John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS
“Suburban municipalities in the Montreal area are speaking out against the François Legault government's bill designed to enforce religious neutrality of the state.”
You cannot tell people what to wear. Not in a free society.
And that is even truer when the apparel you target has important meaning, whether cultural or religious or sentimental, to those who wear it.
The effort to do so represents petty authoritarianism and a complete waste of government time and resources. Do we not have many genuine problems that require attention?
It offends the sensibilities of thousands, perhaps causing them to seek another place to live as well as making Quebec less attractive to prospective migrants. The province already has important shortages of some workers.
It has many "little" effects, and none of them good or worthwhile.
But my greatest fear is that it represents the state flirting with Islamophobia, and there is nothing little about that.
