I used to be very adamant about rejecting this sort of "religious freedom". I remember being pretty offended when a Sikh man refused to wear the RCMP hat (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) because of his Turban. If I was still in this mindset I would have a very short answer for you.
I'm different now though. Apparently the number of Canadian Muslims will almost match the number of Roman Catholics by 2050 - and immigrants will make up 100% of our population growth at that point too (we will have a birth rate that matches our native mortality rate, according to PEW statistics). I'm not saying this is a bad thing; in fact I welcome it. Canada really is a mixed bag of cultural background, so it will be very interesting to see how the "religious freedom" argument unfolds over the next 40 years. To be clear, I welcome this future.
I know that Denmark just announced today that they are banning circumcision on boys under the age of 18, which will no doubt disgruntle any Jews or Muslims living there. They'll probably make a big fuss about having to travel out of country to private clinics to get the procedure done, and claim it is an affront to their religious freedom. But this is a health matter (public clinics in Denmark would not perform procedure, private clinics were very unsanitary) and not a "public safety" matter like veils/burqas. Besides, in Canada our gun violence is so non-existent compared to the USA that the "hiding a gun" argument doesn't hold much water. I mean the Hutterites like stealing stuff from my local Superstore and hiding it in their religious attire (big skirts and such) and they are arguably more conservative than Muslims. I guess it's a wonder we haven't been robbed by militant Hutterites yet!
Really I don't think it's a big deal. I know some people will use the "foot-in-the-door" argument but that's just fear mongering. If in 50 years we have a Muslim PM who bans the wearing of Hockey Jerseys well then I'll have something to say!
#1 Amb-ass-ador
