The Quebec government says it will ban religious symbols in the province’s daycare centres.
Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge says there is a “broad consensus” that Quebecers want secularism to be strengthened.
The announcement follows a recommendation made this summer by a committee tasked with advising the province on how to enhance secularism. The committee had called for the ban to be extended to daycares.
Quebec has already banned public sector workers in positions of authority, such as teachers and judges, from wearing religious symbols on the job.
You are being way to strict with your interpretation. Also the way you bring up prayer mats raises an eyebrow.
As I said, I hope I am wrong about my interpretation. What’s eyebrow raising about prayer mats?
Always curious that these rule get roundly criticized as a possible overstep then in the same breath the only actual thing brought up is a possible rule against a part of the islamic faith.
You do try to point out that it’s only effective against one particular faith when you really could have just not brought it up at all.
I’m not the person you’re responding to, but I’ve read their message a few times, and your response, and I think I see the mismatch. They said “I don’t know how they could do this, but what they could do is ban prayer mats”.
And I think you interpreted this as “I don’t know how they’d enforce this. Oh, but here’s an idea, we should get rid of prayer mats”
But the way I read it I think they meant “I don’t know what this means for Christians and Jews, but I hope they don’t use this simply to ban prayer mats and nothing else”
Good on you for attempting to parse different meanings out of what was said. Too few people attempt to do so and instead jump all over a misinterpretation.
Yeah, that’s it. I’m worried that this is just thinly veiled Islamophobia, because praying can occur in someone’s head with no outward indication that a person’s praying, so you obviously can’t ban prayer itself. You can ban public displays of prayer like a prayer mat, which means that Muslims must be on private property where prayer is allowed (good luck screening for that in the job search) at five spaced out and preordained times a day. I hope there’s another way to interpret a ban on prayer.
No no, this is legit. There have been times in the past something like this came up that appeared to apply broadly, but wouldn’t you know it just happened to hit Muslims more than Christians. I had the same thought, which is that this sounds like a good thing, but I hope isn’t secretly just trying to make Muslims lives worse in a way that won’t impact other people.
That’s exactly what this is and has been a long-standing campaign.
Why would I ignore that the only way I can see to implement a prayer ban seems discriminatory against Muslims? That’s my whole issue and the point of my comment: a ban on prayer seems like it might be a whitewashed attack on Muslims.
Well prayer mats aren’t clothing and whats to say it isn’t a yoga mat?
That’s something you can argue in court, but it doesn’t stop you from the hassle and it doesn’t stop the chilling effect that a law like that could cause. I don’t know what you’re actually disagreeing with me about.
Argue what in court? How to wear a rug?
You can argue that your prayer mat is a yoga mat. I still don’t understand what your issue with my comment is.
And I still don’t understand how you made the leap from clothing to prayer mats.
The problem with this ban is what constitutes “religion”, and what symbols are included.
People show their culture. It has historically not worked very well to suppress culture.
Employees can cover them up while working.
What places are you even talking about? But yeah, if you daycare has a “Saint Joseph” room it should probably be renamed.
Don’t put up religious holiday decorations.
Doesn’t seem that complicated.
I’m obviously talking about face and neck tattoos.
Have you been to Québec? La place est completement basee sur l’eglise catholique. Si on commence avec les symboles, qu’est-ce qui arrete Roberge de monter une croisade d’annihilation de toute association religieuse? C’est pas mal ce qu’il veut.
Yeah, that’ll fly.
Look, I’m French Canadian, and I’m all for not having religion involved in professional decisions, but people are human. They show culture. Previous attempts at this kind of “purism” by prohibition have failed for this reason.
That seems like fear mongering.
Incorrect. You said you were curious to know, I’m telling you what the concerns are.
It is very difficult to describe the boundaries of culture, and therefore difficult to enforce evenly across the board.
Culture is built into more than just symbols worn on the body. If Quebec were truly trying for secularism, there wouldn’t be a day off for Easter or Christmas.
This is an attempt at some form of Quebecois “purism”, same as banning signs in English.
Names of places aren’t a real issue, and the other two are protected by freedom of expression.
Tattoos are prohibited by multiple religions, especially the one that would be offened by this legislation.
I notice you didn’t include the religious holidays.
I don’t care about religious holidays. Like at all.
I don’t celebrate, like at all and I think they are a concession that should be removed.
Edit: you also didn’t ask about religious holidays, nice goal post shift.