both the United States and Canada need to be seen to be moving definitively against these laws for one basic reason:  failure to do so gives the extremists at home the excuse they need to push towards similar laws here.

Think I'm kidding?  Take a look at the tone of LifeSite's article on Russia's laws:

While Russians certainly do not want to encourage homosexuality, by no means do they criminalize homosexuality, nor do they discriminate against homosexuals, as some media have claimed. Homosexuals enjoy the same privileges as all other Russians, but they may not promote homosexuality as something positive among children in the same way as Mayor Bloomberg wants to eliminate sugary drinks, and Michelle Obama wants to get unhealthy foods out of school cafeterias.  

The media has been portraying the law as an unreasonable measure pushed by “radical religious groups.” But this cannot account for why the lower house of the Russian parliament approved the bill unanimously, with only one abstention. Russia can hardly be described as a religious nation, but the law has overwhelming support in the legislature.
Russians have consistently denied homosexual groups parade permits, sparing its children and the public at large the ludicrous and disturbing behavior on show in the squares and streets of Europe and America. 

Similarly the news reports have highlighted episodes where some LGBT persons were victims of violence, without highlighting that the vast majority of the demonstrators at the parliament while the law was being passed were in favor of the law, and that the violence had nothing to do with the vast majority of demonstrators. 

The law prohibiting the promotion of homosexuality among children simply codifies that Russia truly is interested in protecting its children, not that is interested in persecuting homosexuals. The fact is, that homosexuality is associated with almost a 20 times higher risk of HIV/AIDS, and other bad health statistics like higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse, depression, and even suicide. It is no wonder that Russians want to protect their children from embracing homosexual lifestyles. 

What the articles authors conveniently leave out is that the definition of "homosexual propaganda" used in the Russian legislation is so broad that it effectively outlaws being gay.  Full stop.  The notion of propaganda includes holding hands, having or displaying the pride flag, or even just looking gay when it comes down to it.  Legitimate political advocacy, such as speaking out for human rights on behalf of LGBT people is considered propaganda, as is providing educational content.  In short, while being gay in Russia isn't strictly illegal, they have made any expression of homosexuality whatsoever illegal ... it amounts to the same thing.  (I'm not at all sure how these laws play when we are talking about the transgender population - especially transsexuals - I suspect it could get really nasty fast).

Which brings me to the second reason why I think that a boycott of the Sochi Games is a reasonable response.  Quite frankly, the IOC's own charter would justify yanking the Sochi Games entirely.

1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example, social responsibility and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.2. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious developmentof humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

I think that when a country moves against its own citizens as blatantly as the Russians have, that country is in violation of the very fundamental principles in the first two clauses of the Olympic Charter.

Since the IOC has been reluctant to speak out against the Russian laws, especially since we have considerable reason to believe that these laws will be enforced against foreign athletes and spectators during the games,  speaking up with a boycott of the Sochi Games sends a message to both Russia (whose pride and honour is resting upon the success of the Sochi Games), and the IOC, that laws which unreasonably attack the freedoms and civil liberties of a nation's citizens are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

I have heard others in the LGBT rights movement in Russia say that they do not agree that a boycott of the Sochi games is appropriate.  I disagree.  Isolating the Russian power structure, both through diplomacy and direct action against the state is a clear statement:  "You will not attack your own citizens without it being noted, and you will absolutely not endanger the citizens of any other nation either".

The third point that I would raise is that in today's era, it is long past time to take laws of this nature and expose them for what they truly are.  We've been through this before in recent history - whether we are discussing Stalin's overly heavy handed authoritarianism, or Hitler's maniacal "Final Solution".  Both boil down to the state attacking its own people.

Under no circumstances should the world look upon this and simply try to shrug it off.  This is criminal and it endangers otherwise peaceful members of the society.  Such a law is as unacceptable in Russia as it is in Canada, the United States or Uganda.

It is time for the world community to stand up and be heard ... before we have another genocide.

