Doug Ford is now premier of Ontario and wants to roll back sex ed, limit education on Indigenous issues, and enhance the development of the northern Ontario natural resources industry. Donald Trump's popularity does not seem to be on the wane. We are having some sort of semi-debate about Canada's role in the world ... but not really. The US government wants allies to increase military spending and is, at least from the headlines, worried about Russian influence in Europe. A trade war looms, is averted, looms again ....
Have we seen this all before? As I watched the PC media guy stick to his talking points on the news and listened to Ford explain that he was ditching cap and trade so as to put money back in people's wallets, the idea that we have heard all this before -- that we have had these debates before -- was nearly complete. Said differently, our politics have become stalled, or at least ... sort of. What does this stalled politics tell us?
It likely tells us several things but let's try to keep focused on a few issues rather than a bunch that can confuse the matter by drawing examples from all over the place. Let's also do our best to limit our geography. I'm not convinced that the issues are precisely the same in, say, Hungary as they are in the United States, as they are in Canada. There are similarities, to be sure, but there also seem to be several different processes at work. Moreover, as I've said in other blogs, the approach I like to take is one of trying to understand verses trying to castigate. A progressive politics, it seems to me, cannot simply content itself with a point and shout approach, a matter I'll address in the future. Instead, it needs to understand and respond. It either has something to offer that will make things better or it does not. We can think about what those things might be another time. For now, let us assume that it does, a big assumption, I recognize for those who reject progressive thinking and politics. Explaining why there is progress, however, is something that requires much more time that I have in this blog.
So, what does the stall of contemporary politics tell us? To begin, let me highlight two interrelated points:
First, it tells us that a great number of people were never reconciled to the equality politics of the last generation. It tells us that they rejected things like racialized equality, Indigenous rights, gender equality, and acceptance of LGBTQi identities and subjectivities. We can likely narrow this down and speculate about the demographics of those who have not reconciled to equality politics, but I don't have the data at hand. What we can see from the political discourse, however, is that equality politics is often presented by those who oppose it as a huge waste of money. Environmental protection is the seen in the same way.
Is this simply ignorance? Is it bigotry? Is it an economic squeeze on the middle and working classes? Likely all of these factors play some sort of role in this but there also seems to be a role for socialization, as well. Why do I say this: because the idea that equality politics has (a) failed and (b) produced perverse effects, and (c) costs too much ... is treated as simply a matter of fact. It is something that requires no proof and no evidence. In fact, while the opponents of equality spend a great deal of time talking about its failures and its costs, they often provide only anecdotal evidence and offer no costing. The PC's failure in Ontario, for example, to cost their policies in the run-up the election is a case in point.
I had a similar experience a couple of years ago in one of my courses. As I was discussing gendered inequality and its contemporary patterns, a number of male students objected to this discussion and claimed that there was no such thing as gendered inequality. I pointed to evidence from Stats Canada, showing income inequality and found that the students completely rejected it.
Years ago, I had a similar experience in a similar type of situation. Much has changed, of course, in terms of patterns of gendered relations in twenty years, but I recall a male student explaining that he simply did not accept the idea. I asked him, I recall, what evidence I could provide that would allow him to accept the idea that there was inequality and that gender was an important axes of understanding. My goal might have been overconfident but my intention was to provide that evidence and then move on to the discussion at hand so as to not slow down the class. He replied "none." And, then stated that he simply did not believe it be the case. I recall then, as in the more recent case, that I did not know what to say. I had university level students in front of me who were so certain of their views that they told me nothing -- no evidence -- could dissuade them of their views.
In the US, this rejection of equality politics takes on different forms than Canada. It takes on opposition to groups like, say, Black Lives Matters, and the politicized distortion of their message or support for a wall across the southern US border. In Canada, its politics are less evident than in the US, but is notable in Islamophobia, opposition to Indigenous/Settler reconciliation, and concerns about sex education in the schools in Ontario which are supposedly blamed for ... what? I don't know but there is some sort of idea that having kids learn about sex, about sexual differences, and about LGBTQi issues will somehow be bad and is an infringement on parents right to control what their kids learn.
And this, just about, bring us full circle. I would be surprised if this were an accident: that what people object to is an education that teaches that sexual diversity is OK. They object, I think, to both the idea of teaching this and the idea that someone other than they themselves will educate their kids on this matter.
Likewise, the canceling of education programs regarding reconciliation between Indigenous people and Canada is seen as too expensive. Or, a waste of money. In effect, this position states that we will not provide an education to kids on this issue but leave it up to processes of socialization (among family, friends, peer groups, churches) to educate on this issue.
Second, in terms of demographics, we need to be clear that this view is not the majority view. It speaks in the name of the majority, but isn't. After his election, Doug Ford, or someone close to him, said something like "we have reclaimed our province." This statement says a lot. It says that it views the proponent of non-conservative politics as illegitimate and, in particular, it views itself as the rightful "owners" of the province. Claims made by others -- diversity groups, for example -- are seen as alien or foreign, illegitimate. Clearly this is a violation of a basic principle of democracy but it speaks to a demographic that views itself as the people who rightly "own" a province or a country.
I suspect something similar goes on with Trump's supporters south of the border or with the anti-EU vote in Britain. In Canada, the key point is that majorities are hard to come by. The question, then, is how does a group of people who are not the majority gain political power? Trump and Ford supporters seem to have an answer, even if they don't come out and stay it: conspiracy, deep state, corruption. In the US, this was what fuelled the "crooked Hilary" discourse. The idea that a liberal-minded woman could potentially be elected was so disturbing to some people that they issued a pre-emptive strike: the only way she could win was by corruption. The birther campaign against Obama is another example. The supposed reclaiming of Ontario is another.
I want to clear: I don't think a progressive mirror image of this view gets our analysis very far. The "Russia conspiracy" is an example, I think (even if I think I understand the politics behind it). But, it does not help advance our understanding of the issues at play. In the US, for instance, Trump was elected with one of the most significant minorities in American history. In Canada, the single member plurality system has long been know to distort politics. One needs secure only about 40% of the vote to win and perhaps not even that.
In conclusion: we can put these two points together. The first thing that the stalled politics of modernity tells us is that a sizeable body of contemporary society has never reconciled to the politics of equality and that this group views itself -- and you can see the tie to the opposition to equality -- as the legitimate "owners" of public life. They continue to exercise appreciable political power and their leaders are looking to find ways to roll back, as it were, time.
Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label equality. Show all posts
Thursday, July 12, 2018
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Can We Speak to Each Other? Who Can, Should, Is ... Able to Speak on Public Issues
The recent controversy over BLM-TO and Pride raised an issue about the character and scope of political action and who can, and should, speak to certain issues, particularly as they take racialized or gendered or class, etc., forms. There is one school of thought which suggests that only those who come from that background -- be it its racialized markers, gender, orientation, etc., -- can speak to those issue. Class tends to get a bit lost in this discussion for reasons that are, to me, both deeply telling and intensely problematic, but that might be a subject for another day.
The first thing we should note is that this issue -- who can speak? -- is, in fact, not new. I don't know when it first surfaced but I've been listening to it, engaging it, disagreeing with it, supporting it, since I was an undergraduate. So, we are talking about at least the late 1980s as a starting point. What is interesting to me is that in that time -- a span of a generation -- we have not really advanced in our discussion. There are people who still say "person X cannot speak to issue X" and people who quickly, then, accuse the first person of censorship or bigotry or something like that. This is, in other words, not an issue that becomes politicized but an issue that is always already political because it deals with questions of power, marginalization, identity, respect, equality, and the like. The fact that we have been discussing this issue without resolution for such a length of time suggests that it is either (a) an intractable problem (which I don't think) or (b) that we have not made the level of social progress we might like in addressing issues of marginalization and inequality in society (which is what I think).
This leads to the first thing that we should learn about this discussion: there is a need to listen as well as speak. Some people -- say, BLM-TO -- are saying things. They are saying that they face inequality, marginalization, disrespect, and institutionalized and personalized violence. For those of us who do not fall into the identity/subject position that they represent, one thing we might do, rather than ask if we, too, can now speak ... is to listen. After all, if Canada with its systemic inequalities and power relations has failed to resolve this issue up to now ... maybe some new voices can indeed offer some hope for the future.
