Editor:
Re: Muslim group lauds anti-racism motion, March 29.
I find the recent motion that was passed in Parliament regarding Islamophobia to be somewhat confusing.
A phobia is defined an extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something, for example: spiders, small spaces, going outside, or even religion.
Islamophobia would be defined as the fear of a specific religion. Catholicophobia, Protestantophobia, Hinduismophobia, Buddhismophobia and Judaismophobia would be examples of the fear of specific religions.
The motion that was presented in Parliament last month implies that having a fear of something would be against the law.
This is ridiculous. How can you make it illegal for someone to fear something. This would imply that anyone who had a fear of a religion could be taken to court and charged with having a fear of a religion. Absurd is it not?
Judge: You are charged with having a fear of religion. How do you plead?
Passing a law making it illegal to fear a specific religion is even more absurd.
Judge: You are charged with having a fear of Catholics and Protestants. How do you plead?
A law passed making it illegal to have a fear of a specific religion is totally not acceptable in Canada!
If there is a law passed making it illegal to have a fear of religion, then all religions should be held in equal status and it should be illegal for any citizen to be afraid of any religion. No religion should be set apart and placed in a higher status in the list of phobias.
If one religion is put into a higher status than others within the laws of the country, then we are creating a very controversial situation. In some countries government and religion are one. In our country, this is not the case and it should remain this way. Keep specific religious terms and religions out of government.
Also, the raising of a specific religion to a higher status by passing a law making it illegal to have a fear of that specific religion puts that religion in a position of being better than other religions and also like “the point of a spear” in that, once that religion is raised to a higher level of consideration then there will be further attempts to have it raised to even higher levels.
Under the Canadian Charter all religions are given equal status. Let’s keep it that way.
Section 15 of the Charter states: “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”
Needless to say, this motion is not only absolutely ridiculous but unacceptable to Canadian standards and should have no further consideration by the federal government.
Roger Currie, Surrey