The Unstated Agenda Of The CPC

I've said it for years on this blog, and I'll say it again - Harper's base wants to impose their religiously driven morality on women and minorities in Canada.

They've been signalling this repeatedly with a series of ugly little bills like Jake Epp's Bill C-484, which attempted to create legal recognition of a Fetus as a person by the back door of our criminal laws or Rod Bruinooge's Bill C-510 which attempted to criminalize "coercion" with respect to an abortion. (and was so atrociously written that even providing a woman information about abortion could be construed as coercihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifon) and Vellacott's Bill C-537 which tried to establish bogus "conscience" rights so that

Make no mistake about it, Harper's enough of a control freak that if he didn't like something his backbenchers were doing, it would have long ago been stifled. Consider for a moment what happened to Dianne Ablonczy for daring to channel funding to Toronto's Pride Festival a couple of years ago. By allowing his backbenchers to table those bills, Harper is tacitly supporting them. (and I'd http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwager that he voted for each of them ... if he happened to be in the House the days that they were voted on ... he certainly voted against C-389 on its third reading)

So, when Brad Trost brags about defunding Planned Parenthood on the campaign trail, it comes as no big surprise. (In fact, it was Mr. Trost who seemed to act as party mouthpiece when Ablonczy was muzzled - interesting) For those of you not paying attention, Planned Parenthood is an organization focusing on reproductive health - including, but not exclusively, safe access to abortion. Trost is busy bragging about his petition campaign against Planned Parenthood in 2009. This because Planned Parenthood has the temerity to actually advocate that safe access to abortion is a legitimate part of women's reproductive health.

Stephen Harper himself refused to include abortion - or even contraception - in the so-called Maternal Health Initiative he put before the G8 in 2010. So, when MPs like Trost start flapping their gums about something, chances are pretty darn good that there's more unwritten policy being executed than it appears on the surface. I shudder to think what will happen if Harper gets anywhere near majority territory in the House Of Commons.

Dog Whistling To The Base

So, the HarperCon$ want to emulate G.W. Bush once again - this time by creating an office for religious freedom.

The Tory platform, unveiled Friday, calls for the creation of special office of “Religious Freedom” within the Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa.

The function of the new office would be to “monitor religious freedom around the world, to promote religious freedom as a key objective of Canadian foreign policy.”

The new office would ensure that Canada protects “vulnerable religious minorities” abroad and would target them in refugee resettlement, or other programs through the Canadian International Development Agency.

I'm going to disagree with Ignatieff's apparent endorsement of this proposal. Not because I necessarily disagree with the concept of evaluating fundamental freedoms in foreign lands as part of our foreign affairs platform, but because of the longer range implications of this "special office".

First of all, I think for this to be a meaningful part of our foreign affairs platform we need to take steps to ensure that we are talking about all of the fundamental freedoms that are enshrined in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not just Freedom of Religion. I do not accept the supposition that freedom of religion deserves special status or profile in our foreign affairs.

Second, this is a play to "the base" of extremist religious lobbyists in Canada who have squawked and complained for several years now that their "freedom of religion" at home is being unreasonably constrained by a series of human rights rulings.

I suspect that this "office" will be given a mandate that will oblige it to evaluate the "Freedom of Religion" in foreign lands with respect to Canada's practices. Conveniently, it will have to "measure" freedom of religion in Canada in order to create a meaningful benchmark. You can pretty much bet that the "findings" of said measurement will be used to argue that Canada's Human Rights system is "not adequately safeguarding" religious freedoms - [particularly where "christian" beliefs about sexuality are concerned. Just about all of the cases involve "christians" discriminating against GLBT people]

This "initiative" is actually the HarperCon$ setting up yet another "wedge issue" - in this case, it is intended to be used to begin the process of undermining Canada's human rights law and the agencies that enforce it. The only people who have been squawkingabout this are the fundamentalist religious right wingnuts who seem to believe that it is their right to insist that they be able to project their moral code onto others who do not share their beliefs - and thereby forget the interesting paradox of the very notion of Freedom of Religion - namely that it includes Freedom _from_ Religion as well.

