Friday, February 18, 2011

Hypocrisy Reigns in Religous Debate

A ruling by Quebec's Tribunal des droits de la personne ordered an end to the practice of Christian prayers before city council meetings in the city of Saguenay, as well as demanding that the city remove the crucifix hanging in the debates hall. The decision is sending shock waves throughout Quebec. The court concluded that the mayor and council have deliberately attempted to impose their religious views on the public at the expense of their duty of neutrality. LINK{FR}

The city of Saguenay and it's fiercely religious mayor Jean Tremblay has fought tooth and nail against the idea of in any way removing affirmations of the Christian faith in the city administration.
The mayor was so annoyed that the city was hauled before the tribunal, that at a press conference, he directed some injudicious comments towards the plaintiff, Alain Simoneau and the Mouvement laïque québécois (Quebec secular movement,) which backed the case.
The judge was so annoyed with the recalcitrant mayor that she added $15,000 in punitive damages to  the original $15,000 compensation for his 'illicit and intentional' behaviour. LINK{FR}
See my previous blog piece - Saguenay Mayor Leads Idiot Parade in Religious Debate

The litigious mayor, has already announced that the city will appeal the decision and is asking the public to make donations to finance the court battle. He's come under fire for wasting city resources and has already spent almost $60,000 defending his and council member's right to pray before meetings. He is what lawyers like to refer as 'litigious,' a lawyers ultimate 'wet dream.' Mayor Tremblay has also undertaken other expensive legal battles which includes at least one protracted appeal to the Supreme Court.
Click to see donation page

The city has added a page on its municipal website to collect funds for its legal defence fund and has already collected $23,000 in just two days.
Hmm....seems to me that putting up an image of Jesus shilling for money might also be a violation of the separation of church and state, but I'm just asking.......
The court ruling has quickly sparked a debate over the Crucifix in the National Assembly where politicians have already voted in favour of keeping the Christian symbol above the speakers chair, under the guise that it is part of Quebec 'heritage' and doesn't necessarily represent support for any certain religion. Hmmmm.......

Kathleen Weil, the NDG anglo sellout Minister of Justice, was one of the first to give an interview supporting the Crucifix and repeated the fiction that it wasn't a 'religious' symbol.

Lousie Beaudoin, the PQ hardliner has also given an interview and asked the rhetorical question as to why it is okay to accommodate other religions, but not that of the majority.
A good question, except when did Beaudoin ever support religious accommodations for minorities?

The Crucifix in the National Assembly remains problematic and understandably leads to all sorts of problems as in the recent case of a Montreal cabbie who wants to preserve religious paraphernalia in his cab.
Yesterday news came that the Jewish cabbie had a fine upheld in court in regard to decorating his cab with Jewish religious articles. The taxi authority has rules against these types of expressions and it seems to me like a good idea not to turn cabs into shrines to Allah, Jehovah, Jesus or Shiva.
Now if the taxi authorities could only regulate the music that cabbies play on their radio, I'd be very appreciative. ....but I digress!  
"Mr. Perecowicz said he will appeal and is ready to take the case as far as the Supreme Court. He says it's unfair that he cannot display his Jewish prayer scroll in his cab, while a crucifix hangs over the speaker's chair in Quebec's National Assembly." LINK
He might have a point.

The issue seems to have sparked quite an emotional reaction across the province with two cities, Laval and Trois-Rivieres, already refusing to apply similar rulings in their town halls. 

The thorny issue of religion in public life has rocked many other countries and is not a Quebec-only debate. Recently Italy is appealing a European Court of Human Rights ruling that crucifixes be removed from schools. It has also employed the same cockamamie argument that the crucifix is a historic heritage symbol and thus can be displayed in every classroom. Greece and Russia have joined 10 other countries as third-parties in support of Italy. Link

The issue is contentious because Quebeckers have embraced public secularism in an attempt to check the influence of those with profound religious beliefs from having too much influence in public policy. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But the advancement of secularism is a two-edged sword, as the Mayor of Saguenay found out. If you want to ban Hijabs and Niqibs in public you have to get rid of the cross. Anything else is hypocrisy.