The second thing is that after listening, those of us who are not part of the group speaking (be it LGBTQ, gendered, racialized, etc.), should look to find way of supporting movements for equality if we truly support equality. I find it rather odd that there are those who claim to support equality but who quickly say "I can't support X or Y because I believe in equality for everyone." This is a bit of a linguistic trick that really has nothing to do with equality. It is, in fact, a way of avoiding supporting a movement for equality. It is a way of saying that Black or gay activists or women are not actually interested in equality, or linguistically marginalizing them and treating them a group that has some sort of nefarious agenda. If one were interested in inequality and addressing it, one would support those movements that address that problem. If you're not interested ... you won't. Is it is as simple as that ... maybe not ... but it is also not a lot more complicated.
Support, in the case of these groups, takes a variety of forms. Many groups are looking for people to be allies as opposed to leaders. They generate their own leaders, their own ideology, their own politics and don't need advise or direction from those outside the group. One need not even go to the protests and as long as one does not oppose the movement, one avoids becoming part of the problem. There may, too, be things that people can do in their own lives, whether it is making space in class (say, using my job as an example) to discuss issues or raising uncomfortable questions at work.
I make these points because I think people are often too quick to demand that their voice needs to be heard as part of a movement that does not really involve them. They complain that Black activists are silencing *them* or that feminists aren't listening to *them.* I am arguing that they can speak to these issues (and others) but that they should do so with caution and only after they have tried other things, like listening or not contributing to the problems that these groups mean to address. Said differently, a desire to join in the discussion and start telling activists what they should be doing or how they should modify their demands or politics is a premature step. Other steps should be taken first.
With this in mind ... can someone speak to issues or politics or problems that stand outside their identity group? The short answer is yes. Why? There are, as far as I can tell, a three reasons.
First, because communication is a powerful tool to share ideas, feelings, politics, activism, etc. Said differently, I -- Andrew Nurse -- as a white middle-aged middle class straight man simply do not share the experiences of others as part of my identity. This should be acknowledged. But, we can talk about issues with those people who do have those experiences, read their words, listen to what they have to say. We do not have to share experiences as the only way of knowing about an issue. If we pause and think about it, we can see that this is true. Communication allows us to know about more than our own experiences. We often relate stories that happened to other people about which we find out by talking to them. We can convey their emotional state (how they felt), the facts of the matter (what happened to them). We convey information to others that we learnt from reading (say, about the past) or from social or other media. Said differently, we communicate every day and in the process of communication we learn from the experiences of others.
Most political movements, in fact, count on this communicative active as a means to meet their goals, whether they articulate this perspective or not. Again, pause. If I -- as Andrew Nurse -- could never understand what it meant to suffer discrimination or violence as a gay or Black Canadian ... then, why would I ever sign on to support their agenda? If I knew only my own experiences, then there would be no reason for protests, for social media, for signs, for books or songs, etc. If political movements are interested in change, they are interested in communicating to people outside their own movement and group. Thus, far from doing something unusual, speaking to an issue with which one might have limited or no direct experience is, in fact, something that we do all the time. There can be problems; there can be confusions, but it is not an odd or unusual thing.
Second, while we need to recognize that some people may indeed have problems speaking to an issue -- that they might need to look things up or listen -- we also want to be careful about limiting who can speak to an issue because it sets a precedent that people might not want to set. What if, people could only speak to issues with which they had direct personal experience? That might work if we think on a broad level. I, Andrew Nurse, could speak to middle-class, white, straight, anglophone, able bodied, etc., issues but not others. But ... could I really speak to those issues that seem to be consistent with my identity? I am, for instance, a Christian. Can I speak to an issue of a middle-class, white, straight, anglophone, able bodied atheist? Some of my friends who are atheists don't think so. Can I speak to issues of people who are white, straight but in different social classes? Or people who have different family structures?
And, can other people speak to my issues? For instance, can someone who is Black or gay or a woman speak about issues in my life? Said differently, identities are fundamental, important, and political but they are complicated and overlapping. We have some identities at some points in time but not at others. Sometimes, for instance, I am a father; at others, a son. The assumption that person X cannot speak to issue Y assumes (a) that they cannot transcend their lack of experience through communication and (b) that their identity as X stable and encompassing. If, however, we take (b) to its extreme, what we discover is that people can, in fact, speak only about themselves because there is no one else who fully shares your personal and individual identity. I might be white but I don't live in Ontario, have a gay uncle, been unemployed recently, or any myriad of a number of different factors that can and do affect my identity.
(As a digression: this is particularly true and important for historical study. No one, to the best of my knowledge, makes this argument any more, but back in the day there were those who argued that, say, white scholars could not speak to the historical experience of Blacks of Original Peoples or men write about women, etc. You can, I am sure, see the immediate flaw in this argument. It is twofold: (a) one could write history only about one's own group and thus the elite white men who wrote only about elite white men were, in fact, doing nothing wrong by ignoring the rest of humanity since they could not speak about them in the first place and (b) it assumed that experiences -- as the basis of knowledge -- are consistent over time. Thus, a person living in the eighteenth century had a great deal in common -- so this argument necessarily assumed -- with someone of, say, the same colour living in the twentieth or twenty-first century. This is a problematic assumption. People might be marginalized or suffer violence [and my point is not to minimize the violence and repression of the past or the present] but no one living today experienced the Irish potato famine at first hand or the highland clearances, to be just a couple of examples. Thus, if no one has these experiences ... no one can speak to them. This, then, became the irony. An argument -- only X can speak to Y -- when transposed onto the past because an argument that, in effect, said "no one can speak to this history." It became an argument for historical silence and that is clearly not what was wanted.)
Finally, I might not -- do not -- share the experiences of Black Canadians but I might be able to contribute to resolving the problems that affect Black Canadians and do we want to stop that possible contribution. To be sure, I don't solve the problems in the manner of the movie where the white male protagonist solves the problems for Natives for Blacks or women becoming a supposed "hero" in the process. But, if we can create multi-vocal dialogues about the problems that affect our society ... then, my view is, we have a better chance of building that multi-vocal society that seems to be the goal of much current protest. Said differently, there is, in my view, a benefit in people talking to each other.
To conclude: I am not arguing that any time an activist raises concerns about voice that they are doing something wrong. I think they are not. I think that those people who are quick to call activists bigots because of their concerns about voice should pause and think about their own perspectives. Have they stopped and listened to what activists or marginalized groups have said? Do they have anything to contribute to equality by speaking or would a different role be better and more useful? Do they simply assume that they have a right to speak to any and all issues and ... when did they start believing that? And, are they speaking honestly and in good faith? Do they really want to contribute to addressing the problem or do they, say, just like being a leader or a speaker?
Marginalized groups have had their voices quieted for too long. It would be a shame if, upon reclaiming them, their speech was challenged by those who would deny their concerns.
The first thing we should note is that this issue -- who can speak? -- is, in fact, not new. I don't know when it first surfaced but I've been listening to it, engaging it, disagreeing with it, supporting it, since I was an undergraduate. So, we are talking about at least the late 1980s as a starting point. What is interesting to me is that in that time -- a span of a generation -- we have not really advanced in our discussion. There are people who still say "person X cannot speak to issue X" and people who quickly, then, accuse the first person of censorship or bigotry or something like that. This is, in other words, not an issue that becomes politicized but an issue that is always already political because it deals with questions of power, marginalization, identity, respect, equality, and the like. The fact that we have been discussing this issue without resolution for such a length of time suggests that it is either (a) an intractable problem (which I don't think) or (b) that we have not made the level of social progress we might like in addressing issues of marginalization and inequality in society (which is what I think).
This leads to the first thing that we should learn about this discussion: there is a need to listen as well as speak. Some people -- say, BLM-TO -- are saying things. They are saying that they face inequality, marginalization, disrespect, and institutionalized and personalized violence. For those of us who do not fall into the identity/subject position that they represent, one thing we might do, rather than ask if we, too, can now speak ... is to listen. After all, if Canada with its systemic inequalities and power relations has failed to resolve this issue up to now ... maybe some new voices can indeed offer some hope for the future.
The second thing is that after listening, those of us who are not part of the group speaking (be it LGBTQ, gendered, racialized, etc.), should look to find way of supporting movements for equality if we truly support equality. I find it rather odd that there are those who claim to support equality but who quickly say "I can't support X or Y because I believe in equality for everyone." This is a bit of a linguistic trick that really has nothing to do with equality. It is, in fact, a way of avoiding supporting a movement for equality. It is a way of saying that Black or gay activists or women are not actually interested in equality, or linguistically marginalizing them and treating them a group that has some sort of nefarious agenda. If one were interested in inequality and addressing it, one would support those movements that address that problem. If you're not interested ... you won't. Is it is as simple as that ... maybe not ... but it is also not a lot more complicated.