WhereIn NoApologies Shows Us Why Church And State Must Be Kept Apart

If you ever needed more concrete reasons why Canadians should be diligent about ensuring that radical religiosity needs to be kept as far from the reins of state as possible, consider the oh-so-rational thinking of the erstwhile Tim Bloedow in his post Thinking rightly about homosexuality and Christian B&B owners.

That being said, human rights is hostile to Christianity and justice. And we see that born out again in this case. Human rights is the law order for socialism – for affirmative action, group rights, “substantive equality,” which has nothing to do with genuine equality. We see this in human rights legislation: It protects people not as individuals, but based on their participation in groups, and not any group, only politically protected groups, such as people defined by ethnicity, sex/gender, “sexual orientation” and marital status. Human rights law doesn’t protect firemen, those with eyebrow piercings or dairy farmers.

Of course, what Mr. Bloedow is asserting here is actually quite ludicrous. Essentially, he is arguing that because human rights laws typically specifically address common grounds on which discrimination takes place. Whether that is race, religion, sexual orientation is irrelevant - these are all common grounds which have been used historically to limit the full participation of an individual in society.

Apparently, Mr. Bloedow doesn't understand the notion of individual rights as they are expressed in law. I will point to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an example of how flawed his logic is:

Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

I don't know how this could be more abundantly clear about the fact that these rights apply to individuals.

What Mr. Bloedow seems to want is some kind of hierarchy of rights, which would put his "Christian Rights" ahead of all other rights - in particular his right to discriminate against others based on the projection of his faith onto others.

But the question is more fundamental than that. Christian activists should be asking: “How can businessmen live out their faith if they are legally required to support with their time, their labor, their goods, and their services behaviors that are offensive to them?”

Yes, we’re concerned about freedom of religion and conscience. Yes, we are concerned about Christian businessmen. But the real bahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifttleground is far more fundamental.

Really? So, you want to make it legal for businesses to practice "we don't serve your kind" discrimination? We've seen that before - it used to take place in the US before segregation was outlawed. Sadly, there are still those who would practice such vile forms of discrimination. Whether you apply on the basis of someone's ethnic characteristics, or on the basis of that person's sexuality is irrelevant - the consequences to the individual are still the same. You end up restricting their ability to participate fully in society on the basis of values that you are projecting outwards and insisting that they abide by.

These two views are incompatible. The erosion of Christianity and the rise of Humanism has been moving us from an environment of liberty – self-government under God – to state-ism. Many of us have only personally experienced state-ism so we don’t know what liberty feels or looks like. But that is ultimately what we’re arguing for when we say that businesses, such as these Christian B&B owners, should be free to operate their businesses as they see fit.

I always find this line of reasoning to be just a little too convenient. It always seems to crop up when we are talking about situations where so-calTo argue that operating a business should not be bounded by law is more than a little ridiculous. Businesses have always been subject to the law of the land, and rightly so.

What Bloedow is really arguing for here is either a form of extreme libertarianism, or if you read the rest of his writing he's really talking about rewriting Canada's laws to his particular interpretation of the Bible.

We posted a story about a Montreal-area trucking company that was ordered by Quebec’s human rights tribunal to pay $10,000 to a female truck driver who was not considered for a job because she is a woman. The business owner was apparently quite upfront about refusing to consider her for employment because she was a woman. We titled the post, “QC human rights trump business owner’s prerogative.”

Apparently, Mr. Bloedow wants to dial rights back to the late 17th Century. He obviously fails to understand that there is a fairly serious problem with refusing someone a job on the basis of the fact they are female - especially when they hold all of the requisite qualifications otherwise. Of course, I've seen other commentary on No Apologies where they've whined about how we should mourn a woman's "loss of purity" as a result of a sexual assault. The underlying misogyny of such a strategy is pretty offensive as it supposes that the only thing a woman brings to a relationship is her "purity" - and it is ironic that they never seem to talk about the same notion of "purity" for males, isn't it?

