[Montreal, Quebec] The government of Quebec passed a bill over the weekend that bans schoolteachers, police, judges, and even city trash men from wearing religious symbols in their place of work.
Francoic Legault, the Quebec premier, agreed with the provision and said it was necessary to form the separation of church and state. Ostensibly, much of the reason for banning religious symbols isn’t to suppress Christianity but to protect against increasingly militant Islam. The bill bans Muslim headscarves, Sikh turbans, Romanist crucifixes, and Jewish yarmulke.
The bill passed by 73 to 35.
Opponents of the bill say that it is a systemic attempt to ban all religion from the public sphere, but its proponents say that public employees have no inherent right to display their religious sentiments while on the job. Leftists seem as outraged as those on the right, and are claiming that the bill is Islamaphobic and aimed primarily at banning hijabs, niqabs, and buqas. They are claiming that the bill has created what is essentially a “secularism police force.”
Opposing the bill most strongly is the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Also planning to sue Quebec is a Muslim woman who claims to be adversely affected by the new policy.
For many, watching the debate unfold in the liberal Canadian province is interesting, to say the least. The fight pits leftists who are standing up for Islam against leftists who are standing up for women and homosexuals (who are notoriously mistreated by militant Islam).
No one seems to be sticking up for Christianity.
