Quebec’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values imitates the “unjust” imposition of antireligious secularism in France, said the Canadian constitutional lawyer and religious freedom expert Iain Benson. “The recent proposals from Quebec mirror those from France, where both countries continue to exert their antireligious fervor under the false flags of neutrality,” said Benson. “Banning religious symbolism from the public sphere does not banish the relevance of religion,” he said. “It just perpetuates the domination of secularism in these two jurisdictions.” Imposed secularism will not work “because it is unjust,” he said. Quebec’s Parti Québecois government said it planned to introduce the charter this fall. It would prohibit anyone in the public sector from wearing obvious visible signs of religious adherence. Any large symbol of religious faith would be prohibited, as would Muslim head scarves or hijabs, Jewish kippahs or yarmulkes and Sikh turbans. Anyone working in health care, education, publicly funded day care and the justice system would be affected by the ban.
Quebec’s ‘Imposed Secularism’
Show Comments ()
2
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Maureen LAMARCHE CND
11 years 10 months ago
Ah, my Quebec, how far you stray from the founding mothers and fathers. They must be weeping. The guiding lights for justice cannot be extinguished by laws. They are written in the hearts of us all. I am so sad. I can hear Jesus weeping over Quebec as he wept over Jerusalem.
Jaculyn Hanrahan
11 years 10 months ago
You can add the USA to that lament. Look what we are doing down here this week especially!!!! The wrong ones are weeping.
The latest from america
Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez was one of several community leaders who joined to open the Family Assistance Program, aiding those affected by recent ICE raids.
On Friday, Pope Leo XIV issued a statement on the theme "Migrants, missionaries of hope."
In Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” an ordinary electrician has a transcendent encounter—with U.F.O.s, not God.
Many of my acquaintances have given up “reading about something that didn't happen.” But fiction has long-term and concrete value, both mentally and socially.