This has become a much longer commentary than I intended, but 1) it is absolutely necessary to drive home the importance to Christians of embracing Christianity as a worldview and not simply as a religion that provides a moral code to justify our antipathy to sexual perversion. 2) We need to champion morality at a foundational level that embraces justice for all Canadians, not simply for Christians, and 3) we need to understand where the true antithesis lies between Christianity and Humanism so that we don’t waste our time with losing battles, championing human rights and other anti-Christian concepts when we should, instead, be advancing the law of God and the lordship of Christ as relevant and applicable for 21st Century Canada.

Here is where Bloedow's obsession with all things to do with "homosexuals". He wants his right to discriminate against GLBT people - and women - enshrined in law. In effect, creating a hierarchy of rights.

The reality is that Mr. Bloedow's rights are already well established. What he has is a problem with comprehending the idea that individual rights exist with respect to the individual, and do not provide for the individual to project their beliefs onto others - especially in a way that limits their right to live a full life in society.

Oh That's A Surprise

It seems that CTS Television has just dumped McVety's Word TV program:

CTS (Crossroads Television System) regrets that Word TV will no longer be broadcast due to its lack of compliance with the CTS Code of Ethics to which Word TV agreed under contract.

Last week, its producer and host, Dr. Charles McVety erroneously communicated that CTS was being pressured to censor Word TV; these comments are inaccurate and misleading. The fact is that Word TV failed to keep its agreement to comply with the CTS Code of Ethics and indicated a refusal to comply in the future. Unfortunately, numerous attempts by CTS to work with Dr. McVety were unsuccessful.

Cue the violins, I'm sure McVety's going to be bleating that he's a martyr even louder now.

In spite of the fact that the issue is much simpler - McVety was distorting the truth to suit his political agenda.

Predictable: Vellacott's Tirade

Following up further on the recent Saskatchewan Court of Appeals ruling, we find MP Maurice Vellacott whining about how this ruling impinges upon his right to inflict his particular morality on everybody else:

The Court has hereby belittled religious faith by writing it off as something “you do in your head or on weekends” without it impacting all of a person’s life. This crowding it into a corner or to the edge of the gangplank is a secularist push premised on a false dichotomy.

No, Mr. Vellacott, you arrogant little arse, that isn't what the Saskatchewan Court of Appeals has done at all. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeals quite specifically says that government services must be equally available to all citizens.

Back in July of 2005, I suggested that, as an analogy on this matter, we look at how official bilingualism policy is implemented. When it comes to bilingualism requirements, federal government services must be available in both official languages, but not necessarily by the same person. Bilingualism is rooted in the Charter, yet attempts have been made to implement policies in a fair-minded fashion.

This is arguably an apples-and-oranges comparison. There is a huge difference between someone being able to speak French adequately to provide services to a citizen requiring them and choosing not to provide services to someone based on beliefs. What the marriage commissioners who are complaining need to realize is that they are solemnizing CIVIL MARRIAGES, not religious matrimony. Quite frankly, what they believe from a religious perspective is utterly irrelevant to the conduct of their job.

It is not as if there is some real impediment to carrying out their job (such as not speaking the language or physical obstacle). If providing services is "that immoral" to them, then it's high time they got another job. I will note that there are certain industries where I would not work simply because I think what those businesses do is immoral or unethical. Simply put, the responsibility is mine - I have to take ownership of that aspect of my life and find alternatives.

Commissioners who hold a "traditional or heterosexual" definition of marriage should not be forced to find another career or be subjected to fines and punishment, Vellacott said.

"We talk about people being in the closet, well now they are saying somebody of a faith perspective is supposed to keep it in the closet," he said.

Yes, I realize that one's faith can be seen as permeating all aspects of your life. That's just fine with me - until someone tries to demand that I live by their rules in order to be served. I'm sorry, but at that point, individual freedom is now being used to limit others in the lawful, peaceful conduct of their lives - and that is wrong.