The small but plucky Mouvement laïque québécois is taking advantage of the confused situation to advance their program of removing all religion, even Christianity,  from public life.
Although less than 6% of Quebeckers attend Church on a regular basis, it  doesn't stop them from considering themselves 'Catholics' just the same.

How the situation can possibly resolve itself remains a mystery. Clearly the majority want Quebec society to reflect its Christian heritage without forcing Christianity upon anybody.

That being said, it means the tolerance of other religious symbols and it entails making certain religious accommodations, something most are against.

As they say on the street, you can't suck and blow at the same time!

If we listen to the secular extremists, we'd have to rename every street bearing a Christian appellation, remove the Crucifix from Mont-Royal and every public building and school in Quebec. Christian holidays including Easter and Christmas would no longer be paid public holidays. The government would be barred from offering any public funding to schools that included religious instruction.

I don't accept that concept, considering that people of faith pay taxes too and as such can expect to have those taxes support schools that follow government mandated courses, in addition to religion. To deny them this right is to impose by taxation, a form of secularism.

Next there are those who want to maintain Quebec as a Christian state (like the Mayor of Saguenay) with Christianity as the state religion. Schools would go back to teaching Christianity and those of a different mind could opt out of classes. Again, I'm not particularly in favour of that.

Then there are those who'd like to maintain the status quo, where the state is officially secular but remains attached to its Christian heritage. Religion is taken out of schools but private schools providing religious instruction remain subsidized. Minorities can expect some accommodations, but not those that conflict with the general tenets by which secular society operates.

It's a wishy washy solution that I sort of believe is the best answer. 

Let's be honest, the whole question is a toughie. I think anybody who has a sure solution is probably a hardliner.

34 comments:

  1. Remove all public religious symbols and mention of a deity here in Quebec and everywhere else. No mention of God in the Constitution, no crosses, crescents, stars of david, etc. on flags. No subsidized schools other than public schools.

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  2. There are no degrees of secularism, either you're secular or you're not. The crucifix in Quebec's provincial national assembly was put there in 1936, calling it hisorical is a bit of a stretch.

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  3. Remove all public Queen's symbols, nor mentionning praying for her, praying for the Queen in Protestant schools and everywhere else. No mention of the Queen in the Church, no pictures, etc...

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  4. A crucifix is not a veil on a face, what does it bother you. 1774 Acte du Quebec was giving all the French of Canada the right to retain their religion, now as xenophobic anglophones you are retards and are worse than all the barbaric invasion.... who are you ? skinheads!

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  5. "A lot of Jewish speak French when they have to and they don't fight French Quebec"

    Really, only the Jewish taxi drivers I guess or those wishing the glass on the gyms be frosted to prevent someone of being tempted to look at a female in a gym suit.

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  6. "Remove all public Queen's symbols,"

    You just can't get over the fact that you lost the war. :):), can you??

    Your hilarious.

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  7. In Quebec, this story really has nothing to do with any type of religious sentiment at all. Religion is used as a tool to express the racialized divide between the Francophones and the 'autres'. If there was any type of real Christian sentiment involved, it wouldn't be imbued with the politics of race and language.
    The push for more secularism is only meant to stifle the immigrants that the pur laine find so threatening. What a shit hole.
    The province with the highest divorce rate, highest rate of single mothers and the highest drop out rate, the Canadian capital of strip bars, escort agencies, and mafia corruption is now pretending to give a shit about its Catholic roots.
    Well if being Christian or Catholic is measured by how many swastikas you paint on the local synagogues, by how many people you relegate to a second class status and by the removal of essential rights based on language and culture then the Quebekkkois are the true inheritors of the Crusader style of Catholicism. And why not? It might be an antiquated way of belief, but so is everything else in this warped 1930s atmosphere of cultural fascism.
    This place is like a petri dish where old bacteria survive and thrive.