Support, in the case of these groups, takes a variety of forms. Many groups are looking for people to be allies as opposed to leaders. They generate their own leaders, their own ideology, their own politics and don't need advise or direction from those outside the group. One need not even go to the protests and as long as one does not oppose the movement, one avoids becoming part of the problem. There may, too, be things that people can do in their own lives, whether it is making space in class (say, using my job as an example) to discuss issues or raising uncomfortable questions at work.
I make these points because I think people are often too quick to demand that their voice needs to be heard as part of a movement that does not really involve them. They complain that Black activists are silencing *them* or that feminists aren't listening to *them.* I am arguing that they can speak to these issues (and others) but that they should do so with caution and only after they have tried other things, like listening or not contributing to the problems that these groups mean to address. Said differently, a desire to join in the discussion and start telling activists what they should be doing or how they should modify their demands or politics is a premature step. Other steps should be taken first.
With this in mind ... can someone speak to issues or politics or problems that stand outside their identity group? The short answer is yes. Why? There are, as far as I can tell, a three reasons.
First, because communication is a powerful tool to share ideas, feelings, politics, activism, etc. Said differently, I -- Andrew Nurse -- as a white middle-aged middle class straight man simply do not share the experiences of others as part of my identity. This should be acknowledged. But, we can talk about issues with those people who do have those experiences, read their words, listen to what they have to say. We do not have to share experiences as the only way of knowing about an issue. If we pause and think about it, we can see that this is true. Communication allows us to know about more than our own experiences. We often relate stories that happened to other people about which we find out by talking to them. We can convey their emotional state (how they felt), the facts of the matter (what happened to them). We convey information to others that we learnt from reading (say, about the past) or from social or other media. Said differently, we communicate every day and in the process of communication we learn from the experiences of others.
Most political movements, in fact, count on this communicative active as a means to meet their goals, whether they articulate this perspective or not. Again, pause. If I -- as Andrew Nurse -- could never understand what it meant to suffer discrimination or violence as a gay or Black Canadian ... then, why would I ever sign on to support their agenda? If I knew only my own experiences, then there would be no reason for protests, for social media, for signs, for books or songs, etc. If political movements are interested in change, they are interested in communicating to people outside their own movement and group. Thus, far from doing something unusual, speaking to an issue with which one might have limited or no direct experience is, in fact, something that we do all the time. There can be problems; there can be confusions, but it is not an odd or unusual thing.
Second, while we need to recognize that some people may indeed have problems speaking to an issue -- that they might need to look things up or listen -- we also want to be careful about limiting who can speak to an issue because it sets a precedent that people might not want to set. What if, people could only speak to issues with which they had direct personal experience? That might work if we think on a broad level. I, Andrew Nurse, could speak to middle-class, white, straight, anglophone, able bodied, etc., issues but not others. But ... could I really speak to those issues that seem to be consistent with my identity? I am, for instance, a Christian. Can I speak to an issue of a middle-class, white, straight, anglophone, able bodied atheist? Some of my friends who are atheists don't think so. Can I speak to issues of people who are white, straight but in different social classes? Or people who have different family structures?
And, can other people speak to my issues? For instance, can someone who is Black or gay or a woman speak about issues in my life? Said differently, identities are fundamental, important, and political but they are complicated and overlapping. We have some identities at some points in time but not at others. Sometimes, for instance, I am a father; at others, a son. The assumption that person X cannot speak to issue Y assumes (a) that they cannot transcend their lack of experience through communication and (b) that their identity as X stable and encompassing. If, however, we take (b) to its extreme, what we discover is that people can, in fact, speak only about themselves because there is no one else who fully shares your personal and individual identity. I might be white but I don't live in Ontario, have a gay uncle, been unemployed recently, or any myriad of a number of different factors that can and do affect my identity.
(As a digression: this is particularly true and important for historical study. No one, to the best of my knowledge, makes this argument any more, but back in the day there were those who argued that, say, white scholars could not speak to the historical experience of Blacks of Original Peoples or men write about women, etc. You can, I am sure, see the immediate flaw in this argument. It is twofold: (a) one could write history only about one's own group and thus the elite white men who wrote only about elite white men were, in fact, doing nothing wrong by ignoring the rest of humanity since they could not speak about them in the first place and (b) it assumed that experiences -- as the basis of knowledge -- are consistent over time. Thus, a person living in the eighteenth century had a great deal in common -- so this argument necessarily assumed -- with someone of, say, the same colour living in the twentieth or twenty-first century. This is a problematic assumption. People might be marginalized or suffer violence [and my point is not to minimize the violence and repression of the past or the present] but no one living today experienced the Irish potato famine at first hand or the highland clearances, to be just a couple of examples. Thus, if no one has these experiences ... no one can speak to them. This, then, became the irony. An argument -- only X can speak to Y -- when transposed onto the past because an argument that, in effect, said "no one can speak to this history." It became an argument for historical silence and that is clearly not what was wanted.)
Finally, I might not -- do not -- share the experiences of Black Canadians but I might be able to contribute to resolving the problems that affect Black Canadians and do we want to stop that possible contribution. To be sure, I don't solve the problems in the manner of the movie where the white male protagonist solves the problems for Natives for Blacks or women becoming a supposed "hero" in the process. But, if we can create multi-vocal dialogues about the problems that affect our society ... then, my view is, we have a better chance of building that multi-vocal society that seems to be the goal of much current protest. Said differently, there is, in my view, a benefit in people talking to each other.
To conclude: I am not arguing that any time an activist raises concerns about voice that they are doing something wrong. I think they are not. I think that those people who are quick to call activists bigots because of their concerns about voice should pause and think about their own perspectives. Have they stopped and listened to what activists or marginalized groups have said? Do they have anything to contribute to equality by speaking or would a different role be better and more useful? Do they simply assume that they have a right to speak to any and all issues and ... when did they start believing that? And, are they speaking honestly and in good faith? Do they really want to contribute to addressing the problem or do they, say, just like being a leader or a speaker?
Marginalized groups have had their voices quieted for too long. It would be a shame if, upon reclaiming them, their speech was challenged by those who would deny their concerns.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Oh ... Indiana ... What's Wrong with Discrimination?
I broke, sort of, away from my series of posts "What is going on with Christianity?" to comment on the recent Indiana making it legal to discriminate against gay and lesbian people. What is, some might ask, wrong with discrimination? In asking that question, I am not actually trying to be cute or fully or flippant. I suggested that one of the things people calling themselves "Christians" are asking the Indiana government to do is use the legal system to enforce their bigotry. And, I suggested that if any other religion were doing this ... just about everyone and their dog would be up in arms about it, as witness suggestions regarding state support for Sharia law in Canada. Why is this important? After all, someone might say, if I want to not serve someone coffee ... that is my right, is it not? I enjoy religious religious freedom. I should have the right to refuse to serve someone if I so desire in my own private business. Have not, someone might even say if they happened to have read this blog, you, Andrew, defended the rights of private institutions to limit what goes on under their roofs in the past?
I don't agree with any of these statements and I suspect most people who might happen to read this blog don't either but for the sake of argument -- and so we can be clear about our arguments -- let's have a look at this line of logic, as it were. There are a number of points that are really important to note.
First, legalized bigotry has a bad history ... a really, really bad history. As a person who studies history for a living (well, a good part of the time that is what I do), I'd like to believe that history is important. A better knowledge of history can, I think, do a number of things and I write periodically about these for another web site. I won't get into all that here but one of the things a better knowledge of history can do is show us how the implementation of similar ideas operated in the past and their effects. For instance, many of those people who opposed same sex marriage argued that it would, in effect, bring the downfall of civilization (you might notice that they have stopped saying that). I pointed out that we'd heard all that people. Equality between men and women, women working outside the home, equality between black and white, and many other things, were all supposedly going to cause the demise of the family or something approximating Bill Murray's Ghostbusters rant. Because civilization did not collapse in the past when changes were made that promoted equality, we had little reason to believe, I argued, that the prognostications of demise would be anymore right this time.