Had I encountered Mr. Vellacott's attitude when I was dealing with a branch of the Saskatchewan Government this past year, I would have cheerfully sued the government (and the official involved) because their actions would have stood in the way of my ability to live my life peacefully.

They Just Don't Get It, Do They?

They're actually serious: Should we have a sex tax?

Politicians are always talking about taxes. Some of them want to “soak” the rich; others want to raise “sin” taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. But I can think of one “consumer item” we’ll never see a tax on: sex. But maybe we should. Sex—the wrong kind of sex, that is—is driving up the cost of government.

Right ... so would someone show me where in scripture it says that the anointed priesthood have any business in our bedrooms?

Mike McManus, who also is the founder of Marriage Savers, has a few more ideas: States ought to create a marriage commissions to encourage marriage over co-habitation. State welfare offices, he says, ought to “provide information on the value of marriage in reducing poverty and increasing wealth, happiness, and longer lives.” And we ought to require public schools and publicly-funded family planning clinics to teach kids about the long-term benefits of rearing children within wedlock over co-habitation.

Uh huh. Yeah, sure. Let's talk about the wonders of enforced marriage, shall we? Starting with the delightful prospect of keeping dysfunctional and abusive relationships together "for the sake of the children". Or perhaps they'd like to explain how they are going solve the recurring problems that the grinding cycle of poverty creates in families? Being married doesn't solve poverty. Poverty was a huge problem for families, and it still is.

If I wanted to live in Atwood's Republic of Gilead, I'd go move to some crazy religious enclave. I don't, and frankly I don't want someone demanding that we live our lives according to their interpretation of scripture.

It appalls me to no end to see these people on one hand crying and wringing their hands over "religious liberty", and on the other hand proposing to spend billions of taxpayer dollars trying to regulate human sexuality. There's so many things wrong with that picture it's not even funny.

A Good Decision - If Unsurprising

I can't say I'm surprised by the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal's decision regarding civil marriage commissioners and gay marriages.

The logic of the decision is pretty simple - civil marriage is just that - CIVIL marriage. At that level, they are carrying out a service as agents of the government, not as agents of their particular faith community. As agents of the government, marriage commissioners are obliged to treat all citizens equally.

Predictably, Canada's right wingnut religionists have begun complaining:

“What we are seeing now is that step by step religious rights in Canada have been diminished while homosexual rights have been accelerated by the appointed unaccountable judges,” Landolt told LifeSiteNews.com. “This decision means that religious rights have been pushed to the side once again in favour of judge-made homosexual rights. If there were genuine equality between these two competing rights, then both should have equal recognition under the law which has been denied by this decision.”

“Canada has suffered a severe loss to its collective rights and identity today,” said Christian Legal Fellowship (CLF) Executive Director and General Legal Counsel Ruth Ross, in a press release.

Where, might I ask, is there any "restriction" being laid upon what an individual believes? I don't see anyone saying that an individual must like the idea of a same-sex marriage. Rather, what we see is that where government functions are concerned, they must be carried out on behalf of all citizens equally.

An Update To "Public Religion"

A discussion with a friend brought out a bit of further insight into what I wrote about in the Public Religion post.

There's an enormous difference between spirituality and religion. Most of society tends to blur the line between the two, and yet when we are talking about the implications of religion in the public sphre, I think it becomes important to understand.

Spirituality is internal - it has a lot to do with how we see ourselves in the world, our place in the world and our understanding of the abstract notion of whether there is a higher power, and how that power is believed to interact with this world.

Often, individuals will root their spirituality in the rubric of a specific religion because it more or less fits well with how they see themselves.

When you start to externalize internal spirituality, the objectives shift from being about understanding your place in the world as an individual and begin to center around the more tangible aspects of religion - be it rituals, legends or the words in scripture.

For some, the understanding of the world is no longer filtered through the internal, spiritual understanding and is filtered through a highly externalized lens that tries to apply the framework of a particular religion's stated beliefs to the broader society beyond the individual.

