7 ms·

We don't need freedom of religion

77 points by sorbus 16y ago

pjscott 16y ago
That's one hell of a linkbait headline that the Ottowa Citizen came up with. A more accurate description of the article's thesis would be "freedom of religion can be derived from other rights which are explicitly recognized, like freedom of speech and association, and does not need to be explicitly protected as long as those other rights are genuinely protected." Put like that, it sounds a lot less controversial.
- kj12345 16y ago
  Definitely. Mortgages are loans, but we have special laws for them anyway. There might be benefits to eliminating mortgage-specific laws, but it would be odd to term that argument as "mortgages don't need to be regulated".
- angstrom 16y ago
  I agree, but isn't half of journalism the catchy headline that raises your article above the noise and into the spotlight?
  - irrelative 16y ago
    I started to think that it's part of the internet age of journalism, but quickly realized I was just being naïve. The sensationalism of headlines is as old as the headline.
- diiq 16y ago
  I agree that that headline is awfully dramatic --- but your summary misses what is, to me, the most interesting part of the article: that enforcing freedom of religion has led to inconsistencies in the way we maintain those other rights. The fact that we do have explicit protections of the freedom of religion means we are failing to genuinely protect speech, association, etc. That seems like a conclusion worthy of at least a little drama.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    I absolutely agree with that premise. However, I'd only buy that as the writer's real message if he wasn't going for a subtext of Gee, look at all the unreasonable privileges people get on the grounds of religion! I'm reminded of the argument that we shouldn't support gay marriage, but instead should support getting government entirely out of marriage and letting any consenting adults form any arrangement they want. I absolutely agree with that ideal, but it's not happening anytime soon - so I support gay marriage. However, there are people who make this argument and use it as a reason to oppose gay marriage as a "privilege" we should not be establishing. I can't help noticing that people giving that objection are uniformly straight.
    - anamax 16y ago
      > I can't help noticing that people giving that objection are uniformly straight. That says something about your powers of observation. I note that most people giving that objection are unmarried, and a large fraction are "uncoupled".
      - Semiapies 16y ago
        And they remain straight people unrestricted by the status quo, arguing against removing restrictions on others on grounds that are naive at best, disingenuous at worst. Do you have a point?
        anamax 16y ago
        > And they remain straight people unrestricted by the status quo As I implied with my first sentence, some folks making that argument are not straight, so they don't "remain straight". Yes, most folks making that argument are straight, but since most folks are straight.... > Do you have a point? My point is that your gaydar is broken at least wrt this issue.
        Semiapies 16y ago
        You're welcome to provide citations of gay individuals arguing against their getting marriage rights on the basis that government needs to get out of marriage.
- cal5k 16y ago
  To be fair... how often is the Ottawa Citizen linked to from Hacker News? I'd say it worked splendidly!
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Well, it's a bit of a stealth piece, as he's claiming to argue that while really arguing the reverse. He's not arguing for greater freedom, he's arguing against religious freedom. Look at the examples he chooses. He's not really arguing that anyone should be able to wear veils, not have pictures on their IDs, carry sheathed knives, etc. He's arguing that if voters wouldn't see any random person as needing/deserving to be able to do something, then nobody should be able to do it based on religion. Myself, I'd say sure, let kids carry knives, whether pocketknives (as people in my neck of the woods happily let kids in prior generations) or kirpans. On the other hand, the writer's dog-whistling, saying that we should only do something as crazy as let Sikh kids carry kirpans if we'd be willing to have a stabby bloodbath in our (well, Canadian) schools. While I'd love to be able to skip legal protection of enumerated rights, knowing that the government would respect my freedoms in every conceivable formulation, it ain't gonna happen. The best-case situation in Western society is that the government remains leery of obviously stepping on the rights that people most object to having abridged - free speech, religion, etc. ETA: And yes, that means that some people will have a "privilege" - ie, they'll be exempted from some stupid law that would harm or impair them even more than it does everyone else. In that case, the answer isn't to attack the privilege, it's to attack the thing the privilege protects against.
  - a-priori 16y ago