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  8. Wow. Must be a full moon tonight. This blog seems to be attracting a higher than usual proportion of racist nuts today.
    While I'm here, Etoile, speaking of a lack of knowledge, the French DID lose the war. I know that if you look at the flow of government funds in this country, it certainly looks as if the French won and the rest of us are forever paying tribute to Quebec, but really, that's not the case. And the pictures of the Queen? They are in various public places because she is, for the time being anyway, our country's head of state and not because she is head of the Church of England. I know, a lot of you people evidently prefer Karla Homolka to the Queen, but perhaps when you separate and build Utopia, Karla can be your first head of state.

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  9. Your lack of knowledge is splendid, but not delicious. French and Religion is a topic in linguistics which you should know about ! Again your ignorance is awful, and notice by the French sites who are not allowing you to comment. (No wonder why! )As far as the politics of religion this is another subject all together.

    What about Protestantism and the actual schism ? The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism in French Canada ?
    The separation of powers and the application of its theories which is full of contradiction in English Canada, and French Canada?

    Before you throw a stone, look at yourself, run comparisons. Your accusations are illfounded as they are not from official notions.

    ◄------- go back to school if you don't wan't to be a fool.

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  10. To Anonymous@February 18, 2011 12:05 PM

    ‘A crucifix is not a veil on a face, what does it bother you. 1774 Acte du Quebec was giving all the French of Canada the right to retain their religion, now as xenophobic anglophones you are retards and are worse than all the barbaric invasion.... who are you ? skinheads!’

    Way to represent your kind, obtuse and vindictive as ever. You've taken a complex issue and reduced it to it's lowest common denominator, Quebecois racism.

    You actually blame the pro-secular initiatives of the Mouvement laïque québécois, the decisions of the Quebec judicial system, and this province wide debate on the Anglos.

    Why do Quebecois nationalists always single out English speaking people for unmerited negative treatment or blame? Do you losers need a scapegoat, is that it? You don’t have the integrity to take responsibility for the mess you’ve created and your inability to evolve?

    I can’t wait to hear who you blame when Quebec’s economy crashed and burns. Full tilt Fascism and unrestrained Anglophobic xenophobia is just one economic disaster away. By all accounts, that day is coming fast. Quebec will become even more inextricably dependent on Canada, and this situation will be so repugnant to the Quebecois that their society will be ripe for further radicalization. All it will take is a leader who portrays the right combination of nationalist charisma, victimization, and racist dogma.

    Vive le Quebec Libre!!! Bon débarras!!!

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  11. Etoile,

    Do you have any idea how dim-witted you sound constantly parroting the same old crap about everyone’s’ lack of historical knowledge? Not to mention the fact that your posts are practically unintelligible, garbled as they are by the crude on-line translation app your using. More often than not your thoughts are rambling, off topic bitter diatribes, which I for one, have great difficulty following or caring about. Your words strike me as utterly pointless racist nonsense.

    Like other people have pointed out, we have the same information as you. We know the history as well as you and it changes nothing. Since 400 years (as you love to say) we have known just how hateful, self absorbed, entitled, and dangerous people with your Franco-supremacist beliefs can be. For you, all roads lead back to Anglophobic hatred. Imprisoned by your racism, you will never be free or feel clean.

    How do you maintain your pompous sense of pride with your hand held out begging ‘the enemy’ for food money?

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  12. "rest of us are forever paying tribute to Quebec, but really, that's not the case"

    Seems to me 8.5 Billion last year alone plus agricultural subsidies and other gold plated programs favoring Quebec (what about all those government back loans in favor of Bombardier) would indicate to me that " it is the case". Your right on everything else, BTW. Karla for prime ministre du Quebec. :) Bet she might have an idea of what to do with all those maudits anglos and ethnics. She have blond hair and blue eyes?? ;)

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  13. Don't take your viagra before you write on this blog, it's bad for high tension. Settle down,let the others run their council without there prayers, it's such a joke to be in a chamber council, especially once elected, you know it's the "gang" who controls the vote on a resolution.