Needless to say, this has a tendency to become excessively contentious, and it is where the extremists tend to arise. Suddenly, the issue of religion becomes less about individual spiritual understandings, and moves into the considerably more awkward world of trying to insist that a particular worldview must be imposed through the force of law upon others who may not agree or accept the tenets of any particular religion.

This is particularly true in the discussions around religious rights and the ongoing arguments over whether or not someone should be able to discriminate against GLBT people based upon what their religious convictions tell them.

Public Religion

This article in the G&M was brought to my attention in an e-mail last night. In the email, a comment to the effect of "my fear is that one of these groups will try to claim that their rights supercede everybody else's.

Unfortunately, they already do. People like Charles McVety come to mind almost immediately as examples of people who argues that his rights as a christianist take precedence over others:

Charles McVety, who heads up the right-wing Institute of Canadian Values, issued a statement Friday saying Delic's invitation to speak is an insult to the Canadian Forces soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.

"This will shock the conscience of Canadians of good faith, dismay military families whose children have made the supreme sacrifice, and undermine the credibility and morale of our armed services in the eyes of allies and enemies alike," McVety said in the statement on the association's website.

(By the way, here is the text of the cancelled speech ... it's just so inflammatory, isn't it?)

But, as the GLBT community has known for decades now, it goes much, much further than that. So-called "christians" regularly try to hide behind the skirts of "religious freedom" to justify discriminating against GLBT people. Consider the relatively recent case of William Goertzen - a landlord in Yellowknife who cancelled a lease agreement and stole the damage deposit from a gay couple once he learned that they were homosexual.

However, the details of Goertzen's case are pretty basic - GLBT people have encountered them many times before. It's what the extreme "christianists" argue about these cases that says so much.

Those who advocate “fixing” Canada’s human rights commissions and tribunals rather than abolishing them, do so because they believe the original purpose of these agencies was legitimate.

What was the original purpose? To provide recourse for tenants, employees and consumers who believed they were being discriminated against on the basis of the politically-defined criteria for which “discrimination” was banned. “Sexual orientation” was later added to that list of politically defined groups.

This complaint against Mr. Goertzen fits within the framework of this original purpose for Canada’s HRCs. All those who support simply “fixing” the HRCs, including various Christian groups, have to take a position against Mr. Goertzen.

ChristianGovernance calls for the complete abolition of these discriminatory, anti-democratic institutions. Their original purpose was wholly illegitimate for a free and democratic society. It was an expression of socialism – strident group rights theory. It was predicated on Marxist class warfare theory.

Mr. Bloedow is so dead wrong here it's not even funny.

The irony here is that what he's really arguing for is a 'tyranny of the majority' scenario where minority groups who have at best limited voices in the public sphere. Apparently he has long ago forgotten the violations that early Christians experienced at the hands of the Roman majority of the day.

o when the Northwest Territories HRT ruled against Mr. Goertzen, they awarded the complainants $13,400. Now, of that $13,400, only $1,500 was for punitive damages. The other $12,000 – $6,000 to each complainant – was an expression of Daddy-Mommy-surrogacy – it was for hurt feelings: “injury to the men’s ‘dignity, feelings and self-respect’,” to be specific. This kind of decision bears witness to the effeminization of our culture. The injustice of this kind of typical HRT decision is also stunning. Well, it should be!

No, Mr. Bloedow, those are punitive damages - it's an economic expression of the impact of Goertzen's discrimination and theft. Mr. Goertzen did offend the dignity of those individuals - quite directly. Mr. Bloedow seems to not understand that discrimination issues often have impacts that are difficult to measure explicitly. However, it so often seems that violators do not understand anything that doesn't affect their pocket book.

Contrary to Mr. Bloedow's assertion that we are talking about 'hurt feelings', the fact is that it goes far beyond hurt feelings, and extends into the very ability of minority populations to be full participants in society. Superficially, Goertzen did little more than refuse to rent a property to a gay couple. Implicitly, he sent a much deeper message - namely that his personal problems with the idea of homosexuality give him the right to not only judge others negatively, but to arbitrarily deny them access to goods and services in the commercial arena.