Likewise, I would argue that anytime religion has been used to justify bigotry, this have not turned out well. Religion, for ill, has been used to justify slavery, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all matter of other things. When Religion breaks boundaries and tears down the walls of society -- say, in the anti-apartheid movement or during the American civil rights movement -- it has had a positive and long-lasting effect. When it has been used as a cure-all justification for prejudice (God does not like ...), its effects have been historically noxious. What is more, this noxiousness is widely recognized by later generations. It is not a secret. We celebrate those Christians who resisted the Nazis and struggle to help Jews during the Holocaust. We condemn those who recycled anti-semitic garbage and so helped to do the Nazis' work for them. We recognize that the efforts to find justifications for slavery in the US led Christians to fracture their denominations, let them away from the words of Jesus, and toward ever more contorted views that ultimately contradicted the very religious views they claimed to uphold.
I suspect these laws in Indiana and elsewhere will end up like this. They will be aspects of American history at which people look back with a certain level of embarrassment, something for which later Christians will have to apologize. The first thing I would ask people to develop, then is some sort of future-oriented historical perspective on this issue. In fifteen or twenty or thirty years ... will you be the person who defended segregation or the person who challenged it? Will your religion lead you to embrace all people or will you use it to exclude people? How do you want to be remembered, as the person who campaigned for civil rights (marking with Martin Luther King Jr) or as the person who threw rocks at small children just trying to go to school?
What I am trying to say is that history does not simply tell us what we can or should believe. It provides us with a way of thinking about the choices we will make. This is an example where one has a choice in terms of how one will be remembered in the future, what your children or grandchildren will think of you.
This is important, I would argue, secondly, because the argument that is being made -- that somehow religious freedom is at stake -- is shakey. What we have, if I might be frank, is actually not a battle or conflict of principle. We have one side, in this battle, that is not animated by principle at all but rather is trying to find some sort of language thought which it can assert that there is a principle behind their bigotry and that their bigotry can somehow be maintained. In other words, we have people who are fighting, as it were, against history and against the image of themselves that (as bigots) that will be cast by history.
Why say this? Because, I suspect, we all know that a freedom of is not a freedom to impose your will on someone else. Freedom of is not, and never has been, the right to discriminate or marginalize, or construct certain people by virtue of innate characteristics as second class citizens, less worthy of simply getting a meal in a restaurant than, say, me. Again, we have historical parallels and those did not end well. Freedom is about a number of things. I would argue that simply formulations that we learn in intro politics classes (negative versus positive liberties, say) are useful but don't capture the complex meaning of those terms particularly as exercised today. Freedom is the right to do something, in Mill's classic formation, so long as it does not negatively affect another person. At that point, your freedom must stop because you are interfering with another. In return for this production (the right not to have someone interfering with our lives), we agree to be bound by the same rules. I will not interfere in someone else's life.
This situation in Indiana a clear example where that line is fractured. What the proponents of "religion freedom" are claiming is the right precisely to interfere in others lives. If I do not like gay people, I have the right to refuse to serve them or permit them in my establishment. The converse, of course, is not true nor is it true for other groups ... a point I will get to in a minute.
Freedom of religion is a very important freedom in our society. I don't know of many (or, perhaps any) people who oppose it. It is the right to practice one's religion (provided it does not harm another) unhindered by the state or society. Thus, for instance, one cannot make a law that prescribes some religions as illegal and its members subject to arrest. All religion perspectives -- including those who do not believe -- have the right to their perspectives and not be discriminated against because of their beliefs. I cannot, for instance, refuse to hire someone simply because he or she is Catholic or Hindi.
The third significant problem that I have with this law is that it makes a mockery of what is, in fact, an important freedom, defended by the constitution and protected by the courts. I think people's spirituality is so important to them that the state should interfere in this freedom only in the most limited way possible and only in remarkably extenuating circumstances. In other words, we should do our level-headed best to not mess around with other's spirituality. But, this does not give me the right to harm others in the process. By turning a very important right into a form of prejudice, we politicize that right, we turn in from a right into a tool of discrimination. This undermines the right and, frankly, leads people to question its sincerity. In other words, the law does not advance religious freedom (if that is even its aim) but actually hinders the operation of that constitutional protection by turning the idea into a tool of bigotry, rather than the noble right it should be.
Fourth, the operation of this law -- that it is OK to discriminate people if you believe you are right in discriminating -- is actually silly. People periodically say to me "yeah, Andrew, but regardless of what you think, these people sincerely belief that God hates gays and lesbians. This truly does harm their values." To which I reply ... so what? The sincerity of belief is never at question when it comes to the protection of rights. The people who thought blacks were inferior, fit to be a labouring slave class, sincerely and honestly and deeply believed that. The Nazis who thought Jews were a cancer on the body politics, sincerely, truly and deeply believed that. They were not just trying to find some sort of language to trick people and win an election. The constitution does not say "you have these rights unless someone else sincerely believes that you do not."
Pick another example to see how silly this sounds. "You have the right to free speech unless I happen to believe you don't and as long as I am sincere in my belief, you will be denied free speech." "You have the right to due process of law, unless I happen to honestly believe that you should not have this right. In that case, you don't." You can see immediately what is going on here. You longer have any rights because those rights are not rights but contingent on what others belief and, trust me, someone will also sincerely believe that you should be denied some right. The defense of this law, then, on the basis of the sincerity of its adherents is, well, a silly argument that demonstrates only that those making it have not really thought through their arguments in a very close way. Thus, the issue of sincerity is never at question and to state that it is, is to miss the point. To accept this argument is to place all rights in jeopardy.
This is not idle chatter on my part. If such rights were accepted by the courts, they become matters of precedent which can bind other jurisdictions and lower courts. The precedent that is being established is something, I suspect, more than the proponents of this law think. I think they think they are establishing this rule: it is OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians. But, what they are actually establishing is this: it is OK to disciminate. And, I think Americans and Canadians should ask themselves this question: is this what we want? We have spent the better part of the last couple of generations fighting against discrimination, against second-class status, against segregation, and all that is associated with that. Do you, I ask Americans, really want to say "you know what, for all that, my desire to not sell a sandwich to a lesbian is so great I am willing to say 'discrimination is OK.'" Where does it end? If we establish the principle that it is OK to discriminate ... where do we stop it? Gays and lesbians ... Blacks ... Jews .... I know people at my work who would discriminate against Christians if they could. The constitution prevents them, but I know people who would not hire a Christian if they could find a legal way to do it.
I oppose that but, oddly, those who say "discrimination is OK" my defend this right -- the right to discriminate against Christians on the basis of religious freedom -- if they want to be taken seriously. Thus, the same principle that defends the marginalization of gays and lesbians, if we accept it, can legitimately be used to refuse service or employment or admission (say, to a school) to anyone ... as long as you sincerely believe that your religion tells you do that. This is, I would argue, a disturbing development and one that I do hope Americans will avoid by nixing such laws right off the bat as opposed to trying to find ways to uphold them.
There are, then, a variety of good reasons to be concerned -- if you were an American -- about the Indiana law. It has no historical perspective and sooner or later its proponents will end up with the image of those people who defended slavery and segregation. They will appear as bigots and you might want to ask yourself, if you favour this law, is this how you want to be remembered? Will you be happy if your granddaughter thinks of you this way? In addition, this law makes a mockery of religious freedom and actually subverts a very important principle by politicizing it and turning it into a tool of bigotry. Third, this rule violates the first principle of freedoms (that they cannot negatively affect others). Fourth, it creates a slippery slope, precedent being what it is, the principle that is being established is that discrimination is OK. Before anyone embraces that principle, I urge you think about its implications.
Finally, let me return to the question I asked above: do private institution have the right to self-regulate. I've argued yes with regard to free speech. I (Andrew Nurse) cannot walk into someone else's house and claim that they have to listen to what I have to say. Thus, for instance, one cannot stroll up to pulpit when the pastor is preaching on Sunday morning and say "look, while I have your attention, can I offer you the deal of a lifetime ... its called Amway ... and ...." The church, as a private institution has every right to say "not now, no, this is not the forum." They cannot stop that person from speaking elsewhere. But, they can say "not hear."
The difference with Indiana is that we are not dealing with speech. Restaurants, I fully agree, have the right to stop people from making speeches that all the customers have to hear. I cannot just go into my favourite eatery with a blow horn and starting campaigning for the Green Party. And, I think everyone understands that and agree with it. Thus, private institutions can regulate the behaviour of people who are on their premises. But, they cannot discriminate on the basis of innate characteristics or protected areas of right. Thus, for instance, I cannot refuse someone admission to Mount Allison (say, to go to school, hear a concert or listen to a public lecture) because of the colour of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender, or their religion. I can tell them that you cannot start distributing political information about hydro fracking during the concert and would be completely with the bounds of self-regulation to do so. But, I cannot deny that person entrance because they are Black or Jewish or a man.