    If kids want to go all stabby stabby in a school, they don't need ceremonial daggers to do it. It happened at my high school, in Canada, using a cooking knife stolen from the cafeteria kitchen.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      Exactly. Or shivs, which turn up now and again.
      - forensic 16y ago
        Formally allowing weapons in school would arguably make schools less like prisons.
- pkulak 16y ago
  That's the worst headline I've ever read. I didn't even read the whole thing and it was part of a paragraph.
mingdingo 16y ago
Here's a good article by Christopher Hitchens on freedom of religion: http://www.slate.com/id/2266154 http://www.slate.com/id/2266154. Some examples of where he thinks religion oversteps its bounds: - Mormon polygamy - Christian sects that disapprove of medicine - Ritual circumcision (especially when the mohel sucks off the debris from the penis with his mouth) I would also add to that list the ritual slaughter of animals. Kosher and Halal both mandate that an animal cannot be stunned with a captive-bolt stunner before having their throats cut, and must be fully conscious. Needless to say, this cruelty only persists because of "freedom of religion". If you ever want to get away with things you otherwise couldn't get away with, freedom of religion is probably the most potent argument you could unleash.
- avdempsey 16y ago
  Even Hitchens' examples reflect some basic rights a civil libertarian should want to protect. Mormon polygamy: the government shouldn't be telling you who you can or can't marry. Christian sects that disapprove of medicine: the government shouldn't be forcing you to make changes to your body. Ritual circumcision (especially when the mohel sucks off the debris from the penis with his mouth): sounds gross to me, but the government shouldn't tell you what changes you can't make to your body, or how you provide care for a member of your tribe. Can government intervention in these areas bring about greater human well-being? Possibly, but I think the above are relatively self-regulating. Christian sects that disapprove of medicine (Christian Scientists for example) must contend with proliferating evidence of the benefits of scientific medicine. As long as scientists have freedom of speech too I suspect their membership will continue to decline in the US. Can government intervention in these areas bring about greater suffering? Absolutely. The US government currently intervenes in gay marriages, and recently intervened in abortions (and many in Congress would love to intervene here again!).
  - patrickyeon 16y ago
    As fodder for discussion, where should the government's influence stand on issues of medicine or circumcision, as practiced by children's parents? At what point can the government say "your freedoms matter less to us than taking care of _your_ child the way _we_ believe it should be done"?
raganwald 16y ago
His examples are very carefully cherry-picked to support his claims. I'm to going to agree or disagree with his conclusions here, but an example that is useful for the purpose of discussion is the subject of turbans, such as the dastaars worn by the Sikhs he discusses. At one time the uniform for a police officer in Toronto (and I'm sure everywhere else in Canada) included a cap that was quite inconsistent with the Sikh practice for men to wear a dastaar. The law prohibiting discrimination against persons by reason of their religion is defined to include directly passing over someone because of their beliefs. But it is also held to include indirectly passing them over by way of rules and regulations that are inconsistent with their beliefs and practices unless there are strong reasons to enforce them. The rules about uniforms were in a grey area. There are good reasons for police officers to wear a consistent uniform. But would a Sikh in a dastaar really violate those good reasons? The police changed its rules and regulations to include the dastaar as an option, with its colour and the inclusion of a badge on the head just as the original cap holds a badge. Kirpans are a very contentious subject and reasonable people can and do disagree on how they should be handled. But dastaars are an example of places where a failure to provide legal protection for people to practice their religion could create an indirect discrimination that is inconsistent with Canadian values. The author points out that if there's no good reason for a rule, it should be abolished for everyone. One interesting point of discussion is this: If there is no specific rule protecting the freedom to practice one's religion, how would rules such as the uniform rule for the police ever evolve?
- pkulak 16y ago
  I don't think it's possible to wrongfully discriminate against someone based on their choices. If someone wants to be part of a religion that wears some special clothing, great, but then there may be sacrifices that go along with that choice. This isn't like not installing wheelchair ramps. People in wheelchairs aren't there because they choose to be.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > People in wheelchairs aren't there because they choose to be. Is religion a choice? I ask because some religions forbid conversions "out", a few with rather serious penalties. Since most adherents of those religions are entered into them by their parents (that is, without their consent) ....