Whether we are to examine it from the perspective of situations like Goertzen's actions, or McVety's bleating about a (*gasp*) Muslim Imam addressing the Armed Forces, it comes down to the argument being made is always fundamentally about "Christians" (more appropriately, "christianists") demanding that their religious beliefs be sufficient justification for limiting the participation of others in society.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Rights and Freedoms in this country live in a state of mutual tension. So far, it seems to me that it is not an unreasonable limitation on the exercise of any freedom that it not be used to arbitrarily limit the freedoms and rights others.

Privilege To Oppress

I've been engaged lately in a very interesting conversation about how social privilege can be used as a source of oppression lately. It has been primarily from a feminist perspective, but today's traipse through right wing blog No Apologies revealed a very interesting pattern of assumed religious privilege being used to justify oppression of both women and GLBT folk.

Consider the following:

Hateful attack against Truro’s Christian mayor
The Status of Women Must Be Abandoned
'I'm a pariah' says Muslim scholar who is gay
Calgary favours homosexuality over Christianity

All of these articles are arguing in one form or another that articles of specific religions are essentially a legitimate reason for limiting the lives of others.

Consider the following:

...They further expressed their shock and amazement at the City’s response, since the City authorized a flag raising ceremony on the masts of City Hall and a proclamation just three months prior for homosexuals. The church feels that the requests were the same and that the only difference can be found in the message. Street Church states that the City now officially endorses homosexuality and firmly opposes Christianity in the public square.

There's a couple of points of interest - first is the claim that because the City of Calgary chose to recognize 'Pride Month', that it should also recognize a religiously-centered celebration. This is a false equivalence, since different faiths have substantially overlapping Calendars (especially around the Winter Solstice).

The city's response (posted at Pawlowski's Streetchurch website reflects this:

The City of Calgary recognizes multiculturalism and our pluralistic society, and we celebrate our city’s diversity and the benefits this offers our community by enriching the lives of all Calgarians. The City recognizes several important cultural and religious events in the community including the Menorah Lighting, Eid celebration and the annual Nativity scene. However, while we allow the celebration of faith-based events at City Hall, we do not issue proclamations for religious or spiritual leaders nor do we raise a flag in honour of a specific religion.

This makes sense when you consider the fact that not only does Christianity hold major celebrations during December, so do other major faiths such as Judaism, and arguably most pagan faiths do as well. For the City of Calgary to specifically recognize one of these faiths over another is to send a negative message to the citizens of Calgary who do not profess that faith. Religion is deeply personal, and highly contentious at the best of times. For the City to remain more or less silent on the subject is quite appropriate.

Yet, at the same time, while these same people are crying out about how their particular faith is being "persecuted" (how a faith that is nominally practiced by the majority of our population can possibly argue that it is being 'persecuted' is beyond me, but they do), the same people have used the doctrines of their particular faiths to argue quite loudly that GLBT people should be held as less than equal participants in our societies.

Consider the following comment:

Good for Mayor Bill Mills to stand up to this pervertion.

It is very interesting from the perspective of considering the notion of socially organized oppression in the context from which feminism argues. The claim is, in essence, that it is a horrible thing for GLBT people to be treated as equal participants in society. Yet, the religious argument against homosexuality doesn't recognize that it is the flip side of the persecution claim that they make routinely.

Similarly, there is also an emerging argument from right wing political christianity that claims that feminism has "gone too far", resulting in commentary like this:

Something is wrong with that picture, now we have woman taking care of the men, broken homes, and nothing going right. Our society has been vilified. Even though men are physically stronger many times than woman we have woman taking mens jobs, but still not getting paid as much.

"Men's jobs"??? Really - I didn't know there was such a thing any more.

However, this is again a situation where a position is being staked out that is rooted fundamentally in a scriptural understanding of "the differences between men and women". In this situation, it is fairly clear that again, a scriptural understanding is being used to limit a person's ability to contribute to society fully.

