Quote:
Originally Posted by ToxiK
Does not wearing a religious garment prevent someone from exercising authority? Yes people can let their religious beliefs interfere with their job even without wearing symbols, but not wearing symbols is for the benefit of the people on the receving hand of said authority. If you are Jewish or Hindu would you feel ok being arrested or judged by a Muslim so into his religion that he has to wear visible symbols on the job while representing the power of the State? Would a liberal American be comfortable being judge by a judge so convinced of his political opinions that he needs to wear a MAGA hat on the bench? Religious neutrality of the State is also a matter of appereance.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
I think most people including myself didn't have strong feelings about the cross either way - and I think this included the CAQ government.
But a perfectly logical argument could definitely have been made that it's a heritage symbol that's part of the historic décor of the assembly, the same way there are tons of crosses embedded in the walls and elsewhere in Parliament in Ottawa, or stuff like the cross on Mount Royal is.
The Quebec government was relentlessly harassed (by people who mostly aren't actually believers in laïcité, ironically) about the continued presence of the cross, which is why they eventually relented and removed it.
The same people (as I said - most of whom don't truly believe in laïcité) are continuing today their obsessive harassment about stuff like the cross on Mount Royal, the fact that Christmas is a stat holiday or that many streets and towns are named for saints.
I doubt they will back down (being true believers of course) but they appear more and more ridiculous, and actually prove with their behaviour that religious fervour can sometimes be a dangerous obsession.
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The above is a microcosm of the double standards being referred to with Bill 21 and the arguments made by its defenders. On one hand, the rationale for banning public servants from wearing hijabs is "people may
feel uncomfortable being subjected to the authority of a public servant who is overtly a member of a particular religion (i.e., religious neutrality of the State is a matter of appearance)", and on the other hand, the rationale for keeping the cross and other Christian symbolism/celebrations in public spaces and institutional buildings is "most people don't have strong feelings about it either way".
The arguments basically boil down to: the majority don't feel a certain type of way with Christian symbolism, so it's acceptable, but they do feel a certain type of way of non-Christian symbolism, so ban it. Well, which is it? Either you have a problem with religious symbolism or you don't. Stop making excuses.
What you have here is a double standard where countless excuses are made for maintaining
widespread Christian symbolism and supporting Christian celebrations while a
tiny proportion of public servants simply wearing their religious garb is seen as unacceptable. It's pure mental gymnastics. If you don't see that, I can't help you.
Don't forget, none of this began because religious minorities were up in arms about public institutions being littered with Christian symbology. Most religious minorities understand that Christianity is a big part of the history in this country, and that the presence of such symbology doesn't entail religious favouritism, even though the majority of public servants are likely Catholic.
However, for whatever reason, this rationale is not extended in the same way to religious minorities who are seen as compromising the religious neutrality of the state by simply wearing their headscarves.
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