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Allowing Prayer sessions during school time

Tewder said:
The catholic board needs to be erased, once and for all. We are an embarrassment of a society, and complete hypocrites, until we do this. This is not to bash catholics in any way, however, only their priviledge.
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Agreed. It seems unimaginable in these days that one religion - particularly one where there is such a long history of child abuse by the priests - gets to run it's own schools for free - while all the others don't.
 
Also agreed - the issue has nothing to do with Catholics per se and it's clear that the constitutional provisions are simply outdated. They were (rather transparently) designed to protect the French/Catholic minorities in Ontario and the English/Protestant in Quebec. Both points (especially the former) are moot in 2011 because of what's in the Charter now and how we've changed demographically.

You can see, even on this thread, the sense of some entitlement (with all due respect) some Catholics have about their schools: As if it's perfectly fair they pay their taxes to their school board so their children can practice their religion and put up their Christmas trees in their school while no one else in the province is accorded the same right.

It was a rather sad debate that took place during the John Tory campaign and it amazes me there are people who don't see the hypocrisy of funding Catholic schools while Jews, Muslims and others have to pay $10,000 and more in tuition for the same privilege AND still pay the school portion of their property tax so their Catholic/public school neighbours can attend gratis.

You should either fund everybody or nobody. My personal feeling during the Tory-drubbing was that there was anti-Muslim subtext to the whole thing, something we're seeing again with this prayer thing. These schools already exist and his plan would have ensured they are brought in to the system and thus adhering to the same curricular and certification standards, making the "concerns" about them all the more baffling. (I was at a press conference where someone asked Tory if he'd allow these religious schools to teach 'Creationism.' Unless our Catholic schools are skipping Genesis I think the hypocrisy is pretty brazen.)

Of course, as pointed out in earlier posts, the SCC found separate schools to be Constitutionally protected. You know why? Because the'yre explicitly protected IN THE CONSTITUTION! But constitutions can be amended and this one definitely should be.

IMHO, there is no way an intelligent, logical person can defend the status quo in Ontario except to fall back on the "it's in the Constitution!" argument, which is simply to say, "That's what people decided 150 years ago!" as if it's somehow on par with fundamental rights like free speech. It isn't. It's a historical anomaly that has had it's day and it's the very epitome of a double standard.
 
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Islam is not another religion like Christianity and Judaism. It has not gone through a reform process, so there is no liberal stream of non-fundamentalist thought. The Christian and Jewish holy books may have abominable things said in them, but you can always find churches and synagogues where the pastor or rabbi does not hold these beliefs and attitudes. Want a gay or female pastor or rabbi? You can find one. Not so with Islam. If you are a devout and committed Muslim, you are by definition an extremist. There is no movement of Islam that accepts the Quran and hadiths as products of their time and society or contain flaws due to Mohammad's humanity, all mainstream movements are fundamentalist and accept only a timeless, infallible, inerrant, and binding interpretation of the Quran and hadith. Not all Muslims are extremists, you may find individual Muslims who drink, are okay with homosexuality, feminism, and religious freedom, but these are NOT observant Muslims. A Muslim who fully adheres to their tenets of faith is by definition a fundamentalist radical. Hey, 400 years ago Christians were like today's Muslims: thinking their holy writings are science books, burning heretics at the stake and expelling the infidels. But let's not bring back stone-age thinking to Canada. Let's be tolerant but let's not tolerate intolerance (i.e. Islam).
 
Nonsense... and what should it matter really? The one principle that does make sense here is the separation of church and state, regardless of the religion. Same for everybody. Fair for everybody. At the end of the day we are are subject to the same laws and this is how we should judge things.
 
vicente said:
If you are a devout and committed Muslim, you are by definition an extremist.... A Muslim who fully adheres to their tenets of faith is by definition a fundamentalist radical. Hey, 400 years ago Christians were like today's Muslims: thinking their holy writings are science books, burning heretics at the stake and expelling the infidels. But let's not bring back stone-age thinking to Canada. Let's be tolerant but let's not tolerate intolerance (i.e. Islam).
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Riiiiight, that's all relative, see. Despite "enlightenment" there are still Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians who are very fundamentalist and they would, in their minds, not see other Jews or Christians as legitimate. So, from their POV you wouldn't be able to be observant without being extremist. Who are you going to let define what constitutes observant, legitimate and extremist?

So, I guess my point is that your POV is very narrow and while I'm not going to defend the lack of openness or modernity in Islam (because you're right about some of it), this is precisely the subtext I was talking about: this sense that WE might not be perfect but at least most of us Judeo-Christianfolk are reasonable. But those Muslims? Who knows what they'd do if you let them go wild in their own schools....

People are people and there's more than a few individual, modern Muslims who consider themselves observant who aren't signing up for the Jihad. It's an awfully unfair blanket statement and fuelling this fire.
 
Tewder said:
Nonsense... and what should it matter really? The one principle that does make sense here is the separation of church and state, regardless of the religion. Same for everybody. Fair for everybody. At the end of the day we are are subject to the same laws and this is how we should judge things.
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Agreed, and well said.
 
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