    Too much chocolate helps to deal with the enemy, as Mrs. De Sevigny was saying.
    ♠♪☺

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  14. ""Remove all public Queen's symbols,"

    You just can't get over the fact that you lost the war. :):), can you??

    Your hilarious."



    What is really hilarious is to see the heirs of the United empire loyalists (cowards) who fled the US after the revolutionnary war try to take credit for the lame british victory here :)

    You think you won something over us while we put the law 101 up you asses LOL

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  15. "You think you won something over us while we put the law 101 up you asses..."

    HA!Et profondément en plus.Ce doit être très douloureux,pas surprenant qu'ils ne sourient jamais.

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  16. Aie-aie-aie! Will wonders ever cease? From the looks of it, the answer is non...no...nyet...loh...nein...

    As usual, the separatist trolls (many of them derivatives of the Sagueneen Mental Case Society) are indicating to the world there is a downside to democracy insofar that it allows the lowest common denominator trash to exercise what Americans refer to as their "First Amendment Rights". Oh well...so be it.

    If nothing else, this is food for the Quebec media and it finally caught fire on the CTV National News a couple of nights ago. This can only happen in Quebec! Considering what the Quiet Revolution did to dismantle the might of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec, you'd think that crucifix would have been charred or melted in a big bonfire on the lawns of the National Assembly!

    Then again, I supposed that would be blasphamy. The way I see it, leave the damn thing where it is, even if a non-Catholic, atheist or agnostic becomes premier. First of all, it has been there for decades so it has incorporated itself as "part of the furniture" if you'll pardon the pun. Too, Quebec, like Louisiana in the U.S., is a predominantly Roman Catholic society and its laws are derivatives of the Napoleonic Code. The law is imperfect no matter what the structure, it is merely a guideline to maintain societal order and compliance.

    Prayer absolutely no longer belongs within any political portals where religion and state are supposed to remain separated. Many secular individuals choose to retain certain ideals of their religion out of respect or simple tradition.

    The mayor has zero rights to impose prayer, but there are followers who are of their own free will are supporting his cause. Their privilege to throw their hard-earned money at the cause. Since the mayor is obtaining private funding, at least that takes the taxpayer off the hook, at least partially. As long as the population is stupid enough to keep voting for this yutz, the stupidity will continue.

    Hazel McCallion, born in the Gaspé outport of Port Daniel, just turned 90 this week, has been our mayor for 32 years and has forgotten far more than this Saguenay yutz will ever learn if he lives to be 190! If his constituents are stupid enough to keep voting for this yutz, they get the democracy they deserve!

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  17. I almost forgot about the cab driver. As long as he's not overdoing his personal items and they are not obstructing his ability to safely drive his cab, this is a case of intolerance, especially if he has been driving for 44 years and only suddenly is there a problem. If the driver was Catholic, would he have faced the same persecution? Food for thought.

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  18. "What is really hilarious is to see the heirs of the United empire loyalists (cowards) who fled the US after the revolutionnary war try to take credit for the lame british victory here :)"

    Some of the British troops who defeated the French in Quebec in 1759 were from the American colonies and were United Empire Loyalists. They helped beat the French and made Canada a British territory - not exactly a lame victory. The Loyalists were expelled from the U.S. after they lost the American Revolutionary War (similar to the earlier expulsion of the Acadians). If the Loyalists were cowards, what does that make the French they defeated?

    The English speaking Canadian descendants of the United Empire Loyalists fought with great distinction in both World Wars, while most of the Quebecois were draft dodgers who hid in the backwoods.

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  19. You are always at war, unfair and ridiculous ! You love the Queen's face, the Queen's attitude towards the French, the loarding over, the hail Hitler. ╡:+\

    You refuse to deal with what is outside your world. We were forced in imbecile, we died because we don't want to be loarded over by a bunch of rapists anglos who treated the French Canadians like pigs, yes pigs during the war.Catholics sons were in great numbers, less than protestant families. The abusive English after the conquest did so much killing already among the French, you can keep your silly remarks in your rectum.