I might have done a poor job of phrasing the difference in the past and, if so, mea culpa. I apologize for confusing you, but I assume you see the difference. Behaviour and innate characteristics are not the same thing and so have different protections under the law.
To sum up: I hope we are passing through a period of bad ideas with regard to the "let's discrimination against gays and lesbians" idea but I suspect that the proponents of these ideas will be around for a while. In the US, they are attempting to introduce new restrictions on individuals, another historical oddity. Over time, democracy has expanded and those scope of equality has expanded. A society becomes more democratic when more people previously prohibited by custom or law from participation stated to participate, when boundaries were broken and society became more inclusive. These new laws look to restrict that inclusion. For the first time in generations some Americans are looking to find ways to make their society more restrictive and less equal. This is a shame.
I don't agree with any of these statements and I suspect most people who might happen to read this blog don't either but for the sake of argument -- and so we can be clear about our arguments -- let's have a look at this line of logic, as it were. There are a number of points that are really important to note.
First, legalized bigotry has a bad history ... a really, really bad history. As a person who studies history for a living (well, a good part of the time that is what I do), I'd like to believe that history is important. A better knowledge of history can, I think, do a number of things and I write periodically about these for another web site. I won't get into all that here but one of the things a better knowledge of history can do is show us how the implementation of similar ideas operated in the past and their effects. For instance, many of those people who opposed same sex marriage argued that it would, in effect, bring the downfall of civilization (you might notice that they have stopped saying that). I pointed out that we'd heard all that people. Equality between men and women, women working outside the home, equality between black and white, and many other things, were all supposedly going to cause the demise of the family or something approximating Bill Murray's Ghostbusters rant. Because civilization did not collapse in the past when changes were made that promoted equality, we had little reason to believe, I argued, that the prognostications of demise would be anymore right this time.
Likewise, I would argue that anytime religion has been used to justify bigotry, this have not turned out well. Religion, for ill, has been used to justify slavery, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and all matter of other things. When Religion breaks boundaries and tears down the walls of society -- say, in the anti-apartheid movement or during the American civil rights movement -- it has had a positive and long-lasting effect. When it has been used as a cure-all justification for prejudice (God does not like ...), its effects have been historically noxious. What is more, this noxiousness is widely recognized by later generations. It is not a secret. We celebrate those Christians who resisted the Nazis and struggle to help Jews during the Holocaust. We condemn those who recycled anti-semitic garbage and so helped to do the Nazis' work for them. We recognize that the efforts to find justifications for slavery in the US led Christians to fracture their denominations, let them away from the words of Jesus, and toward ever more contorted views that ultimately contradicted the very religious views they claimed to uphold.
I suspect these laws in Indiana and elsewhere will end up like this. They will be aspects of American history at which people look back with a certain level of embarrassment, something for which later Christians will have to apologize. The first thing I would ask people to develop, then is some sort of future-oriented historical perspective on this issue. In fifteen or twenty or thirty years ... will you be the person who defended segregation or the person who challenged it? Will your religion lead you to embrace all people or will you use it to exclude people? How do you want to be remembered, as the person who campaigned for civil rights (marking with Martin Luther King Jr) or as the person who threw rocks at small children just trying to go to school?
What I am trying to say is that history does not simply tell us what we can or should believe. It provides us with a way of thinking about the choices we will make. This is an example where one has a choice in terms of how one will be remembered in the future, what your children or grandchildren will think of you.
This is important, I would argue, secondly, because the argument that is being made -- that somehow religious freedom is at stake -- is shakey. What we have, if I might be frank, is actually not a battle or conflict of principle. We have one side, in this battle, that is not animated by principle at all but rather is trying to find some sort of language thought which it can assert that there is a principle behind their bigotry and that their bigotry can somehow be maintained. In other words, we have people who are fighting, as it were, against history and against the image of themselves that (as bigots) that will be cast by history.
Why say this? Because, I suspect, we all know that a freedom of is not a freedom to impose your will on someone else. Freedom of is not, and never has been, the right to discriminate or marginalize, or construct certain people by virtue of innate characteristics as second class citizens, less worthy of simply getting a meal in a restaurant than, say, me. Again, we have historical parallels and those did not end well. Freedom is about a number of things. I would argue that simply formulations that we learn in intro politics classes (negative versus positive liberties, say) are useful but don't capture the complex meaning of those terms particularly as exercised today. Freedom is the right to do something, in Mill's classic formation, so long as it does not negatively affect another person. At that point, your freedom must stop because you are interfering with another. In return for this production (the right not to have someone interfering with our lives), we agree to be bound by the same rules. I will not interfere in someone else's life.
This situation in Indiana a clear example where that line is fractured. What the proponents of "religion freedom" are claiming is the right precisely to interfere in others lives. If I do not like gay people, I have the right to refuse to serve them or permit them in my establishment. The converse, of course, is not true nor is it true for other groups ... a point I will get to in a minute.
Freedom of religion is a very important freedom in our society. I don't know of many (or, perhaps any) people who oppose it. It is the right to practice one's religion (provided it does not harm another) unhindered by the state or society. Thus, for instance, one cannot make a law that prescribes some religions as illegal and its members subject to arrest. All religion perspectives -- including those who do not believe -- have the right to their perspectives and not be discriminated against because of their beliefs. I cannot, for instance, refuse to hire someone simply because he or she is Catholic or Hindi.
The third significant problem that I have with this law is that it makes a mockery of what is, in fact, an important freedom, defended by the constitution and protected by the courts. I think people's spirituality is so important to them that the state should interfere in this freedom only in the most limited way possible and only in remarkably extenuating circumstances. In other words, we should do our level-headed best to not mess around with other's spirituality. But, this does not give me the right to harm others in the process. By turning a very important right into a form of prejudice, we politicize that right, we turn in from a right into a tool of discrimination. This undermines the right and, frankly, leads people to question its sincerity. In other words, the law does not advance religious freedom (if that is even its aim) but actually hinders the operation of that constitutional protection by turning the idea into a tool of bigotry, rather than the noble right it should be.
Fourth, the operation of this law -- that it is OK to discriminate people if you believe you are right in discriminating -- is actually silly. People periodically say to me "yeah, Andrew, but regardless of what you think, these people sincerely belief that God hates gays and lesbians. This truly does harm their values." To which I reply ... so what? The sincerity of belief is never at question when it comes to the protection of rights. The people who thought blacks were inferior, fit to be a labouring slave class, sincerely and honestly and deeply believed that. The Nazis who thought Jews were a cancer on the body politics, sincerely, truly and deeply believed that. They were not just trying to find some sort of language to trick people and win an election. The constitution does not say "you have these rights unless someone else sincerely believes that you do not."
Pick another example to see how silly this sounds. "You have the right to free speech unless I happen to believe you don't and as long as I am sincere in my belief, you will be denied free speech." "You have the right to due process of law, unless I happen to honestly believe that you should not have this right. In that case, you don't." You can see immediately what is going on here. You longer have any rights because those rights are not rights but contingent on what others belief and, trust me, someone will also sincerely believe that you should be denied some right. The defense of this law, then, on the basis of the sincerity of its adherents is, well, a silly argument that demonstrates only that those making it have not really thought through their arguments in a very close way. Thus, the issue of sincerity is never at question and to state that it is, is to miss the point. To accept this argument is to place all rights in jeopardy.
This is not idle chatter on my part. If such rights were accepted by the courts, they become matters of precedent which can bind other jurisdictions and lower courts. The precedent that is being established is something, I suspect, more than the proponents of this law think. I think they think they are establishing this rule: it is OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians. But, what they are actually establishing is this: it is OK to disciminate. And, I think Americans and Canadians should ask themselves this question: is this what we want? We have spent the better part of the last couple of generations fighting against discrimination, against second-class status, against segregation, and all that is associated with that. Do you, I ask Americans, really want to say "you know what, for all that, my desire to not sell a sandwich to a lesbian is so great I am willing to say 'discrimination is OK.'" Where does it end? If we establish the principle that it is OK to discriminate ... where do we stop it? Gays and lesbians ... Blacks ... Jews .... I know people at my work who would discriminate against Christians if they could. The constitution prevents them, but I know people who would not hire a Christian if they could find a legal way to do it.
I oppose that but, oddly, those who say "discrimination is OK" my defend this right -- the right to discriminate against Christians on the basis of religious freedom -- if they want to be taken seriously. Thus, the same principle that defends the marginalization of gays and lesbians, if we accept it, can legitimately be used to refuse service or employment or admission (say, to a school) to anyone ... as long as you sincerely believe that your religion tells you do that. This is, I would argue, a disturbing development and one that I do hope Americans will avoid by nixing such laws right off the bat as opposed to trying to find ways to uphold them.
