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.

Scare 'Em Into Electing You

The latest in the ongoing manipulation machine that is the CPoC comes in the form of the latest utterances from Vic Toews.

“We are very concerned about the radicalization of Canadian youth and then becoming not only radicalized but then going to fight jihad, becoming militarily trained and then of course coming back to Canada,” Mr. Toews told a news conference on Sunday.

“I want to stress, again, that it's so very important that we have co-operation from the groups where these individuals are coming out of so that our security authorities can better assess the situation and protect Canadians.”

Not only do we get a lovely little dose of implicit racial profiling and bigotry, but we are also treated to a delightful view of how the HarperCon$ will use anything they can think of to garner votes. Having failed utterly to persuade Canadians that they are good government, they turn once more to the politics of fear mongering - and hey, if it happens to involve visible minorities, that's just icing on the cake, isn't it?

... and as we've seen all along, the when the facts don't match their ideology, they just lie to Canadians.

How anyone can vote for that bunch with a clear conscience is beyond me.

Calgary's Mayoralty Race

I think I've made my decision about who I will be voting for on October 18.

We have an interesting, if somewhat bewildering array of candidates for the mayor's chair this year.

At the moment, there are really three that seem to matter - Ric McIver, Barb Higgins and Naheed Nenshi.

I've read all of their respective websites, listened to the soundbites on various news sources and so on.

Where McIver is concerned, I simply don't have any confidence in the man. He has been a force of division and polarization on a council that desperately needed unification and leadership. I simply cannot see how a man who made his mark by being "Doctor No" for the last nine years is suddenly going to be able to lead that same body without falling into the politics of division.

In a similar vein, I remember well his first two election campaigns - managed by none other than this man. The campaign against former Alderman Sue Higgins was filled with disrespect for both Ms. Higgins as well as the simple rules of good conduct in a campaign. How much access/influence McIver's former campaign manager might have on McIver is unknown to me - any is far too much given some of his antics in the years since that first campaign. (Yes, I remember him playing "audience plant" and trying to trap Higgins with leading, loaded (and irrelevant) questions ... even when he had been standing at the door passing out McIver's literature as a campaign worker)

Ms. Higgins I simply cannot fathom why she's running. So far she has gone out of her way to avoid saying anything meaningful. She's a pretty face, but frankly doesn't seem to have any opinions of her own. It seems to me that she's running on her public profile, and does not represent any new ideas or concepts in government. Sure, she's not from the current council, but I'm not in the least bit convinced that she would be any different in how she handled council and policy.

Naheed Nenshi represents just about everything that the other two front runners do not.

He has actual ideas about what needs to change, and how to change it reasonably. He's clearly paid attention to both the way the current council has been working (or not working, as the case may be), and has some pretty sensible ideas about how it should be approached.

On top of all that, he's actually managed to reach out to the disengaged voters in this city. He's not just doing the usual beat of forums, fundraisers and debates. He has used social media tools effectively (and honestly - it's actually him that answers on twitter, not an aide).

I had the opportunity to attend a "Coffee Meeting" with Nenshi at a friend's place this past week. It was a smallish group - only about 8 of us. But Nenshi still showed up, and we all had a very engaging time talking about the politics and policy. Nenshi might not be as slick as Bronconnier was, or as polished as McIver tries to be, but he's clear and articulate ... and more importantly he has ideas that show that he's actually thought about things and is aware of the realities of the extent of city council's authority.

Above all, he comes across as pragmatic. Nenshi doesn't label himself as a "conservative" or a "liberal" ... or any other stripe. He seems to be willing to draw from the valuable ideas of any perspective and use to solve problems. We've had too much of people confining themselves to a particular notion of a given political ideology in this province - a pragmatist would be good for Calgary.

I'm sold. Calgary's city council needs a change. That isn't going to come from someone who has been on council for the last ten years; nor is it going to come from any of the former councillors who have come forward as candidates for the mayor's chair. As for the rest of the candidates - as usual, they remain complete unknowns for most of Calgary's citizens and their share of the vote will no doubt reflect that.

How Effective Are "Texting Bans"?

With Alberta following on the heels of other states in attempting to ban drivers from "texting" on their mobile phones, it is of some importance that we pay attention to the effectiveness of such bans implemented in other jurisdictions.

Apparently they aren't as effective as you might expect - in fact collision rates have gone up in some areas.

"Texting bans haven't reduced crashes at all. In a perverse twist, crashes increased in 3 of the 4 states we studied after bans were enacted. It's an indication that texting bans might even increase the risk of texting for drivers who continue to do so despite the laws," says Adrian Lund, president of both HLDI and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Now, can we get away from ever more ridiculous "distracted driving laws", and start finding real solutions to the issues involved? I don't know what the solutions are for this issue, but it doesn't live in the realm of ever increasing police powers.