    Read about it, as you cannot imagine it was true. All the anglos are so naive. <:-(

    Your xenophonic attitudes is without frontiers: kill, separate families, kill languages, etc...
    The Barbarians of English Canada is with you Anonymous, while you pretend to be an angel: this is the definition of racist! ╡:+|

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  20. The conscription is still hauting the French today, the XENOPHOBIC ATTITUDES OF THE ENGLISH
    FROM ENGLISH CANADA IS WORST THAN THE GERMAN NAZIS.

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  21. Poirault, with the coming of the internet historical information is coming to the masses. Since the late 60s the seppie and pur laine chauvanists have been making up history and get their low life lackeys (mostly welfare cases) to do all this parroting of lies. This is why many of the vigile losers are so upset about this blog.

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  22. "XENOPHOBIC ATTITUDES OF THE ENGLISH
    FROM ENGLISH CANADA IS WORST THAN THE GERMAN NAZIS"

    Really, a rather amusing comment, coming from someone who lives in a province which has draconion language laws which elevates one official language above the other official language. A society that views others (anglos, immigrants) as enemies and sanctions government programs of discrimination against those that are not "pure laine".

    Typical hypocritical comment from a person who obviously has delusions of grandeur with respect to their inherited culture of hatred against anything not French.

    Reality check: The French language is on the decline not only in Canada but in the world at large. Keep banging your empty pots of pea soup together to attract attention to your failed cause. Frankly, no one is listening anymore and furthermore no one cares.

    Who are the xenophobes in this country other than those who create laws which openly discriminate against minorities.

    Good thing the french are a minority in Canada which limits their false sense of superiority and their laws which are markedely biased and intolerant of anyone not resembling themselves.

    Pathetic souls in search of themselves and not looking in the mirror for the real answers.

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  23. Re Poirault said:The conscription is still hauting the French today, the XENOPHOBIC ATTITUDES OF THE ENGLISH
    FROM ENGLISH CANADA IS WORST THAN THE GERMAN NAZIS.
    Ah yes, that little-known chapter of Canadian history where we sent millions of Quebecois men, women, and children to the gas chambers. A little prone to exaggeration aren't we? I'm always surprised the people of France will have anything to do with you guys. If it was left to the Quebecois, France's national anthem would be "Deutcheland, Deutcsheland, Uber Alles".
    Anonymous 3:18 PM said: "you can keep your silly remarks in your rectum."
    Beautiful! If Monty Python ever makes a sequel to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", you could write for them. It's up there with "I blow ma nose in your generale direction, you stupid English k'nigget" (knight). Unfortunately, you're only accidentally funny.

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  24. Diogenes, you forgot about Canada's concentration camps in the north where we stuffed the xenophobes into cattle cars like sardines with no washroom amenities, backbreaking work and starvation BEFORE the gas chambers, except the mothers who wouldn't give up their babies and the babies themselves who were gassed without the work.

    Oh, and weren't the xenophobes made to sew crucifixes on their clothing to conspicuously label them, then thrown into ghettos, thrown on their hands and knees and kicked in their behinds while scrubbing the streets with brushes (with their oppressors smiling from ear-to-ear while kicking them, thoroughly enjoying their new authority)?

    How about taking them to open fields with mass graves dug to strip them, shoot them in the heads and throw them unto those open mass graves?

    Were Poiraut's ancestors that badly done by after Wolfe defeated Montcalm in 1759? Were they treated as I described above? There was a badly failed attempt at assimilation done by Lord Durham yet the French language still exists in Quebec today, and did 50 years ago without the aid of racist legislation.

    Naturally, though, it's the fault of the English and other minorities that they invested in their education and their children's, had way fewer children than their French speaking counterparts and weren't lorded over by the despotic Roman Catholic Church that ordered, yes ORDERED them to endlessly make little Catholics, endlessly give what little they had to the Church and keep Fridays meatless. I guess that was a conspiracy by the minorities who ultimately controlled The Vatican. Yeh, uh huh, right!

