Athée Canadien
Zak
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Posts by Zak
CFI:Canada’s identity crisis
Nov 24th
CFI:Canada’s internal struggles are leaking out. Jacob Fortin paints a picture and does a good job explaining some of the history:
Secular organizations in this country have the tendency to implode. Although it’s not clear exactly why this happens, it my have something to do with the fact that people tend not to agree on the best strategy to garner new members. Should we be in everyone’s face? Should we employ a more gentle approach that doesn’t alienate certain groups? While we may not argue over dogma like our religious counterparts, our common disbelief is usually not enough to create a powerful consensus among members. More than likely our differing opinions often polarizes people in two basic camps: Accommodation, and Confrontation.
I don’t think CFI:Canada is facing a crisis as simple as merely accommodationists vs confrontationists but rather between those who want to build on its successes and those who want to take the organization in a new direction. The ‘new direction’ people seem to be winning at this point, so this whole spat is really just an identity crisis as CFI’s supporters decide what to do.
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Debating secularism at the school level
Nov 24th
The Toronto school that hosts Muslim prayers doesn’t budge. A community meeting was recently held:
The meeting of about 40 to 50 people was meant as a community discussion, but some attendees were eager to talk about an anonymously printed pamphlet titled “Segregation in Toronto Public Schools” – a reference to the practice of separating boys and girls during prayer sessions.
Gender segregation did indeed dom-inate the two-hour meeting. One middle-aged woman said she was an alumnus of Valley Park and still kept up with Muslim, Jewish and Christian friends from her school days. “I want everybody to grow up together. I want accommodation, but I want those girls up front,” she said.
An older English woman who identified herself as an unwilling veteran of countless school-imposed Lord’s Prayers agreed. “I can’t stand by and watch girls be segregated in a public environment,” she said.
I guess it’s good to see people talking about it. Unfortunately, Canada’s implied separation of church and state isn’t something that can be debated at the school level. Regardless of what parents think, hosting religious services in a public school violates our implied secular clauses, equity laws, and provincial policies which means the board has no choice but to stop the prayers. Let the kids go to their mosques on their own time and dime.
Holy men
Nov 14th
Kevin Smith is handed a softy in the Ottawa Citizen. “How can you distinguish real holy men from charlatans?” leaves the field wide open for all kinds of horrible insults but, as usual, Kevin takes the moral high ground.
The term “holy men” is archaic, bound into the religious privilege of male power.
The phrase is an insult to the life of Isabella Baumfree, a devout Christian, born into slavery, who became a leading figure in the abolitionist movement and fought for the equality of women.
It is also an affront to the work of William Sloane Coffin, whose dedication to religion was as strong as his passion for women’s rights and who spoke against the brutality of war.
More than their religious conviction guided these two incredibly selfless mere mortals. They were driven by something that we all share regardless of what deity we pray to, if any.
It’s our universal morality based on the commonality of being human.
The answers provided by the religious co-panellists are sad.
Food for thought
Nov 14th
Food writer Corey Mintz hosts a dinner party with a crew of GSA activists. Guests included activists Leanne Iskander and Casy Oraa, journalists Andrea Houston and Johnathan Goldsbie, and CCLA lawyer Noa Mendelsohn Aviv.
Once everyone has some food in their bellies, they try to explain to me how this type of discrimination is allowed in Canada, in the 21st century.
“These schools are answering to the bishops,” rasps Aviv, her voice lost to a cold. “The Ministry’s in there somewhere.” That would be the Ministry of Education, which sets policy that is supposed to be followed by all Ontario schools. “It seems fairly clear that there was an unwritten ban across the province. Unfortunately for them and fortunate enough for us, that they went so far as to ban it on paper.”
Halton Catholic District School Board chair Alice Anne LeMay went further, explaining that they would also not allow Nazi groups. She later apologized.
The provincial government took no action.“They’re abdicating their responsibility,” says an emphatic Oraa. Everything he says is emphatic. “Because they’ve created this policy, specifically the one for GSAs.”
