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What Was Left Unsaid at the Trial of Bill 21
Posted By jean.meslier On 2021-01-21 @ 18:00 In | 1 Comment
We continue to await the decision of Justice Marc-André Blanchard in the court challenge to An Act respecting the laicity of the State, a.k.a. Quebec Bill 21. During the lengthy court proceedings held in November and December of 2020, we heard a plethora of pseudo-arguments from the opponents of secularism. And yet, on the side of pro-secularists, alloted much less time than opponents to argue our case before the judge, several important arguments were not adequately presented.
Here is a list (not necessarily exhaustive) of several key points which were not sufficiently explained—and in some cases, not mentioned at all—in pleadings before the judge:
Among the several points above, those which deal with freedom of conscience, such as the first one, are of the greatest importance, because protecting that freedom is central to the secular program.
Throughout the legal proceedings, lawyers against Bill 21 tried repeatedly to draw an equivalence between religious minorities on the one hand and minorities of other types, such as racial minorities, gays, the disabled, and so on, on the other hand. For example, on November 30th, Maître Grossman [3] went so far as to declare that religious affiliation, as expressed by wearing a religious symbol, is a “personal immutable characteristic” or “changeable only at unacceptable cost to personal identity.” All such comparisons are dishonest and completely ignore the crucial issue of freedom of conscience. If there is a valid analogy to be made, it is between religious affiliation and political opinion, as both are in fact opinions adopted by the individual and which that individual may easily change.
The testimonies of experts Eric Hehman, Paul Eid and Thomas S. Dee [7], for example, were almost entirely dedicated to this false parallel, this confusion—deliberate apparently—between the inalterable and the changeable. Hehman even admitted during his testimony that he does not even attempt to distinguish between religious identity and other types of identity. When the judge asked Eid how one can equate hostility against religious minorities with racism, Eid replied that he rejected any distinction between the two and that he did not even understand the question. As for Dee, his expertise dealt only with racial minorities, especially Afro-Americans, in the United States.
Religious affiliation is a choice or at least should be a choice—otherwise, the freedom of conscience of the individual is completely negated. But with all the other identities (race, sexual orientation, handicap, etc.), we are dealing with an innate or immutable characteristic which is not at all comparable to religion. As Georges-Auguste Legault put it so well, “A handicap is not a voluntary symbol. It is not a choice. But to wear or not to wear a religious symbol is a choice.”
In her oral arguments for the English Montreal School Board (EMSB) Maître Perri Ravon praised the supposed merits [1] of the EMSB which goes out of its way to accommodate any and every religious practice. But she said absolutely nothing about the freedom of conscience of children. She said nothing to suggest any distinction between children and the religion of their parents. On the contrary, she implicitly assimilated each pupil with the parents’ religion, thus violating children’s rights.
In summary, the opponents of Bill 21 systematically sowed confusion by essentializing religious affiliation and completely ignoring freedom of conscience, whether that of public school students or civic service users. They thus completely neglected a major goal of secularism, the protection of freedom of conscience.
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URL to article: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/what-was-left-unsaid-trial-bill-21/
URLs in this post:
[1] Does the EMSB Condone Child Abuse?: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/does-emsb-condone-child-abuse/
[2] Oral Arguments of AFT—Courtroom Log of Hak versus AGQ: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-oral-arguments-aft/
[3] An Orgy of Hateful Hyperbole—Courtroom Log: Week 5: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-week-5/
[4] Courtroom Log: Week 4: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-week-4/
[5] Courtroom Log: Week 3: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-week-3/
[6] Courtroom Log: Week 2: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-week-2/
[7] Courtroom Log: Week 1: https://www.atheology.ca/briefs/courtroom-log-hak-vs-agq-week-1/
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