Why do we need an Office of Religious Freedom? Is not freedom of religion firmly enshrined in Canada, not only in the Bill of Rights but also in Section 2 of the Charter of rights and freedoms?
So why do we need this office now?Admittedly, there are few details about the mandate of the Office of Religious Freedom, except, "the office will help other countries share the blessing of our religious freedom."
I already hate it.
Why can't the religious right grasp that maintaining a secular government is what gives us our freedom of religion? The moment religion gets mixed up with government or vice versa; people of other beliefs are persecuted. Surely we've learned from history that theocracy breeds religious persecution.
With considerable prescience, the U.S. founders empowered both church and state by unequivocally separating them in the U.S. constitution.
This is why our government should be secular. Government shouldn't have religious departments such as this. It shouldn't have invocations at meetings, prayers at ceremonies, the saying of "Grace" at luncheons, or the Prime Minister saying "God Bless Canada" at the end of every speech.
And we certainly don't need to see Canadians from an Office of Religious Freedom trotting behind American evangelists, lecturing the world about freedom of religion.
Religion should be practised at home and in places of worship and we should be scrupulous in keeping it out of our government.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird rationalizes that, "When you have religious freedoms, other freedoms take care of themselves" Perhaps, but our government shouldn't encourage human rights by promoting religious freedom.
We should do the opposite.
If we focus on promoting human rights, religious freedom will, as Baird says, "take care of itself," without our government playing an inappropriate, evangelistic role.
Just because American Tea Party zealots have successfully insinuated religion back into their politics doesn't mean we Canadians should let it happen here.
What's wrong with Canada's taking a stand for religious freedom around the world is simply this: by doing so, we run the risk of foisting our beliefs about religion on someone else - the very thing we're trying to combat.
Let's keep our freedom of religion - by religiously keeping religion away from our government.
