Athée Canadien
Vancouver Supreme Court decision good thing for secularism
By Crommunist
Any time when religious expression or communities come up against the secular authority, I cringe inwardly. The level of undeserved respect we’ve granted religion often comes at the expense of both the principles of our country and what is best for society as a whole. So when I read this story, I was very happy:
The B.C. Supreme Court has cancelled the proposed November elections at the Ross Street Gurdwara and has cancelled all temple memberships issued since the last election two years ago. The oral decision by Justice Paul Walker was given earlier this week following an action launched by Sikh Youth Vancouver, which claimed the registration process by which members are allowed to vote was neither fair nor transparent.
This is how all organizations should work – they can set their rules, but when those rules violate the law they are held accountable to the courts. The courts should implement a ruling based on the law, without making any concessions for the oh-so-sensitive feelings of believers (nor being biased against them because they are believers). Now if only we could export a bit of this jurisprudence to the Quebec Supreme Court, we’d all be better off for it.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Crommunist on September 7, 2010 at 9:00 am, and is filed under Secularism. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |
Comments are closed.
about 1 year ago
The obvious problem with your logic here is that the law is based in large part on the feelings of the dominant culture. And if you look at some of the laws that get passed, or even some that have remained on the books you’d see why accomodating minorities is important. Marriage between man/woman is not the least bit discriminatory, if everyone is a heterosexual… and love is all about feelings.
about 1 year ago
I’m sure you’re not suggesting that there should be a separate branch of laws for minority groups in the name of “accommodation”. You’re making an argument that laws shouldn’t discriminate against one group unfairly – as same-sex marriage laws do. However, that is an issue of the law being applied unequally across groups. This is a case where you don’t get to violate a law based on group status, which is a different matter.
Besides, if a group wants to challenge the fairness of a law, there is a mechanism for that. No one group, however, deserves a special exemption or preferential status under the law simply by virtue of the fact that they’re a minority (with a possible exception for First Nations, a debate perhaps for another time).
about 1 year ago
You’re missing the point. For heterosexuals, the value of marriage is being able to marry someone of the opposite sex. A gay man could always marry a lesbian, so gay men have always had ‘the same’ right as straight men to marriage. But because they ‘feel’ differently, we have extended the right of gay men to marry other men, something even straight men did not have a right to do in the past. We make accomadations all the time, and always have. So the atheists who complain about religious accomodation are simply ignoring reality in favour of their own idealogy and intolerance. The only question should be, does a requested accomodation balance with the ones that have already been made. And that is a completely subjective assessment based on changing community standards.
about 1 year ago
I clearly am missing your point. Straight men didn’t have the right to marry other men either, but now they do, so I’m also missing something in your analogy (i.e., it’s not only gay people who are allowed to marry within the same gender). We also didn’t change a law (although if marriage had been defined as man/woman only in the law, we would have had to change the law), so much as the Supreme Court clarified the restriction as a violation of equal protection under the existing law.
I’m not saying that accommodations can never be made, but that they have to apply to all people, not merely the members of whatever minority group. If we want to pass laws, we have channels to allow that, but in the absence of that, the courts ought to operate within the law and not grant special privileges to certain groups within society, whether it be the majority or minority groups (again, with a possible exemption for First Nations people).
Re-reading my post, I can see where you might be thinking that I am advocating that religious people be discriminated against by the courts. That may be poor wording on my part – the point I am trying to make is that we ought not to give special concessions to anyone based on their group affiliation. ‘Freedom of religion’ does not grant religious groups immunity from secular regulation; this ruling upholds that idea.
As far as “the atheists who complain about religious accomodation(sic) are simply ignoring reality in favour of their own idealogy(sic) and intolerance” goes, you’re welcome to be out on that limb all by yourself. My objection to religious “accommodation” is when religions or religious people are granted legal privileges that others do not have access to. Unless you have psychic insight into other atheists that I don’t know about, that’s what everyone has been saying all along.
about 1 year ago
Since straight men have never argued for being able to marry other men, this is a strawman argument.
