Office of Religious Freedom

[sabotabby]

Hey, can we talk for a bit about the newly established Office of Religious Freedom? I heard something about it as I was making my bleary way out of bed, but didn't quite catch what was going on. I was pretty sure that we had religious freedom in Canada these days, unless you say, want to take your own holidays off instead of getting the Christian ones off, or if you're a schoolkid forced to stand for an anthem that invokes a monotheistic god, or if you happen to be First Nations, with a history of having your religion shat upon and the present day pleasure of having the occasional asshole journalist draw a pay cheque for mocking your faith.

But mostly we have fairly well-defined lines separating church and state up here, so it makes sense, I suppose, that this is an office that deals with freedom of religion in other countries. Which is an important issue, I guess, but when you have a government that's cutting down on refugee claims and foreign aid in general, all the while screeching about smaller government and austerity, it seems like a weird priority. Perhaps I'm just biased on account of my atheism, but I feel like clean water and sanitation and food might be more important international aid issues to tackle first, and then once those are solved we can worry about religious freedom.

Not that I really want the Harper administration doing any sort of foreign aid, given that they spend our tax dollars on anti-gay groups in Uganda.

Anyway. We have an Office of Religious Freedom now, with one dude heading it and a $5 million budget. Said dude is Catholic and is dean of a private Christian college. His speech focused on the assassination of a Christian politician in Pakistan. It's pretty clear that the Office of Religious Freedom will focus mainly on the persecution of Christians around the world. And while I don't believe that anyone should be persecuted on the basis of their religion, I also think that various Christian churches in the West have shitloads of money to toss around, and perhaps that $5 million might be better spent on combatting malaria or providing generic AIDS drugs or something else a little more urgent.

There's also the interesting point raised by this editorial, which is:

Some wonder whether Ottawa will go as far as the U.S. has in criticizing trading partners or allies such as China, Saudi Arabia and Israel for treating minorities unfairly. And what will Ottawa say when religious beliefs clash with women’s rights, gay rights and so on?

$5 million isn't a lot in federal government terms, but I do find it interesting that governments that preach fiscal conservatism always seem to find money when they need to pander to their base. Which in this case, is not a base that actually wants religious freedom for anyone other than fundamentalist Christians.

Comments

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I am given to understand, though I have not checked it up on the intertubes, that the majority of people who are persecuted for their religion (or, perhaps more often, for their membership of a particular religious community, which is not necessarily the same thing*) are in fact Christians. It seems plausible, given the situation of Christians in a lot of the Middle East, China, Pakistan, etc.

But this really does smack of "look over there" politics. In particular, it is reframing a lot of problems in certain parts of the world as being primarily about religion and religious freedom, whereas religious conflict is often more the way in which deeper conflicts and injustices (which the west often has a hand in upholding) find expression.

Mind you, I wonder if the ORF will take on Indonesia, where under the Panasilia state ideology everyone is required to be a member of one of five religions (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist), and can only marry someone of the same religion. (An Indonesian colleague at work was baptised into the Church of Scotland a few years ago so that she could marry another Scottish colleague in Indonesia).

Anyway. Yeah. Suspect the motives here.

*I think in most cases where Christians are persecuted it's not so much "You believe in the doctrine of the Trinity, die you polytheistic scum" as "You're one of THEM".

[sabotabby]

It does seem to be the case, though I would wonder how religious persecution is defined and delineated from ethnic/cultural/geographical persecution that aligns with religion. I mean, Palestinians aren't generally brutalized by the Israeli state because they're Muslim or Christian. Likewise Buddhist Tibetans at the hands of the Chinese government.

[corwin77.livejournal.com]

I find when most political types say "religious freedom" what they mean is "religious freedom as long as you're some kind of Christian".
It pisses me off and I am one of those aforementioned Christians.

[sabotabby]

This has generally been my understanding as well.

[kryss-labryn.livejournal.com]

This. As a Heathen who openly wears a small Thor's Hammer but who generally has had to keep quiet about our religion in real life, because of the negative impact it would have had on our business back in BC, I get really fed up with seeing things like this.

How about, if they must have an Office for Religious Freedom (which feels entirely too Orwellian for my comfort), they have a First Nations leader who openly and fully practices their native spirituality, instead of some mainstream white Christian guy (fail on all counts there, if it's to address oppressed minorities, sheesh). What's he going to say, honestly? "Yeah, I know you guys are being gunned down in the streets for openly practising the wrong religion. Over here, they've said we can't put Nativity scenes out in government buildings at Christmas, so I totally understand being persecuted! I mean, we can't even say 'Merry Christmas' anymore! Oppression!"