I'm not saying that texting (or other activity) while driving is a smart thing to do - far from it in fact. The fact is that there is a whole new generation of drivers out there, and they grew up with this technology. Driving requires that you pay attention to what's on the road - this is indisputable. However, if the laws criminalizing "texting" result in an increase in collisions, they are clearly the wrong solution.

Chilling

I don't like Harper as PM - I never have. However, G&M columnist Rick Salutin has just done a summarization of Harper's style that deserves some attention.

Salutin describes Harper as a disciple of Leo Strauss - a man whose ideas are central to the NeoCons - especially the Bush II NeoCons.

A little more digging on the subject turned up a rather lengthy discussion of Straussian politics which further reinforces much of what has disturbed/angered me about Harper's actions as PM since day one.

Most disturbing is this:

While professing deep respect for American democracy, Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical – divided between an elite who should lead, and the masses who should follow. But unlike fellow elitists like Plato, he was less concerned with the moral character of these leaders. According to Shadia Drury, who teaches politics at the University of Calgary, Strauss believed that "those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

Unsurprisingly, this is directly consistent with just about every action that Harper has taken, and it plays equally well when held up against his statements about government policy discussions such as the public debate around Afghanistan - where Harper has stated that the public "doesn't understand" these complex issues. (I won't even begin to describe how this kind of attitude from our politicians angers me)

Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.

Has anyone else noticed Harper playing both of these cards on a regular basis? Whether it is using Canada's troops abroad for photo-ops, or having Canadian fighters "repel" Russian "patrols" over the arctic - he's been consistently the most militaristic PM that Canada has had since the Second World War. (and nobody back then was glorifying war - it was seen as a nasty, necessary evil - Harper glorifies it)

As for the religious fervor thing - I only need refer you to the works of Harper's "backbench" MPs who keep tabling the TheoCon legislation that his "base" cries out for, and the consequences for front bench MPs like Diane Ablonczy when they offend that base.

Strauss' approach to things describes perfectly why Harper sees nothing wrong at all with simply shutting down parliament when things get too hot for him, or his government looks about to fall. It also explains much about the government's legislation (as brain damaged as much of it is - such as "get tough on crime" legislation which will cost taxpayers billions of dollars yet.

Make no mistake about it, Harper is a Straussian - and he's a particularly unpleasant example of what can happen when someone takes any philosophy to extremes. When you hear John Baird - or Harper - talking snidely about "Toronto Elites", one has to wonder just what kind of Elites they are themselves ...

Bill C-391 Is A Government Bill

With all of the shenanigans going on around the "Private Member's Bill" C-391 An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Firearms Act (repeal of long-gun registry), I think it's time to examine the government's actions more carefully.

Theoretically, as a Private Member's Bill, C-391 doesn't represent the government's official policy or direction. However, there's an old saying about actions speaking louder than words.

This article is a veritable compendium of how Harper has mobilized his front bench to garner support for this bill. (I'd put good odds that the upcoming vote will be a whipped vote on Conservative benches - and we all know what happens to MPs who defy Dear Leader's orders ...) The amount of money the HarperCon$ are spending on attack ads to slag MPs that they want to bully into voting for C-391 is also telling.

If this is "just a private member's bill", then we might just want to ask Mr. Harper and his goons why they are acting as if it is in fact a government bill?

The point here is not just that this is a government bill, but that Harper is throwing the entire weight of the government front benches behind it. This is not new for Harper. Every time there's an issue that is in the least bit controversial, he has his back bench MPs introduce it through the Private Member's bill. Then, mysteriously, the vast majority of Harper's caucus votes for it ... in particular the front benches. This has happened with other private member's bills, and I'll put money that a careful review of Hansard votes will show that every time a TheoCon "private member's" bill is tabled, the front benches of Harper's team voted for it.

Back bench bills, like prorogation, are part of Harper's bag of tricks - because he knows damn good and well that if he tabled this legislation as government bills, he'd find himself losing a confidence vote rather quickly.

As for the opposition parties - if you haven't figured this out yet, it's time that you got the message and start kicking the HarperCon$ out of Ottawa.

[Update 17/09/10]
Just how much are the HarperCon$ wasting on a supposedly "private members bill"?

Oh yes, as Ms. Taber points out Harper hails from Toronto himself in the first place ... a good point to consider when parsing Baird's asinine comment about "Toronto elites". I wonder what he'd make of the fact that this writer is blogging from the CPoC stronghold of Alberta (and is mysteriously opposed to Bill C-391)?
[/Update]