A partial transcript of the evening is posted here. It’s a good introduction for anyone not familiar with the GSA issue and separate school funding. The only cringe-worthy omission was when Andrea mentions that the CCLA and Queer Ontario have been in the fight against Catholic school funding since ‘the beginning’ when they’ve really only been at it for the last year. Atheist groups, like CFI, have been involved for years, and independent groups like CRIPE and Education Equality Ontario have been around for decades.
A Muslim Halloween
Oct 27th
A Calgary girl asks her imam if she can go trick-or-treating.
Whether Christians accept it or not, we Muslims should not accept this holiday. It is meaningless. Wearing costumes, going tricking and treating and decorating houses with witches, spider nets and wasting so much pumpkins, etc., are all repugnant things. It is strange to see reasonable people acting as weirdo and doing foolish things. It is also becoming quite dangerous nowadays. Some people really act like monsters and witches. Muslims should not participate in this holiday.
Muslims don’t get to have any fun? Yet another reason why I’m glad to be an atheist.
Higher grades in separate schools
Oct 13th
Economist Stephen Gordon argues why competition produces better students in separate schools.
Of the two, separate school administrators have the greater incentive to provide higher-quality education: if the separate system were widely known to be dysfunctional, it would likely disappear.
Basic economics would predict that the competitive pressures on separate school administrators would provide stronger incentives to provide better education outcomes. And that seems to be just what is happening. A recent study (pdf) by McMaster University economists Martin Dooley and Abigail Payne in collaboration with UC-Berkeley’s David Card that examine these effects finds “a statistically significant but modest-sized impact of potential competition on the growth rate of student achievement.” In a related study using similar data, a CD Howe study done by Wilfrid Laurier’s David Johnson finds that of the 13 ‘above-average’ school boards, 11 are in the separate school system, while none of the 10 ‘below-average’ school boards are.
Since public schools are required to accept everyone (at least at the elementary school levels that were used in the studies), the incentive to provide a better education is reduced. Separate schools, on the other hand, are optional for Catholic students only, so its administrators are forced to provide a better education to keep the kids from jumping to the public system.
In addition to their competitive nature, separate schools can keep their grades high by using constitutionally protected discrimination. They must accept all Catholic students but can choose to admit higher performing non-Catholics in order to increase the school’s average grade.
All school boards compete with each other for resources so singling out Catholic schools might be disingenuous. Yet, separate school supporters often use their higher performance as proof that religious education is better and therefore should remain fully funded. So it’s important to remind these people that better results could be explained by their special privileges coupled with competing market forces rather than anything religion provides.
Private schools in Manitoba cont.
Oct 12th
A school in Winnipeg is giving credits to students who attend a pro-life rally.
Principal Dave Hood of Christ the King School said Tuesday that joining the vigils is a voluntary and family decision. But he’s considering it as an official school activity as early as next year.
It’s a prayer vigil, Hood said. “We’re not there to block anyone.”
Hood has talked to the teacher responsible for the students’ community service activities, and they’ve agreed that if any kids take part in the vigils, that the time would count toward a student’s community service.
Christ the King School has about 200 students in kindergarten to Grade 8.
Hood said he advised parents in a recent newsletter that the Campaign Life Coalition organizes daily vigils outside HSC.
“I have to tread carefully,” said Hood of the possibility of making attendance at the vigils a formal school activity. “It could happen in years to come.”
When this article kept popping up in my feeds it seemed like another example of separate schools abusing their privilege. But since separate schools were eliminated in Manitoba, this must be just a case of private schools behaving badly.
I tend to side with private schools when it comes to curriculum battles but when a school receives half it’s funding from the province I don’t consider it private anymore and hope it be held accountable like any other public institution.
In this case, the province should threaten to pull the school’s funding. Unlike Ontario’s separate schools, the Manitoban schools don’t have constitutional protection so the province has no reason to keep up the funding.
This marks the second private school in Manitoba recently reported being up to no good. If this is a trend, our Manitoban peeps will be busy.
