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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 c
by 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 agoDefinitely. 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 agoI agree, but isn't half of journalism the catchy headline that raises your article above the noise and into the spotlight?
- irrelative 16y agoI 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoAnd 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 agoYou'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 agoTo be fair... how often is the Ottawa Citizen linked to from Hacker News? I'd say it worked splendidly!
- Semiapies 16y agoWell, 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 agoIf 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.
- pkulak 16y agoThat's the worst headline I've ever read. I didn't even read the whole thing and it was part of a paragraph.