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Office of Religious Freedom
Feb. 20th, 2013 06:10 pmHey, 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:
$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.
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.