And you are wrong, the law did exclude gays from being married, the appeal in this case was to charter of rights, which didn’t even exist until 1982. The challenge was to the common law definition of marriage, based on British common law, so its very old, and it was set aside by the courts in 2003.
It was in every sense an accommodation, gay people wanted to marry because they wanted the benefits of marriage in relation to those they chose to have long term intimate relations with.
Regardless, the point is, in a pluralistic culture, we make accommodations all the time: for women and minorites, for the french language minority, and for natives.
I find it amusing that you say on the one hand there should be no exceptions, but then turn around and say natives are. That’s called cognitive dissonance.
Oh, and your use of the word (sic) is as amusing as it is pretentious. This is used in print media to clarify that an unusual spelling or misspelling is not a transcription error. Since anyone can scroll to the original, your use of it is ridiculous.
about 1 year ago
My point with the straight same-sex marriage thing is that the right can be enjoyed equally by all people, not disproportionately by one group. They didn’t pass a law saying that gay people could get married, they said that restricting marriage to straight couples only violates the Charter. It is in no way a straw man argument.
You’re simply wrong about the gay marriage thing at any rate. The court upheld the right to marriage and equal protection as delineated in section 15 of the Charter. End of story. The decisions are available online if you want to read them. Saying that an old practice violates the law is not the same as creating new law for a specific group.
There are important and valid reasons, both historical and contemporaneous, for differential treatment under law for First Nations people. Recognizing this is not, in fact, called cognitive dissonance. It’s called nuance. This is also in section 15 of the Charter.
I’m still baffled as to what your point is. You’re of the opinion that the laws should be applied differently to different groups of people? That secular government should make specific exceptions for different people based on their beliefs, rather than setting down a code by which all people must abide?
about 1 year ago
Yes I said very specifically the charter was involved. And when the court interpreted the charter with regards to the common law definition of marriage it tossed out that legal definition in 2003. The charter came into effect in 1982, and the legal definition is older than that. So the law was changed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halpern_v._Canada_%28Attorney_General%29
Nuance tells me I have to pay federal tax, but natives don’t, nuance tells me I can’t part in certain parking spots, nuance tells me certain jobs are designated for people who are not white males, and nuance tells me if I’m not bilingual I can be excluded from a whole host of jobs.
Your definition of nuance comes pretty close to any definition of ‘reasonable accommodation I’ve ever heard of… at least as defined by those who aren’t rabidly against it.
We live in a multicultural society, accommodation is about being reasonable and making exceptions for a variety of reasons that help balance out the competing and different needs of citizens.
about 1 year ago
Okay, I think I see what you’re saying: it may be necessary to make accommodations to ameliorate the “conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups”. I don’t disagree with this position at all, nor does the Charter.
My point was that when the in-group practices of a specific subset of society violate the law, it is not reasonable or desirable to grant special privileges or exemptions to that group. It’s a different story if the law is prejudiced against that particular group, or if maintaining the status quo will create de facto discrimination, but that’s not what happened in the story that spawned this post.
Are we happy with this, or are we going to continue going round-for-round repeating ourselves?
about 1 year ago
All minorities face challenges that members of the majority do not have to face. Atheists included. Being aware that sometimes exceptions are appropriate is important.
And I was more responding to your post than the story. The story seems to be an example of group infighting, old vs young, and the application of fairly standard corporate law.
They seemed to disagree on the facts of the case, not on whether Sikhs should be given special status… but there may be more to the story that was not in the article.
about 1 year ago
Crommunist, for the benefit of those of us who don’t live in Vancouver, could you tell us what the decision is about?
about 1 year ago
Wow, talk about blog-fail. Apologies, I have provided the link to the article in the body of the text.
about 1 year ago
Ah. Anyway, thanks for the link.