Loading ...What He Said
This was written by Charles Lewis for the National Post.
On Monday, the Post editorial board contended that Montreal’s Loyola High School should not have the right to opt out of a Quebec government-sponsored ethics and religion program — despite a court ruling allowing it to do so — because it receives public funds.
The argument seems fair on the surface: The assumption is that as a religious school, Loyola is somehow outside the public sphere and therefore should be grateful for whatever public support it gets. But what the editorial fails to recognize is that public money does not mean secular money.
Funds that end up in the government’s coffers come from all sorts of people, including religious people, who pay taxes like everyone else. Why should those religious taxpayers be beholden to non-religious taxpayers?
There is an increasingly common notion in our society that religious people need to stand in a corner and behave; that their stake in society is somewhere on the fringe and the “rest” of society occupies some sane middle ground. There is a knee jerk assumption that the values transmitted by the state are always superior to those taught by those who hold religious values. But this is merely a heavy-handed tenet of the state religion called secularism.
Finally, there is an assumption in society that only religious people can be intolerant and that the state is always neutral. But that is beyond naive. Secularism has become as much a theology as religious teaching. And in a fair society, there should be room for both, not just one.
National Post
clewis@nationalpost.com
This article was published Tuesday on the Post’s op-ed pages.
Charles Lewis writes about religion for the National Post and is the editor of Holy Post