Both are ultimately examples of asserted privilege on the part of the claimants - they believe fully that they are "in the right" of the matter, and do not appear to understand how they are in fact imposing their beliefs on others in a manner that limits both the value and the validity of individual, lived experiences.

Religion "In The Public Square"

Preston Manning's column in today's Globe and Mail attempts to make the case that we should somehow preserve our "Judeo-Christian heritage" - especially in the public square.

He could have made a very interesting argument about the relevance of Christian ethics or something, but instead, he goes rambling off about how we would have to demolish this building and that in order to erase all traces of it:

Moving to Ottawa, the first target for the wrecking ball would obviously be the Peace Tower, the most prominent feature of our Parliament buildings. If displaying religious material on public property at the centre of the universe is “inappropriate” because it goes against Toronto's “general policy of inclusiveness,” surely it would be utterly intolerable to allow the Peace Tower with its prominent scriptural inscriptions to remain standing.

It's really quite a ridiculous argument that he is making, and it is one that skirts around the real issues. Mr. Manning is quietly ignoring the way that religion is often used in the public square to justify marginalizing those who do not subscribe to the same moral or ethical credo.

Consider some of the screeching from the likes of Stephen Boissoin and his friends over at No Apologies over the Buterman case for a moment. (Or Boissoin's 2002 letter for that matter) Here are cases where someone is using religion "in the public square" as a means to justify limiting the rights of others, or to justify blatant discrimination against someone they find "morally repugnant" - on largely religious grounds.

In answer to this, Manning points out that the Charter acknowledges the supremacy of God:

And the Charter could not escape unscathed since its preamble acknowledges the supremacy of God, while its opening clauses seek to guarantee the freedoms of religion and expression, which the wielders of the wrecking ball seek to restrict.

What he blithely ignores is that while the charter does make such an acknowledgement, it never sets out what specific notion of God it refers to. In fact, the very existence of explicit freedom of religion clauses makes it quite clear that no particular god - and therefore, no particular religion - is recognized. It could be the Baptist notion of God, or the Hindu concept of Shiva ... or nothing at all if you are an atheist.

In short, the Canadian Constitution is deliberately vague in this area for good reason.

Contrary to Manning's wild imaginings, there isn't a coherent campaign to erase all traces of religion from the public square. What is really happening is that the assumptions of Christianity are being questioned and challenged publicly - ironically using precisely the same Charter that guarantees freedom of religion.

The really sad part is that for the most part, religions can be a source of enormous social good, and it is only a small, exceedingly vocal, handful who use their religion as an excuse to marginalize others and justify acts of discrimination.

Dear Jim Blake: (CCC)

Get Over Yourself

"The displaying of different gods in a public place like this is an offence to our beliefs and does not represent the diversity of views that should be reflected."

If the zoo wants to keep the statue and "[embark] on teaching the public about world religions, Blake suggested that the facility also erect the cross of Jesus Christ, the Ten Commandments and Noah's Ark

"The display of foreign gods is offensive and does not reflect the views of the majority of Canadians," he continued.

Good grief. So now it's "offensive to 'Christian'ity" to display something that has even a nominal resemblance to a deity other than the 'Christian' deity?

I have a newsflash for you Mr. Blake: Freedom of Religion doesn't give you or anyone else the right to dictate to the rest of us. Last I checked, there's nothing in Christian scripture that says it is forbidden to look upon images and symbols from other faiths ... not that the sculpture is even a symbol of Hindu faith per se.

Frankly, if someone from the Hindu faith wants to object to that statue as an inappropriate representation of Ganesh, I might think about listening. Hindu isn't your faith, Mr. Blake, and there's a hell of a lot more faiths practiced in Canada than your particular flavour of Christianity ... and they are practiced by people born and raised here ... every bit as Canadian.

I'd say that symbols of Christian faith are so prevalent in our society that one statue at the Zoo which is loosely based on another faith really doesn't matter one iota.