andreyf 16y ago
That's silly. Many laws are meant to minimize people harming each other. For example, the point of laws that control whether a child may bring a dagger to school is for the safety of minors, who don't have the neurobiological facilities to make good decisions (e.g. whether or not to bring a knife to school, or whether or not to use it). I imagine it's easily demonstrable that enforcement of those rules yields less stabbings than an "everyone bring your knives" policy. Now, before you think it, nobody is saying that such restrictions on freedom are the proper long term solution to stopping kids stabbing each other, and better solutions should be put in place, but in the meantime, lives are literally at stake. Of course, it's also easily demonstrable that Sikh children don't really ever kill each other with their ceremonial daggers. So frankly, I don't see a good argument as to why the law should never use race as a metric to optimize safety for minors while not infringing on the ceremonial customs of certain groups.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
charlesju 16y ago
I've come to realize that no moral issues can be boiled down into black and white. All moral debates have strong examples on either side. The goal of government, however, is not to take a stance on moral debates. It's to create laws that are amenable to both situations. I believe with this professor is trying to say is that the constitution, or written law, should not include laws that are categorically protective of civil liberties that may not be culturally acceptable. We need to break down civil liberties in this particular arena into more granular cases and judge based on those cases as opposed to an overarching blank check for religion.
known 16y ago
Your religion must be private. If you intend to make religion public via pony tails, emblems, beards, burkah, turbans etc, you're advertising your religion viz http://goo.gl/dHSA8 http://goo.gl/dHSA8 Govt will regulate every advertisement.
- splat 16y ago
  And you also must keep your political opinions private. If you intend to make your political opinions public via pamphlets, opinion editorials, posters, books, protests, etc. you're advertising your political opinions and the government can regulate your advertisement.
  - known 16y ago
    God != Religion != Politics
yycom 16y ago
The problem with laws and regulations kowtowing to religion is who is the arbiter of authentic religions vs. other arbitrary mumbo jumbo? What stops me (or L. Ron Hubbard) from inventing a religion specifically contrary the law so I can evade responsibility for paying tax, enslavement, or eating babies?
zupatol 16y ago
Freedom of religion is something else than making exceptions to other laws because of religion. Freedom of religion is the right to believe whatever you want and not be discriminated because of it. There needs to be a freedom of religion because there is such a strong tendency to discriminate against minority religions. Similarly the law needs to be the same for men and women, but the tendency to discriminate is so strong that there needs to be a law against discrimination based on gender.
dkarl 16y ago
Let's leave aside the fact that it's no business of the government whether we are disrespectful to each other's religions, as well as Justice Charron's call for schools to indoctrinate children. Schools have to indoctrinate children. They're freaking _children_. It's normal childish behavior to lie when they're afraid of getting in trouble, hit other children or destroy their property when they get angry, disrupt lessons when they're bored, and ridicule others when they sense weakness. Discipline and indoctrination about proper behavior can't stop when parents drop their children off at school. If you don't want your kid indoctrinated by someone else, if you can't handle the idea of your kid being partly raised by people who may have different ideas from you, then school just isn't going to work. Forget about school, and forget about tee ball, summer camp, piano lessons, hell, forget about church, because you don't know the exact behavioral standards the Sunday school teachers might enforce. Just keep your child at home and you never have to worry about anyone indoctrinating your kid except you.
Semiapies 16y ago
You know, I get the funny feeling that some of my fellow atheists believe that if we got rid of "freedom of religion", it'd only be those crazy religionists who'd be affected or restricted, while we could gloat on the sidelines. Considering that those of us in the US had to have a Supreme Court case to protect us from being forced to take part in group prayers in school, the far more likely case is that without a protected freedom of religion, the majority merrily pushes around various minorities on a religious basis. Look at how poorly Muslims poll and how they're demonized by many in the US - and then recall that polls say Americans regard atheists even more negatively. (And no, Canada is no utopia devoid of religious bullying.)