There are, then, a variety of good reasons to be concerned -- if you were an American -- about the Indiana law. It has no historical perspective and sooner or later its proponents will end up with the image of those people who defended slavery and segregation. They will appear as bigots and you might want to ask yourself, if you favour this law, is this how you want to be remembered? Will you be happy if your granddaughter thinks of you this way? In addition, this law makes a mockery of religious freedom and actually subverts a very important principle by politicizing it and turning it into a tool of bigotry. Third, this rule violates the first principle of freedoms (that they cannot negatively affect others). Fourth, it creates a slippery slope, precedent being what it is, the principle that is being established is that discrimination is OK. Before anyone embraces that principle, I urge you think about its implications.
Finally, let me return to the question I asked above: do private institution have the right to self-regulate. I've argued yes with regard to free speech. I (Andrew Nurse) cannot walk into someone else's house and claim that they have to listen to what I have to say. Thus, for instance, one cannot stroll up to pulpit when the pastor is preaching on Sunday morning and say "look, while I have your attention, can I offer you the deal of a lifetime ... its called Amway ... and ...." The church, as a private institution has every right to say "not now, no, this is not the forum." They cannot stop that person from speaking elsewhere. But, they can say "not hear."
The difference with Indiana is that we are not dealing with speech. Restaurants, I fully agree, have the right to stop people from making speeches that all the customers have to hear. I cannot just go into my favourite eatery with a blow horn and starting campaigning for the Green Party. And, I think everyone understands that and agree with it. Thus, private institutions can regulate the behaviour of people who are on their premises. But, they cannot discriminate on the basis of innate characteristics or protected areas of right. Thus, for instance, I cannot refuse someone admission to Mount Allison (say, to go to school, hear a concert or listen to a public lecture) because of the colour of their skin, their sexual orientation, their gender, or their religion. I can tell them that you cannot start distributing political information about hydro fracking during the concert and would be completely with the bounds of self-regulation to do so. But, I cannot deny that person entrance because they are Black or Jewish or a man.
I might have done a poor job of phrasing the difference in the past and, if so, mea culpa. I apologize for confusing you, but I assume you see the difference. Behaviour and innate characteristics are not the same thing and so have different protections under the law.
To sum up: I hope we are passing through a period of bad ideas with regard to the "let's discrimination against gays and lesbians" idea but I suspect that the proponents of these ideas will be around for a while. In the US, they are attempting to introduce new restrictions on individuals, another historical oddity. Over time, democracy has expanded and those scope of equality has expanded. A society becomes more democratic when more people previously prohibited by custom or law from participation stated to participate, when boundaries were broken and society became more inclusive. These new laws look to restrict that inclusion. For the first time in generations some Americans are looking to find ways to make their society more restrictive and less equal. This is a shame.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Naming Bigotry or Sharia Law Comes to Indiana
There is good news and bad news for those of us watching the American state of Indiana after its recently passed law that makes it legal to refuse service to GLBT on the basis of one's personal beliefs. Oddly, this is very similar to what Christian doctors and dentists are asking for in Canada. If their views happen to infringe on who you are, some group that describes itself -- shakily I might add -- as "Christian" is claiming that they can deny you that right. Oddly enough the issue also turns around sexuality and sexual identity, which might be the subject for a more sustained analysis than I can give to it. The bad news is that the law passed. If you are gay and walk into a restaurant in Indiana, the staff can say "leave, you're gay. It is legal to refuse to serve and we are." The good news is that just about everyone and their dog dislikes this law. Charles Barkley and Reggie Miller -- two individuals who have been hardly known for their politics -- have made strong statements against it. Likewise, a number of large corporations, some cities, and NFL have issued statements in opposition. The NCAA has noted that it may move its events out of the state if this law persists. I don't know whether they will or they will not but I am heartened to see groups and individuals politicizing around this issue. You can do far worse than stand up for equality.
What I'd like to do in this blog is a number of things. I have been writing a series of blogs about the current historical juncture at which Canadian Christianity finds itself. This issue is peripherally related because, as I just suggested, it is, in effect, what a group of doctors are trying to do in Canada. They are claiming that their religious freedom gives them the right to deny care to people on the basis of their personal views. What I'd like to do is the following:
1. Acknowledge that the Indiana law (one of a series that have been brought forward recently in the US) is in the US. Hence, it is likely not my place as a Canadian to say anything about it. I would, however, like to say something clearly and unequivocally as a Christian.
2. I'd like to suggest that this type of law is odd in the sense that it does legitimize prejudice under the rubric or freedom of religion, which was never the intention of freedom of religion laws or embedded constitutional rights, at least in Canada. I do not think it can be upheld upon court challenge if such a law were to pass some legislature in Canada and I'd like to explain why. Hence, I am also say that the suppose Christian doctors who want to deny care are not going to win their case.
3. Finally, I want to make a note of what this kind of case suggests or implies for Canada.
First things first: I said this is a previous blog but Christian is not about defending one's personal values. Indeed, Christian is about challenging those values. It is not about asserting that one is more moral or right or proper than another person. If you doubt me ... read some scripture. It is not about imposing a morality on society or claiming that society should follow your morality. In other words, I am deeply concerned that Christians are using God to justify their own prejudices and I don't think this helps our case at all. In fact, it makes us look like a bunch of bigots who have no time for people with whom we have personal disagreements based on *our* values. It is the wrong approach and one that Christians should reject. Christianity is about many things. I'd like to believe that is about love, relationships, care of the other, putting God first in one's life, and other things. But, it is not about bigotry or helping to defend or justify bigotry and it is never about providing the state with a religious rationale that justifies or upholds the marginalization of others. It is about breaking those bounds; not drawing the line tighter. We need more Christians to stand up and deny this law. We should not let someone justify their bigotry with recourse to God.
Second, that said, as I was thinking over this issue this weekend, what struck was the similarities between this law and the proponents of state enforced Sharia law in Canada. In Canada, a few years ago, we had a big (overblown) to do about whether or not the state should enforce Sharia law for the Muslim community. That debate still awaits a detailed and sophisticated analysis. Only a very small number of Muslims with more extreme views supported this idea (the state enforcing Sharia law) but it triggered a broad debate in the public sphere, the conclusion of which was this: the state should not enforce private religious beliefs. It is not the state's job to impose religious views on society by making them part of a public legal system. There was broad and deep agreement on this point ... when we were talking about Muslims.
Interestingly, when it comes to talking about Christians ... people seem to stop disagreeing, at least so vehemently and they stop using the same argument. Instead, the tenor of the debate shifts. We are no longer talking about the state enforcing religious law but about a person's religious freedom. In other words, the principle is the same, even if the discourse is different. I'd argue the same point, though. If the state should have no truck or trade with Sharia law; it should have no truck or trade with Christian law.
The argument about "religious freedom" is made to seem a bit more palatable because it sounds like we are defending a freedom: the right of a person to practice their religion. But, by that raises a very slippery and dangerous question that was fully discussed in Canada with the debate over Sharia law. One of one's religious freedom requires the subjugation of others? Can they make that case? Is that not, in fact, one of the aspects of the life under the Taliban that we (Canadians and Americans) supposedly opposed? The exercise of religious freedom required the subjugation of women. Neither the governments of Canada nor the US accepted this and, in fact, used it to defend the military action against the Taliban. Refusing to serve someone a sandwich may not be the same thing but the principle is the same, is it not? Where my freedom of religion runs up against someone else's equality and freedom ... their equality and freedom must go.
The problem with this situation, of course, is pretty obvious. It does something much more than smuggle prejudice in through the back door. It drags it right in the front door, in full view, and sets up two standards. One for straight people; one for gay people. The law, in other words, falls unevenly across society and affects different people in different ways. And, this is the primary resource that I do not think that Canadian courts will ever accept this law or some variant of this law.
The Canadian Constitution (the Charter, in particular) guarantees Canadians something that the American Bill is a bit uncertain of: equality before the law and equal treatment of the law. I'm not trying to shoot the US down here; I'm trying to highlight a difference between Canada and the US. In the US, there is clearly a constitutional guarantee to equality. This has been the ground on which US courts have struck down laws banning same sex marriage. A right one person enjoys under law cannot be denied to another person. Canada goes further. We have the same principle (coming out of the same legal heritage) but we have a guarantee of equal benefit of the law.