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  25. The quality of languages is due to the changes in communication: texting, twiting, etc... other visual impacts, and imaging, pictogramming rather than construction of sentences, good grammar. People's needs to go to work rather than pursuing carreers, investing in them is another problem, as well as dropping out of University.

    I disagree with the Mississauga guy who is not dealing with quality of languages at large. He is forgetting his own quality of language. He enjoys to make suffer and rub the French the wrong way: constantly pitted, nickeled and dimed by the English exacerbation and xenophobic ignorance of that arrogant race who won a battle a few hours of difference over a French continent at one time. His views are narrowed and without any inspiration to the French to evolve in French in PEACE, (without people like him!!!) VIVE la loi 101.

    His views on the Catholic faith is from an outsider, partially true, but stupid at the same time, as protestantism protested to brake away from catholicism, and who at their turn are on the verge to reinvent another wheel: sex and priesthood, gender and priesthood, marriage and priesthood, money and committees, budget and buildgings.

    Before you throw a stone and lord over try to analyse at large.

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  26. "by a bunch of rapists anglos who treated the French Canadians like pigs, yes pigs during the war.Catholics sons were in great numbers, less than protestant families. The abusive English after the conquest did so much killing already among the French"

    Well, for one, you don't know what you're talking about. Two, more recently both French speaking European nations, Belgium and France were liberated by British, Canadian and American troops at the cost of hundreds of thosands of lives, so you should be thankful instead. If it was up to your own French compatriots you would still be goose stepping in your homeland and piling Jews onto train wagons for Germany under your Vichy government.
    Thirdly, and most importantly, we just don't give a shit. I don't have French ancestry or a British one. Fuck your whining about three hundred year old events. The demographics of this country have changed tremendously. Canada is no longer represented by two cultures alone. How many Francophones were hung three hundred years ago, or how many Brits died trying to defend their colonies doesn't matter to us. After all, we all suffered under your colonial rule. Whenever Quebec brings in French speaking immigrants you would do well to remember that the only reason they speak the language is because hundreds of years ago French armies raped and pillaged their way around the globe stealing the wealth of other nations.

    It's the 21st century, we live in a multicultural Canada and we don't give a flying fuck at a rolling doghnut about how distinct you may feel yourself to be, or how much it bothers you that North America became Anglophone instead of Francophone. Get over it because you will not change us and you don't want to mess with us the way you did with the English 40 years before. Montreal is neither English or French, it is an immigrant breadbasket of multiculturalism that identifies with Canada, not Quebec, and modern values of cultural freedon, not the neo fascism you ascribe to and was handed down to you by bottom feeders like Groulx.

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  27. "to endlessly make little Catholics" and suffered like ones from the hate of the Protestants.

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  28. "'to endlessly make little Catholics' and suffered like ones from the hate of the Protestants."

    You want to keep bringing up the past? What about the thousands of Muslims who were slaughtered by Catholics during the Crusades in the Middle East? Or the thousands of so-called heretics who were tortured and burned at the stake by the Church during the Inquisition in Europe? Kindly Catholics?...give me a break!

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  29. More recently in Quebec, the former Francophone Catholic Premier, Maurice Duplessis, threw Jehovah's Witnesses into jail.

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  30. The greater ongoing discussion about reasonable accommodation is interesting because of the many facets that it variously appropriates or has ascribed to it. Hérouxville might have been the recent flashpoint in Quebec, but ours is far from being the only place and time where deep questions are being asked about liberalism and how to cope with significant numbers of newcomers. I say this being fully aware that living in the past—or dwelling on it—doesn’t do much to those of us who live in the here and now.

    At the same time, there are many clichéd phrases on how forgetting the past is a surefire way to repeat it—and with good reason.

    Just as it might not be right for any ethnic group or religious community to isolate itself from the wider population around them, it’s just as wrong to forcefully subject newcomers to what effectively amounts to fear-induced caprices on the part of an insecure and tyrannical majority.

