Is Quebec Racist?

 

Yves-Francois Blanchet has shrewdly exploited his wedge issue from the recent English-language debate: the charge that Quebec is discriminatory because of its support for Bill 21. 

To be clear, Blanchet is right, and the charge of discrimination is itself reckless and prejudiced. I find myself cheering him on, because there is a wider issue here: the growing misuse of the term “racism” to describe anything you disagree with. 

Also to be clear, the moderator did not use the term “racist.” She said “discriminatory.” I think the term “racist” came from Annamie Paul; but it is the term now being used to refer to the exchange.

Quebec’s Bill 21 prohibits public servants, including teachers, police officers, and judges, from wearing any visible religious symbols while on duty.

It is obviously not racist. It addresses religion, not race. What one thinks—one’s religion—is not decided by one’s race. To suggest so is deeply racist. 

Nor is it discriminatory towards any one religion. The law applies equally to all.

Presumably the argument is that it is discriminatory based on “disparate impact”: Sikhs or Muslims wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs; Christians do not. So it excludes Sikhs, and not Christians, from the public service.

This argument is historically ignorant. The idea of laicization, of no religious symbols in the public service, dates back to the 19th century in France. Before then, Christians did wear clothing suggesting their religious beliefs. Franciscan friars would go about in sandals and brown robes; cardinals would wear red robes; Jesuits wore black. And these members of religious fraternities were the core of the “clerisy,” the class that ran the civil service. Christians were then compelled to stop advertising their religion when acting on behalf of the state, to emphasize the separation between the two. Christians have adjusted. Like many Catholics, I wear a scapular hidden under my collar. It is meant to represent a monk’s robes. To be discrete, it has been reduced to a small square of rough cloth that nobody can see.

Jews have similarly adapted. Required to cover their heads, they wear ordinary hats, like Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan do; or tiny yarmulkes in their hair colour. Or just drop the practice.

The law is only requiring the same of other religions.

One might argue that the law is discriminatory towards religion in general. I sympathize with that argument. To banish religion from the public square is to discriminate against the religious. Blanchet’s own comments betray a prejudice against religion. He said “religion has never advanced human equality,” or something to that effect.

By all means, let’s have that discussion.

Moral Obscurity Is Not Moral Ambiguity

 

Dore: The Judgement of Solomon

Not all moral issues are clear; ask Solomon the Wise. This is why the moral codes of different religious differ. But be careful: it does not mean that morality is relative, or up for grabs. That is like saying that algebra is meaningless because it is difficult.

Two current examples:

The movie Cuties.

Critics give it an 89% positive rating. Audiences give it 12%. Audiences find it morally depraved: pedophilic pornography. Some say the exhibitors should face prison. The movie critics counter that its message is a lamentation over the sexualization of minors; they consider it an admirably moral movie.

In this case, the real issue is being missed. It is not whether the movie is pedophilia or not. It is whether the end justifies the means.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives us the answer in paragraph 1753:

A good intention (for example, that of helping one's neighbor) does not make behavior that is intrinsically disordered, such as lying and calumny, good or just.

Note that, apart from any other considerations, in order to make the movie, some minors—the eleven-year-old actors—necessarily had to be sexualized. The movie, further, necessarily functions as pornography for any pedophiles who see it.

So the matter is obscure because of this misdirection, but in the end morally clear: the movie Cuties should not be shown. At the same time, those who are in error on the morality should be forgiven rather than lynched.

Quebec’s Bill 21

It is widely popular in Quebec, and universally condemned in English Canada as racist and discriminatory. The bill bans the wearing of religious symbols by public workers “in positions of coercive authority”; and requires the face to be uncovered to receive some government services.

It is not racist. Again, this is missing the real issue. The bill follows established practice in French culture since the nineteenth century. It is understood as an issue of separation of church and state.

It currently affects Sikhs most seriously; but that is not the original intent. It is wrong to think that only Sikhs or Muslims go in for conspicuous religious dress. A Catholic monk or nun or cleric might otherwise conduct government business in their habit. The ritual requirement is parallel. They do not, because they long ago submitted to this requirement.

The bill, and the requirement, therefore does not discriminate among religions.

The problem is that it discriminates between the religious and the non-religious. Although meant to avoid giving government sanction to any particular religion, it actually gives government sanction to secularism, or even atheism.

The only equitable solution is to allow religious garb of all kinds.

And to avoid imputing unworthy motives to the opposition.