77 points by sorbus 16y ago

That's one hell of a linkbait headline that the Ottowa Citizen came up with. A more accurate description of the article's thesis would be "freedom of religion can be derived from other rights which are explicitly recognized, like freedom of speech and association, and does not need to be explicitly protected as long as those other rights are genuinely protected." Put like that, it sounds a lot less controversial.

kj12345 16y ago
Definitely. Mortgages are loans, but we have special laws for them anyway. There might be benefits to eliminating mortgage-specific laws, but it would be odd to term that argument as "mortgages don't need to be regulated".
angstrom 16y ago
I agree, but isn't half of journalism the catchy headline that raises your article above the noise and into the spotlight?
- irrelative 16y ago
  I started to think that it's part of the internet age of journalism, but quickly realized I was just being naïve. The sensationalism of headlines is as old as the headline.
diiq 16y ago
I agree that that headline is awfully dramatic --- but your summary misses what is, to me, the most interesting part of the article: that enforcing freedom of religion has led to inconsistencies in the way we maintain those other rights. The fact that we do have explicit protections of the freedom of religion means we are failing to genuinely protect speech, association, etc. That seems like a conclusion worthy of at least a little drama.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  I absolutely agree with that premise. However, I'd only buy that as the writer's real message if he wasn't going for a subtext of Gee, look at all the unreasonable privileges people get on the grounds of religion! I'm reminded of the argument that we shouldn't support gay marriage, but instead should support getting government entirely out of marriage and letting any consenting adults form any arrangement they want. I absolutely agree with that ideal, but it's not happening anytime soon - so I support gay marriage. However, there are people who make this argument and use it as a reason to oppose gay marriage as a "privilege" we should not be establishing. I can't help noticing that people giving that objection are uniformly straight.
  - anamax 16y ago
    > I can't help noticing that people giving that objection are uniformly straight. That says something about your powers of observation. I note that most people giving that objection are unmarried, and a large fraction are "uncoupled".
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      And they remain straight people unrestricted by the status quo, arguing against removing restrictions on others on grounds that are naive at best, disingenuous at worst. Do you have a point?
      - anamax 16y ago
        > And they remain straight people unrestricted by the status quo As I implied with my first sentence, some folks making that argument are not straight, so they don't "remain straight". Yes, most folks making that argument are straight, but since most folks are straight.... > Do you have a point? My point is that your gaydar is broken at least wrt this issue.
        Semiapies 16y ago
        You're welcome to provide citations of gay individuals arguing against their getting marriage rights on the basis that government needs to get out of marriage.
cal5k 16y ago
To be fair... how often is the Ottawa Citizen linked to from Hacker News? I'd say it worked splendidly!
Semiapies 16y ago
Well, it's a bit of a stealth piece, as he's claiming to argue that while really arguing the reverse. He's not arguing for greater freedom, he's arguing against religious freedom. Look at the examples he chooses. He's not really arguing that anyone should be able to wear veils, not have pictures on their IDs, carry sheathed knives, etc. He's arguing that if voters wouldn't see any random person as needing/deserving to be able to do something, then nobody should be able to do it based on religion. Myself, I'd say sure, let kids carry knives, whether pocketknives (as people in my neck of the woods happily let kids in prior generations) or kirpans. On the other hand, the writer's dog-whistling, saying that we should only do something as crazy as let Sikh kids carry kirpans if we'd be willing to have a stabby bloodbath in our (well, Canadian) schools. While I'd love to be able to skip legal protection of enumerated rights, knowing that the government would respect my freedoms in every conceivable formulation, it ain't gonna happen. The best-case situation in Western society is that the government remains leery of obviously stepping on the rights that people most object to having abridged - free speech, religion, etc. ETA: And yes, that means that some people will have a "privilege" - ie, they'll be exempted from some stupid law that would harm or impair them even more than it does everyone else. In that case, the answer isn't to attack the privilege, it's to attack the thing the privilege protects against.
- a-priori 16y ago
  If kids want to go all stabby stabby in a school, they don't need ceremonial daggers to do it. It happened at my high school, in Canada, using a cooking knife stolen from the cafeteria kitchen.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Exactly. Or shivs, which turn up now and again.
    - forensic 16y ago
      Formally allowing weapons in school would arguably make schools less like prisons.
pkulak 16y ago
That's the worst headline I've ever read. I didn't even read the whole thing and it was part of a paragraph.