    Looking back provides an interesting example of how the constant battle for what is often seen as the rightful survival of one people often (necessarily) implies the curtailment of some freedoms afforded to another. At the same time, I consider how the entire course of human history (as well as our colorful path toward so-called “progress”) has been one sordid exercise of trial and error after another and am reminded why I sometimes have a curmudgeonly propensity toward cynicism.

    Rewinding two generations, many francophones objected to Italian immigrants enrolling their children in English-language schools in certain parts of Montreal. Many immigrant parents had arrived in Montreal only a few years earlier and wished to enroll their children in French-language schools, but had been refused due to the exclusionary nature of the identity politics of the time (something about wanting to keep certain things homogeneous). The irony of being forced to attend English-language educational institutions as a result of not being welcome in the French-language system wasn’t (and still isn’t) lost on tens of thousands of first-generation Italian-Canadians, whose affinity (and subsequent assimilation) toward a related Latin language would have otherwise been much more natural.

    This institutionalized exclusion is conveniently omitted from the narrative when recounted by certain nationalist sources, who believe they have a vested interest in tightening our language laws. Very often, these groups like to throw around figures that illustrate how “older communities issued from immigration” tended to gravitate toward English when given the choice, and justify keeping the Charter of the French Language in place because of it.

    Flash back another generation or two. Jews – well-known favorites of Abbot Groulx – were not allowed to enroll in Catholic schools (again, something about homogeneity of the majority) and as a result attended then-Protestant schools and became anglicized. Of course, it’s doubtful whether a largely Yiddish-speaking cohort of shtetl-descended Ashkenazis, most of whom were either fleeing various pogroms/genocides or immigrating to “America” out of more ideological motivations would have been all that interested in either learning French or praying to Jesus. If anything, the preeminence of the English-speaking business class, and a generally more continental outlook were sufficient pull factors for most European Jews to largely integrate into Quebec’s English community.

    1/2

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  31. At the same time, the two historically sacred cows of French-Canadian identity politics — language and religion — have a tendency of seldom if ever yielding to any kind of pressure unless it’s part of a great upheaval. Over time, the clerical and political classes seem to have perfected the art of fearmongering the masses. Now – as then – these preachers conspire to keep us (whether we’re defined as a people, a province, a nation, French-Canadians, or Québécois) the equivalent of barefoot, pregnant, and subservient to their social agenda, all while using “affirming” language that underscores our epic battle for survival against a cruel behemoth. True change can only come when the majority recognizes the scam that it has been subjected to and turns its back completely.

    The more I watch our ideologues, internet pressure groups and propagandists at work, the more sickened I am by the mockery they make of universal human values like solidarity and acceptance, all the while promoting linguistic, ethnic, and religious policies that amount to vulgar tribalism. At the same time, I think of the fire-and-brimstone sermons of old and wonder whether our society can undergo a second equally massive and wholesale rejection of our now linguistic intolerance, or whether we’ll add crucifixes where there historically were none just as the phrase “under God” was only added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954.

    Through it all, I have to believe that sooner or later, all peoples can muster the intestinal fortitude to say “enough is enough.” On the topic of religion, the majority stood up to the agents of tyranny responsible for our deprivation and illiteracy – both within and without. Unfortunately, the Quiet Revolution didn’t completely deliver. It fixed some things but broke others, so there's still plenty of work for us to do.

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  32. The break, now you are asking for a break, come on ! why mapping the religion wars accusing the Christians ! WHo kind of perversity is this ?

    What about staying on topic !

    The Quebec Act of 1774 acknowledged the rights of the Roman Catholic Church throughout Lower Canada in order to keep the French-Canadians "loyal" to Britain, as there were too many to shoot ! Perhaps you have a God's complex ! or would you rather have Canada full of Arabs kneeling down at their time of prayers.... that would be a lot better than dealing with bill 101 ! we could have your tongue cut for what you are saying to the French since all those years. ya !
    Ah! Ah !

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  33. To Anon. at 3:57 PM,

    "would you rather have Canada full of Arabs kneeling down at their time of prayers.... that would be a lot better than dealing with bill 101 !"

    I would rather deal with just about anyone else on the planet than with the Quebecois.

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