>The Quebec government wants to place limits on praying in public and extend a ban on wearing religious symbols to daycare workers as part of a sweeping new secularism bill tabled Thursday.
>Bill 9, titled An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Quebec, sets out to build on two previous secularism laws passed under Premier François Legault.
>Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, said the bill is part of the government’s longstanding goal of ensuring the “religious neutrality of the state” and “equality for all citizens.”
>[…]
>The proposed changes include:
* Banning subsidized daycare and private school workers from wearing religious symbols, such as a hijab or kippa (with a clause exempting those already in their position).
* Prohibiting public institutions, such as hospitals, from only offering food based on a religious tradition, such as halal or kosher meals. Roberge said other meals would need to be offered as well.
* Phasing out public subsidies for religious private schools that select students or staff based on religious affiliation, or that teach religious content.
* Banning prayer spaces in public institutions including universities, as well as group prayers in public spaces such as parks without municipal authorization. Universities are “not a temple or a church,” Roberge said.
* Expanding the requirement to have an uncovered face at all times to anyone present in a public education setting.
> The bill also invokes the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively, shielding it from challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
!ping Can
Terrariola on
As a Canadian citizen who does not believe, never will believe, and frankly finds the whole idea of traditional religion rather silly, laïcité is fundamentally illiberal as it acts as an unjustifiable restriction on freedom of expression. All religions are a form of ideology and all ideologies invariably end up relying on axioms, making them religions. Restrictions on religion extend cleanly and easily into restrictions on ideology, and vice-versa. Ideologies should never be restricted unless they pose a fundamental and immediate threat to the basic order of society.
The state should not patronize religion, but it should not prohibit it either. And *we all know* that this law has fuck all to do with neutral expression of religion anyway and is just a thinly-veiled attempt to discriminate against religious minorities. Laïcité originated in a France where the Church held enormous political sway, controlled people’s lives from the cradle to the grave, and served as the core of people’s social lives. It is inapplicable as a useful policy in countries where this religious establishment has already been destroyed, or never even existed.
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>The Quebec government wants to place limits on praying in public and extend a ban on wearing religious symbols to daycare workers as part of a sweeping new secularism bill tabled Thursday.
>Bill 9, titled An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Quebec, sets out to build on two previous secularism laws passed under Premier François Legault.
>Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, said the bill is part of the government’s longstanding goal of ensuring the “religious neutrality of the state” and “equality for all citizens.”
>[…]
>The proposed changes include:
* Banning subsidized daycare and private school workers from wearing religious symbols, such as a hijab or kippa (with a clause exempting those already in their position).
* Prohibiting public institutions, such as hospitals, from only offering food based on a religious tradition, such as halal or kosher meals. Roberge said other meals would need to be offered as well.
* Phasing out public subsidies for religious private schools that select students or staff based on religious affiliation, or that teach religious content.
* Banning prayer spaces in public institutions including universities, as well as group prayers in public spaces such as parks without municipal authorization. Universities are “not a temple or a church,” Roberge said.
* Expanding the requirement to have an uncovered face at all times to anyone present in a public education setting.
> The bill also invokes the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively, shielding it from challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
!ping Can
As a Canadian citizen who does not believe, never will believe, and frankly finds the whole idea of traditional religion rather silly, laïcité is fundamentally illiberal as it acts as an unjustifiable restriction on freedom of expression. All religions are a form of ideology and all ideologies invariably end up relying on axioms, making them religions. Restrictions on religion extend cleanly and easily into restrictions on ideology, and vice-versa. Ideologies should never be restricted unless they pose a fundamental and immediate threat to the basic order of society.
The state should not patronize religion, but it should not prohibit it either. And *we all know* that this law has fuck all to do with neutral expression of religion anyway and is just a thinly-veiled attempt to discriminate against religious minorities. Laïcité originated in a France where the Church held enormous political sway, controlled people’s lives from the cradle to the grave, and served as the core of people’s social lives. It is inapplicable as a useful policy in countries where this religious establishment has already been destroyed, or never even existed.