mingdingo 16y ago

Here's a good article by Christopher Hitchens on freedom of religion: http://www.slate.com/id/2266154 http://www.slate.com/id/2266154. Some examples of where he thinks religion oversteps its bounds: - Mormon polygamy - Christian sects that disapprove of medicine - Ritual circumcision (especially when the mohel sucks off the debris from the penis with his mouth) I would also add to that list the ritual slaughter of animals. Kosher and Halal both mandate that an animal cannot be stunned with a captive-bolt stunner before having their throats cut, and must be fully conscious. Needless to say, this cruelty only persists because of "freedom of religion". If you ever want to get away with things you otherwise couldn't get away with, freedom of religion is probably the most potent argument you could unleash.

avdempsey 16y ago
Even Hitchens' examples reflect some basic rights a civil libertarian should want to protect. Mormon polygamy: the government shouldn't be telling you who you can or can't marry. Christian sects that disapprove of medicine: the government shouldn't be forcing you to make changes to your body. Ritual circumcision (especially when the mohel sucks off the debris from the penis with his mouth): sounds gross to me, but the government shouldn't tell you what changes you can't make to your body, or how you provide care for a member of your tribe. Can government intervention in these areas bring about greater human well-being? Possibly, but I think the above are relatively self-regulating. Christian sects that disapprove of medicine (Christian Scientists for example) must contend with proliferating evidence of the benefits of scientific medicine. As long as scientists have freedom of speech too I suspect their membership will continue to decline in the US. Can government intervention in these areas bring about greater suffering? Absolutely. The US government currently intervenes in gay marriages, and recently intervened in abortions (and many in Congress would love to intervene here again!).
- patrickyeon 16y ago
  As fodder for discussion, where should the government's influence stand on issues of medicine or circumcision, as practiced by children's parents? At what point can the government say "your freedoms matter less to us than taking care of _your_ child the way _we_ believe it should be done"?

raganwald 16y ago

His examples are very carefully cherry-picked to support his claims. I'm to going to agree or disagree with his conclusions here, but an example that is useful for the purpose of discussion is the subject of turbans, such as the dastaars worn by the Sikhs he discusses. At one time the uniform for a police officer in Toronto (and I'm sure everywhere else in Canada) included a cap that was quite inconsistent with the Sikh practice for men to wear a dastaar. The law prohibiting discrimination against persons by reason of their religion is defined to include directly passing over someone because of their beliefs. But it is also held to include indirectly passing them over by way of rules and regulations that are inconsistent with their beliefs and practices unless there are strong reasons to enforce them. The rules about uniforms were in a grey area. There are good reasons for police officers to wear a consistent uniform. But would a Sikh in a dastaar really violate those good reasons? The police changed its rules and regulations to include the dastaar as an option, with its colour and the inclusion of a badge on the head just as the original cap holds a badge. Kirpans are a very contentious subject and reasonable people can and do disagree on how they should be handled. But dastaars are an example of places where a failure to provide legal protection for people to practice their religion could create an indirect discrimination that is inconsistent with Canadian values. The author points out that if there's no good reason for a rule, it should be abolished for everyone. One interesting point of discussion is this: If there is no specific rule protecting the freedom to practice one's religion, how would rules such as the uniform rule for the police ever evolve?

pkulak 16y ago
I don't think it's possible to wrongfully discriminate against someone based on their choices. If someone wants to be part of a religion that wears some special clothing, great, but then there may be sacrifices that go along with that choice. This isn't like not installing wheelchair ramps. People in wheelchairs aren't there because they choose to be.
- anamax 16y ago
  > People in wheelchairs aren't there because they choose to be. Is religion a choice? I ask because some religions forbid conversions "out", a few with rather serious penalties. Since most adherents of those religions are entered into them by their parents (that is, without their consent) ....

