Religious Freedom

The Globe and Mail reports this interesting decision:

Mandatory religion course doesn’t infringe on freedoms, top court rules - The Globe and Mail:

Quebec introduced a mandatory course on religion into its public schools in 2008. The course focuses on the French Canada's Catholic heritage but also includes consideration (as I understand it) of a broad range of other religious traditions, particularly those that have been important in Canada, such as Judaism and aboriginal religions. A couple challenged the fact that their children could not "opt out" of this course, again, as I understand it, because, they argued, the teaching of other religions was a threat to their own religious freedom. Here is more coverage of this issue:

• Supreme Court stands by Quebec schools' religion course (vancouversun.com)
• Catholic students can't boycott Quebec religion course: Supreme Court (theprovince.com)
• Supreme Court stands by Quebec schools' religion course - Canada.com (canada.com)

This is an interesting case. I do believe that the court was correct. Learning about another tradition is not a threat to one's own traditions. Indeed, if you've read this blog for a while, you might note that I used a very similar argument with regard to same-sex marriage. At the time the legality of same-sex marriage was recognized, opponents argued that recognizing the equality of gay unions threatened straight ones. I asked: how? How did my neighbour's relationship have any effect on mine? I might be a bad husband (I hope not!) but that would be my fault. Not the fault of the gay couple down the street. 

I can understand how people who are particularly devote might not like the way particular religious views are taught. But, does that mean that those views should not be taught in an open -- that is non-evangelical -- way? The court argued that in an increasingly diverse society, children need to learn about parameters of diversity, their meanings and I would argue the depth of faith. I have very strong religious views. Learning about others helps me to break down the prejudices I have. One thing that I have learnt, for instance, is that way the pundits and -- let's call a spade a spade -- right wing politicians stereotype Islam is simply wrong. I've learnt that there is a lot of room for a meeting minds and for common cause on important issues between different religious groups and between religious groups and secular society. Learning about something different then one's own traditions is not a bad thing. The key is how it is taught. It might lead one to find commonalities where one saw only difference. 

The one thing I found interesting in the comments on this Globe story was how quickly people blamed something called "institutional religion" for this challenge and, apparently, for much that is wrong with the world. I suppose this relates to the fact that the individuals challenging the legitimacy of this course were Catholic but this is an odd thing and its oddity, I suspect, went by a lot of people so I will mention it here. Here we have a situation where someone reading a story about the triumph of religious freedom take the opportunity to print stereotypes of religious people. Would we accept this if the comments were made about anyone else? Imagine a story on the triumph of an anti-racism policy. How would we respond if someone used this opportunity to publish stereotyped views of blacks? Or, of whites or aboriginal people or Hispanics?