What does this this mean? Years ago, when gay and lesbian Canadians first campaigned for equality in marriage, the crown mounted a rather interesting defense that was, briefly, accepted by the courts. It went like this: a prohibition on same sex marriage is constitutional because gay and lesbian Canadians have the right to marry and it is the same right enjoyed by straight people. They just have to marry someone of the opposite biological sex. Hence, because a gay man can marry a woman (for example) ... his right to equality is satisfied.
The Canadian constitution and jurisprudence no longer accept this patently silly argument because it still upholds prejudice. Straight Canadians have the right to marry who they will (everything here, by the comes with the proviso "provided they are a competent legal adult") but gay and lesbian Canadians do not. The courts quickly recognized this as the crux of the matter: benefit of the law was falling unevenly and falling unevenly in a way that confirmed already established unequal power relations in society. It served to marginalize already marginalized groups and confirm and reinforce the power of groups that were already power. The right to equality had, in other words, stopped being a right to equality and had, instead, become a mechanism through which the state helped to guarantee, maintain, and enforce inequality based on some people's personal views. The courts in Canada, rightly, said "this is not the purpose of equality provisions"
Because the US lacks the same commitment to equal benefit of the law in its constitution as Canada maintains, I suspect that it will be more difficult to eliminate laws that maintain prejudice. It took a long time to eliminate laws that discriminated against blacks, for instance, and I suspect that it will take a while for US courts to make a clear ruling against bigotry. In Canada, I suspect the courts will make that statement early. In other words, the US situation should not be the Canadian situation and this is not just wishful thinking on my part. The differences in the constitutional guarantees of equality are significant enough and nuanced enough that it should be difficult to use the law to enforce private religious views.
What I'd like to do in this blog is a number of things. I have been writing a series of blogs about the current historical juncture at which Canadian Christianity finds itself. This issue is peripherally related because, as I just suggested, it is, in effect, what a group of doctors are trying to do in Canada. They are claiming that their religious freedom gives them the right to deny care to people on the basis of their personal views. What I'd like to do is the following:
1. Acknowledge that the Indiana law (one of a series that have been brought forward recently in the US) is in the US. Hence, it is likely not my place as a Canadian to say anything about it. I would, however, like to say something clearly and unequivocally as a Christian.
2. I'd like to suggest that this type of law is odd in the sense that it does legitimize prejudice under the rubric or freedom of religion, which was never the intention of freedom of religion laws or embedded constitutional rights, at least in Canada. I do not think it can be upheld upon court challenge if such a law were to pass some legislature in Canada and I'd like to explain why. Hence, I am also say that the suppose Christian doctors who want to deny care are not going to win their case.
3. Finally, I want to make a note of what this kind of case suggests or implies for Canada.
First things first: I said this is a previous blog but Christian is not about defending one's personal values. Indeed, Christian is about challenging those values. It is not about asserting that one is more moral or right or proper than another person. If you doubt me ... read some scripture. It is not about imposing a morality on society or claiming that society should follow your morality. In other words, I am deeply concerned that Christians are using God to justify their own prejudices and I don't think this helps our case at all. In fact, it makes us look like a bunch of bigots who have no time for people with whom we have personal disagreements based on *our* values. It is the wrong approach and one that Christians should reject. Christianity is about many things. I'd like to believe that is about love, relationships, care of the other, putting God first in one's life, and other things. But, it is not about bigotry or helping to defend or justify bigotry and it is never about providing the state with a religious rationale that justifies or upholds the marginalization of others. It is about breaking those bounds; not drawing the line tighter. We need more Christians to stand up and deny this law. We should not let someone justify their bigotry with recourse to God.
Second, that said, as I was thinking over this issue this weekend, what struck was the similarities between this law and the proponents of state enforced Sharia law in Canada. In Canada, a few years ago, we had a big (overblown) to do about whether or not the state should enforce Sharia law for the Muslim community. That debate still awaits a detailed and sophisticated analysis. Only a very small number of Muslims with more extreme views supported this idea (the state enforcing Sharia law) but it triggered a broad debate in the public sphere, the conclusion of which was this: the state should not enforce private religious beliefs. It is not the state's job to impose religious views on society by making them part of a public legal system. There was broad and deep agreement on this point ... when we were talking about Muslims.
Interestingly, when it comes to talking about Christians ... people seem to stop disagreeing, at least so vehemently and they stop using the same argument. Instead, the tenor of the debate shifts. We are no longer talking about the state enforcing religious law but about a person's religious freedom. In other words, the principle is the same, even if the discourse is different. I'd argue the same point, though. If the state should have no truck or trade with Sharia law; it should have no truck or trade with Christian law.
The argument about "religious freedom" is made to seem a bit more palatable because it sounds like we are defending a freedom: the right of a person to practice their religion. But, by that raises a very slippery and dangerous question that was fully discussed in Canada with the debate over Sharia law. One of one's religious freedom requires the subjugation of others? Can they make that case? Is that not, in fact, one of the aspects of the life under the Taliban that we (Canadians and Americans) supposedly opposed? The exercise of religious freedom required the subjugation of women. Neither the governments of Canada nor the US accepted this and, in fact, used it to defend the military action against the Taliban. Refusing to serve someone a sandwich may not be the same thing but the principle is the same, is it not? Where my freedom of religion runs up against someone else's equality and freedom ... their equality and freedom must go.
The problem with this situation, of course, is pretty obvious. It does something much more than smuggle prejudice in through the back door. It drags it right in the front door, in full view, and sets up two standards. One for straight people; one for gay people. The law, in other words, falls unevenly across society and affects different people in different ways. And, this is the primary resource that I do not think that Canadian courts will ever accept this law or some variant of this law.
The Canadian Constitution (the Charter, in particular) guarantees Canadians something that the American Bill is a bit uncertain of: equality before the law and equal treatment of the law. I'm not trying to shoot the US down here; I'm trying to highlight a difference between Canada and the US. In the US, there is clearly a constitutional guarantee to equality. This has been the ground on which US courts have struck down laws banning same sex marriage. A right one person enjoys under law cannot be denied to another person. Canada goes further. We have the same principle (coming out of the same legal heritage) but we have a guarantee of equal benefit of the law.
What does this this mean? Years ago, when gay and lesbian Canadians first campaigned for equality in marriage, the crown mounted a rather interesting defense that was, briefly, accepted by the courts. It went like this: a prohibition on same sex marriage is constitutional because gay and lesbian Canadians have the right to marry and it is the same right enjoyed by straight people. They just have to marry someone of the opposite biological sex. Hence, because a gay man can marry a woman (for example) ... his right to equality is satisfied.
The Canadian constitution and jurisprudence no longer accept this patently silly argument because it still upholds prejudice. Straight Canadians have the right to marry who they will (everything here, by the comes with the proviso "provided they are a competent legal adult") but gay and lesbian Canadians do not. The courts quickly recognized this as the crux of the matter: benefit of the law was falling unevenly and falling unevenly in a way that confirmed already established unequal power relations in society. It served to marginalize already marginalized groups and confirm and reinforce the power of groups that were already power. The right to equality had, in other words, stopped being a right to equality and had, instead, become a mechanism through which the state helped to guarantee, maintain, and enforce inequality based on some people's personal views. The courts in Canada, rightly, said "this is not the purpose of equality provisions"
Because the US lacks the same commitment to equal benefit of the law in its constitution as Canada maintains, I suspect that it will be more difficult to eliminate laws that maintain prejudice. It took a long time to eliminate laws that discriminated against blacks, for instance, and I suspect that it will take a while for US courts to make a clear ruling against bigotry. In Canada, I suspect the courts will make that statement early. In other words, the US situation should not be the Canadian situation and this is not just wishful thinking on my part. The differences in the constitutional guarantees of equality are significant enough and nuanced enough that it should be difficult to use the law to enforce private religious views.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Bathurst, Flags, and Equal Rights
An English-language rights group wants to fly its flag at City Hall in Bathurst, NB. The town council first said yes (in a 4-2 vote) and, then, after significant popular protest changed its mind and said no. I was reading some on-line discussion of this issue and there is a significant amount of confusion about it. The question is: is this a legitimate action? Should not, in an effort to respect multicultural diversity, Bathurst fly this flag? Those who want to fly the flag seem to be suggesting that the town council’s failure to do so show multiculturalism to be a shame (they argue other things, too, that I will mention below, but this is the most “philosophical” of the points the flag’s proponents make).