andreyf 16y ago

That's silly. Many laws are meant to minimize people harming each other. For example, the point of laws that control whether a child may bring a dagger to school is for the safety of minors, who don't have the neurobiological facilities to make good decisions (e.g. whether or not to bring a knife to school, or whether or not to use it). I imagine it's easily demonstrable that enforcement of those rules yields less stabbings than an "everyone bring your knives" policy. Now, before you think it, nobody is saying that such restrictions on freedom are the proper long term solution to stopping kids stabbing each other, and better solutions should be put in place, but in the meantime, lives are literally at stake. Of course, it's also easily demonstrable that Sikh children don't really ever kill each other with their ceremonial daggers. So frankly, I don't see a good argument as to why the law should never use race as a metric to optimize safety for minors while not infringing on the ceremonial customs of certain groups.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

charlesju 16y ago

I've come to realize that no moral issues can be boiled down into black and white. All moral debates have strong examples on either side. The goal of government, however, is not to take a stance on moral debates. It's to create laws that are amenable to both situations. I believe with this professor is trying to say is that the constitution, or written law, should not include laws that are categorically protective of civil liberties that may not be culturally acceptable. We need to break down civil liberties in this particular arena into more granular cases and judge based on those cases as opposed to an overarching blank check for religion.

known 16y ago

Your religion must be private. If you intend to make religion public via pony tails, emblems, beards, burkah, turbans etc, you're advertising your religion viz http://goo.gl/dHSA8 http://goo.gl/dHSA8 Govt will regulate every advertisement.

splat 16y ago
And you also must keep your political opinions private. If you intend to make your political opinions public via pamphlets, opinion editorials, posters, books, protests, etc. you're advertising your political opinions and the government can regulate your advertisement.
- known 16y ago
  God != Religion != Politics

yycom 16y ago

The problem with laws and regulations kowtowing to religion is who is the arbiter of authentic religions vs. other arbitrary mumbo jumbo? What stops me (or L. Ron Hubbard) from inventing a religion specifically contrary the law so I can evade responsibility for paying tax, enslavement, or eating babies?

zupatol 16y ago

Freedom of religion is something else than making exceptions to other laws because of religion. Freedom of religion is the right to believe whatever you want and not be discriminated because of it. There needs to be a freedom of religion because there is such a strong tendency to discriminate against minority religions. Similarly the law needs to be the same for men and women, but the tendency to discriminate is so strong that there needs to be a law against discrimination based on gender.

dkarl 16y ago

Let's leave aside the fact that it's no business of the government whether we are disrespectful to each other's religions, as well as Justice Charron's call for schools to indoctrinate children. Schools have to indoctrinate children. They're freaking _children_. It's normal childish behavior to lie when they're afraid of getting in trouble, hit other children or destroy their property when they get angry, disrupt lessons when they're bored, and ridicule others when they sense weakness. Discipline and indoctrination about proper behavior can't stop when parents drop their children off at school. If you don't want your kid indoctrinated by someone else, if you can't handle the idea of your kid being partly raised by people who may have different ideas from you, then school just isn't going to work. Forget about school, and forget about tee ball, summer camp, piano lessons, hell, forget about church, because you don't know the exact behavioral standards the Sunday school teachers might enforce. Just keep your child at home and you never have to worry about anyone indoctrinating your kid except you.

Semiapies 16y ago

You know, I get the funny feeling that some of my fellow atheists believe that if we got rid of "freedom of religion", it'd only be those crazy religionists who'd be affected or restricted, while we could gloat on the sidelines. Considering that those of us in the US had to have a Supreme Court case to protect us from being forced to take part in group prayers in school, the far more likely case is that without a protected freedom of religion, the majority merrily pushes around various minorities on a religious basis. Look at how poorly Muslims poll and how they're demonized by many in the US - and then recall that polls say Americans regard atheists even more negatively. (And no, Canada is no utopia devoid of religious bullying.)