Religion and energy subsidies
Oct 7th
Is a solar project in Windsor, Ontario violating the separation of church and state?
A new solar project on the roof the Rose City Islamic Centre has the potential to produce enough electricity to power 250 homes in the surrounding neighbourhood.
Located on Empress Street in partnership with Solgate Solar, the project will result in the installation of solar panels on about 55,000 square feet of the building’s roof.“We first began thinking about this project about 18 months ago, and when it was approved in June, we began considering how it would best serve our non-profit centre, but also the larger Windsor community,” said Remy Boulbol, programming director for the centre.
Ordinarily I’d say this is a good thing. Religions that promote sustainable energy should be commended, and if they can make a profit, then good for them. However, some ethical implications are worth noting.
Ontario operates what it calls a Feed in Tariff where the government pays for sustainably produced electricity generated by private sources. Energy is sold to the grid at higher than market prices which means the program is basically just a huge subsidy meant to decentralize the grid and promote sustainable energy sources.
This could be a problem, depending on your definition of secularism. In effect, the government is transferring funds directly to a religious organization. It’s not intentional, but it’s real and it forces us to better define what we mean when we promote the separation of church and state. Should governments fund church activities even though the money is routed through a different program or is it fine because the government is applying the same rules to everyone, thus not favouring religion over anyone else?
In either case, this mosque funding could be used to fuel rhetoric by Christians who oppose energy subsidies (Green energy subsidies are bad because they give money to scary, evil Muslims, etc.) but that argument ought to fall flat since churches likely do the same (probably more since there are more churches than mosques). I wonder how many religious groups take advantage of any subsidy program to raise funds? Anyone up for some financial digging? It could produce some interesting results.
Office of Religious Freedom moves forward
Oct 5th
The federal government held consultations this week on the construction of the Office of Religious Freedom. Questions and criticisms still remain.
Arvind Sharma, who teaches religious studies at McGill University, has just completed a book called Problematizing Religious Freedom.
Sharma argues that the very concept of religious freedom has become an excuse used by proselytizing religions, particularly Christianity, to convert people. He says that was the clear goal of the U.S. model from the start.
“My concern is that this office will be used … by missionary religions, especially by Christian missions, will be interpreted by them as giving them the right to proselytize,” Sharma says. “I agree that the right to change one’s religion is a part of religious freedom but I don’t agree that my right to change my religion is symmetrical with somebody else’s right to ask me to change my religion.”
If our government is going to spend $5 million every year to promote religious freedom, they need to first define what is means. As argued by some Americans, the similar US model was used to promote Christianity abroad so it’s important we don’t head down the same path.
Foreign Affairs minister John Baird gave a fluffy speech where he argued for the importance of the new office to promote human rights and religious freedom abroad. Yet, shouldn’t our Foreign Affairs department be doing that anyway, so why the need for a special office? Given the new office has no purpose that isn’t already covered by existing mandates, it leads me to think the government has special plans. My guess is they want to use the program to single out international action on behalf of targeted religions in order to gain votes in swing ridings.
I don’t have a problem promoting religious freedom as long as it includes all religions and no religion but did the consultations this week include any atheist representatives? Nope?
Private schools in Manitoba
Sep 22nd
Manitoba private schools aren’t behaving.
Springs Church, a non-denominational chain that has Manitoba locations in Winnipeg, Selkirk and Steinbach (plus one in Calgary) boasts a government-funded high school and elementary campus called Springs Christian Academy. Before the school year begins, students from kindergarten to twelfth grade are required to sign an honour contract, which is exactly what you think it is. Along with prohibiting activities that teenagers love to partake in such as drinking and having sex, students are required to abide by the church’s Statement of Faith (SOF) which outlines a hate-filled, hidebound belief system that also includes more innocuous doctrine like baptisms will be done “by immersion only.”
Manitoba eliminated their separate school system in 1890. Too bad religion has found its way back in. I don’t care if private schools want to teach bigotry but accepting public money comes with a responsibility to follow generally accepted practices. The Manitoba government needs to stop all funding.
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