The answer is “no.” First, the flag of a small, extremist, lobby organization is not an ethnic flag. In this sense, it multiculturalism does not apply. This group has as much philosophical right to fly its flag in front of a government office as any other lobby group, whether it be the Canadian Manufacturers Association or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the local chapter of the “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation” (OK, I made that one up). In other words, multiculturalism does not apply because this flag does not represent an ethnic group or a nationality.
Ah ... its proponents say, “it represents ‘English’ people.” No it does not. I am an English-speaking person and the Maple Leaf represents me. No one in this organization ever contact me to ask if they could represent my interests. Their position on bilingualism (opposition to it) is decidedly out of step with popular views, which makes them a special interest group. No conference ever certified this flag, at least one that was widely attending by representatives of English people. No one every determined, either, exactly who these English people were. Is this a heritage group? Is it a language group? Both? This is a group that has, in other words, no democratic sanction. It is a group that represents a small minority view. And, it is a group that claims for itself the right to represent me. I deny it that right. Sorry, you don’t represent me or, to the best of my knowledge, anyone in my family or among my friends or in my community. Indeed. I actually personally no one one who even knows someone in this group.
I’m not trying to be harsh here. I am trying to make a point. There is a difference between a special interest lobby group and a national or ethnic group. To confuse to two creates problems. If we accepted the right of this group to fly their flag outside a government office, then we would have no choice but to accept the right of Nazis to fly their flag or members of Al Quaida. Or, members of the local “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation.” Any lobby group would now have the right to put its flag up and is this what we want. Do we want our City Halls festooned with the flags of lobby and special interest groups.
Some might say “you know, we might. There just might be a group we’d like to show we support on a municipal level. Our town loves bull frogs. Why can’t we put their flag up.” One might be able to, indeed it might be legitimate to, as long as we are clear about what we are doing. I am arguing above that there is a qualitative difference between a national or ethnic flag (the Canadian flag, the Acadian flag, for instance) and governmental flags (city or provincial) on the one hand and those of special interests on the other. This group is a special interest and so has no moral or ethical or legal right to have its flag flown at a government office, no more right, at least then any other special interest group (like the local bowling league or a butterfly collecting club). It is possible that someone might want to demonstrate their support, however, for butterfly collecting. If so, could the two council authorize this one group to fly its flag on a special occasion.
Yes, as long as its justification was not multiculturalism. The butterfly collectors are not a nation!. And, it seems to me, as long as its rationale was ethically sound. In other words, not all social groups are, as it were, “created equal.” I’d argue that provisions of the criminal law, for instance, should apply. One should not fly the flag of, say, an organized crime group. Nor should one fly the flag of a terrorist organization. These strike me as pretty straight forward and generally acceptable points. Nor, should one fly the flag of a group that is propagated hate. For instance, a racist organization should not enjoy the support of a state committed to freedom, equality, democracy (say, like Canada) because the goals of this organization run counter to the goals of Canada.
In this regard, consider the differences between this English rights organization and, say, Acadian organization. This English rights organization opposes equality. It seems to eliminate French-language rights in NB. Acadian organizations do not oppose equality; they are not arguing the use of English in NB; nor lobbying for the elimination of English as an official language or a language of instruction. Note, too, the important distinction: I am talking about an organization. Organizations that promote intolerance often justify their own intolerance by saying that a member of ethnic group X was once intolerant to them. This is almost certainly true but the logic is perverse. Using francophones and anglophones as an example, it run like this “because a francophone was once mean to an anglophone, all francophones should lose their rights.” Does that make any sense: because one person who you may not have known; who you might have thought was an idiot, whom you opposed did something, you lose right because they happen to speak the same language as you.
Let’s flip this around and reverse the field. Suppose an anglophone was once mean to a francophone. Does that mean that English should be eliminated as an official language? That is the logic we are talking about here. It is a guilt by virtue of language spoken. If someone in your linguistic group did something wrong, you are guilty purely by virtue of the language you speak. Does this not strike you as akin to a fascist logic?
My point is this: (1) there is a difference between an unrepresentative group that argues against equality and symbols broadly representative of a nation that support equality, and (2) the logic used to justify the equivalence between the two is faulty to the point of being fascistic.
For these reasons, Bathurst correctly reversed its decision on this flag issue and did the right thing.
The answer is “no.” First, the flag of a small, extremist, lobby organization is not an ethnic flag. In this sense, it multiculturalism does not apply. This group has as much philosophical right to fly its flag in front of a government office as any other lobby group, whether it be the Canadian Manufacturers Association or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the local chapter of the “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation” (OK, I made that one up). In other words, multiculturalism does not apply because this flag does not represent an ethnic group or a nationality.
Ah ... its proponents say, “it represents ‘English’ people.” No it does not. I am an English-speaking person and the Maple Leaf represents me. No one in this organization ever contact me to ask if they could represent my interests. Their position on bilingualism (opposition to it) is decidedly out of step with popular views, which makes them a special interest group. No conference ever certified this flag, at least one that was widely attending by representatives of English people. No one every determined, either, exactly who these English people were. Is this a heritage group? Is it a language group? Both? This is a group that has, in other words, no democratic sanction. It is a group that represents a small minority view. And, it is a group that claims for itself the right to represent me. I deny it that right. Sorry, you don’t represent me or, to the best of my knowledge, anyone in my family or among my friends or in my community. Indeed. I actually personally no one one who even knows someone in this group.
I’m not trying to be harsh here. I am trying to make a point. There is a difference between a special interest lobby group and a national or ethnic group. To confuse to two creates problems. If we accepted the right of this group to fly their flag outside a government office, then we would have no choice but to accept the right of Nazis to fly their flag or members of Al Quaida. Or, members of the local “Save the Bull Frogs Foundation.” Any lobby group would now have the right to put its flag up and is this what we want. Do we want our City Halls festooned with the flags of lobby and special interest groups.
Some might say “you know, we might. There just might be a group we’d like to show we support on a municipal level. Our town loves bull frogs. Why can’t we put their flag up.” One might be able to, indeed it might be legitimate to, as long as we are clear about what we are doing. I am arguing above that there is a qualitative difference between a national or ethnic flag (the Canadian flag, the Acadian flag, for instance) and governmental flags (city or provincial) on the one hand and those of special interests on the other. This group is a special interest and so has no moral or ethical or legal right to have its flag flown at a government office, no more right, at least then any other special interest group (like the local bowling league or a butterfly collecting club). It is possible that someone might want to demonstrate their support, however, for butterfly collecting. If so, could the two council authorize this one group to fly its flag on a special occasion.
Yes, as long as its justification was not multiculturalism. The butterfly collectors are not a nation!. And, it seems to me, as long as its rationale was ethically sound. In other words, not all social groups are, as it were, “created equal.” I’d argue that provisions of the criminal law, for instance, should apply. One should not fly the flag of, say, an organized crime group. Nor should one fly the flag of a terrorist organization. These strike me as pretty straight forward and generally acceptable points. Nor, should one fly the flag of a group that is propagated hate. For instance, a racist organization should not enjoy the support of a state committed to freedom, equality, democracy (say, like Canada) because the goals of this organization run counter to the goals of Canada.
In this regard, consider the differences between this English rights organization and, say, Acadian organization. This English rights organization opposes equality. It seems to eliminate French-language rights in NB. Acadian organizations do not oppose equality; they are not arguing the use of English in NB; nor lobbying for the elimination of English as an official language or a language of instruction. Note, too, the important distinction: I am talking about an organization. Organizations that promote intolerance often justify their own intolerance by saying that a member of ethnic group X was once intolerant to them. This is almost certainly true but the logic is perverse. Using francophones and anglophones as an example, it run like this “because a francophone was once mean to an anglophone, all francophones should lose their rights.” Does that make any sense: because one person who you may not have known; who you might have thought was an idiot, whom you opposed did something, you lose right because they happen to speak the same language as you.
Let’s flip this around and reverse the field. Suppose an anglophone was once mean to a francophone. Does that mean that English should be eliminated as an official language? That is the logic we are talking about here. It is a guilt by virtue of language spoken. If someone in your linguistic group did something wrong, you are guilty purely by virtue of the language you speak. Does this not strike you as akin to a fascist logic?
My point is this: (1) there is a difference between an unrepresentative group that argues against equality and symbols broadly representative of a nation that support equality, and (2) the logic used to justify the equivalence between the two is faulty to the point of being fascistic.
For these reasons, Bathurst correctly reversed its decision on this flag issue and did the right thing.
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