Where the hell does Harper even get off spending one red cent on some department to address religious oppression overseas when he still hasn't dealt fairly with the victims of residential schools? How about putting five million towards preserving aboriginal languages that are rapidly going extinct because the then-government and churches were doing their level best to completely wipe out those cultures, and not too many governments since then really seem to care, all that much?

This past Yule, the Solstice fell on a Friday, the last day of school before Christmas break. The school could have closed one day early, and given the kids who celebrate whichever winter ceremony they're celebrating on the Solstice time off as well (it's not just Heathens by a long shot), but instead, our son got to choose between our traditional Christmas breakfast with us, opening stockings Santa left behind the evening before, or go to his class's end-of-the-year Christmas party. In the end he stayed home, but it's sucky to be forced into that choice simply because your religion's winter celebration comes four days before Christmas, especially in a school district whose website talked so excitedly about how inclusive it was of all cultures. We thought it was great when we saw Wicca being mentioned, because (a) superficially they're similar and (b) we share a lot of the same holy days, but... yeah.

This feels like a response by right-wing fundamentalists to the "oppression" of inclusiveness, and I am not one bit happy that it's backed by the government. Also it occurs to me that the CBC probably could have really used an additional five mil in its budget. Blearg.

/rant.

[sabotabby]

Righteous rant is righteous.

So many causes and organizations could have used an extra $5 mil. But I think indigenous Canadians need it most, and we really ought to clean up our own act before preaching tolerance elsewhere.

[kryss-labryn.livejournal.com]

Removing the beam from one's own eye first and all that, yes. From what I gather from my British cousins, Canada's record on human rights isn't shown in a very favourable light over there.

It's so stupid, too, because really, it would all be very simple. New Zealand has already paved the way, and I don't think the vast majority of Canadians would be against getting the entire issue fairly resolved. Heck, there's even entirely selfish reasons for middle-to-upper-class Canadians to be in favour for it; First Nations are one of the very few demographics in Canada whose numbers of young people are growing instead of declining. If they don't want to be screwed in their old age for not having enough trained medical practitioners at all levels of care then it's in their own best interests to see as many First Nations people as possible going into post-secondary education and getting good jobs in health care.

The problem is that our government seems to lag at least twenty (if not more) years behind popular outlooks on issues like this. Really, the only thing stopping it is a complete lack of political will, sadly. Worse, I don't see it changing any time soon. Times like these I kind of wish we had term restrictions like the States.

[curgoth]

Holy shit, $5 million is a tiny line item for *Toronto*. This is another instance of Harper throwing his rabid Tea Party wannabe backbenchers a bone. It's a disgrace that it's happening at all, but given the budget, this is lip service to his base.

[sabotabby]

I don't think it's going to save a single Christian from a single lion. But. Principle.

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

"Anyway. We have an Office of Religious Freedom now, with one dude heading it and a $5 million budget. Said dude is Catholic and is dean of a private Christian college. "

This is a joke, right? I'm laughing, I'm laughing.

[sabotabby]

It is so not a joke.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

In America, we just have the Catholic Defense League to picket Kevin Smith movies.

Sounds like it's more effective than yours.

[sabotabby]

But...but...Kevin Smith is Catholic and makes movies with that are intended to get people into Catholicism.

(Yes, I know.)

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

I liked the bits the reporter added in the CBC story (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/02/19/pol-ambassdor-office-religious-freedom-announced.html) about how Andrew Bennett, president of Augustine College, graduates a whole 16 students each year, and the website of the College talks about education as it was "before the acid of mdoernity".

A senior member of Trinity Western University out here in BC was invited to be at the announcement and is quoted in the story as well. Trinity is a feeder to the Laurentian Leadership Centre, and from there to the centre of power in Stphen Harper's government: http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/07/22/TrinityWestern/
http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/07/23/FinishingSchool/ http://thetyee.ca/Series/2010/07/19/JoshuaGeneration/

$5 M is not much in the grand scheme of things, and it is a pandering sort of bone to throw to the CPC base... but it's there, and no other Canadian government thought to go to the trouble to make it so. I wonder if The Leader wants to also add the title of FIDEI DEFENSOR....

[sabotabby]

16 students a year? How is this a job? Can it be my job?

(Kidding; I want to work with my underprivileged, diverse, awesomecakes kids. If I have 16 students in a class it feels empty.)

I wonder if The Leader wants to also add the title of FIDEI DEFENSOR....

Hee hee hee.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

So apparently, this is the department of the freedom to not be offended for being a Christian? Sad.

[sabotabby]

Christians are totally persecuted in Canada! I mean, when they put up a Christmas tree at my predominantly Hindu and Muslim school, some people even called it a "holiday tree."