FREEDOM OF SPEECH & RELIGION

by GARY JONES  for Urbane Magazine
FROM VOL I: Issue 1, Spring 2010

Canada: nation of religious pluralism and our home more often than it is our native land. Certainly, it was by the ‘Grace of God’ that our official head of state and ‘Defender of the Faith’, Queen Elizabeth II, signed the constitution of a nation ‘founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God’. Our constitutional rights and freedoms, those undeniable liberties that provide this, our ‘true north strong and free’, are documented as being granted to us by an unknowable being working through an unelected individual. That’s what we get for letting our Prime Minister pirouette behind her back.

Why must the basis of our freedom be so bound by those who indignantly claim unquestionable authority by divine mandate? Why must we be so fettered by beliefs so far removed from our notions of personal liberty that if we were to call it by any name other than religion, we would have done away with it all long ago? Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was mostly right in infamously claiming ‘we face an aggressive secular attack from without’; he simply neglected to mention that the attack had been ongoing since the birth of free speech and the creation of individual liberty.

Perhaps a bright side: this hypocrisy is on par with the rest of the developed world. Let us look at our neighbours to the south. Irrelevant of whether George H.W. Bush genuinely claimed that those who held no belief in God should not be considered ‘citizens’ (the quote is unsourced), few would deny the stranglehold of faith on the government of the United States. Remember the release during the Bush administration of presidential briefing slides prepared by the Department of Defence slathered with biblical quotations advocating war in Iraq; few would deny the singular and unquestioning pliability of the supplicant in the face of faith, a state terrifyingly irrelevant of a position as incorruptible as that of ‘Head of State’.
Ever-present in the American media is the oft-touted ‘defence of the family’; no longer at ease defending the ‘unnatural’ marriage of mixed-race couples, the bigots must move to the next easy target: the right to same-sex marriage, frequent citing theistic condemnation of such behaviour. Of course, when presented rates of divorce and extramarital affairs conducted despite ‘holy matrimony’, questions as to the sanctity of marriage are written off as obscene slander.

Let us look at the highly developed nation of Ireland, which, now past the bloody revolution that spawned its independence, has had the world’s first consecutive election of a female head of state (now followed by German Chancellor, Angela Merkel). Yet now they have put their yoke on free speech, having written into law a €25,000 maximum fine for any statement or material “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion”. Surely, religions would never perpetuate acts worthy of criticism?

The Netherlands has no small reputation for their progressive social system  and for their consistent application of secular legislation to encourage the freedom of the individual. Now, it is a powderkeg of religious tensions that is left untouched by the overt movement by the Dutch government to protect at all costs the status quo.

The assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh for his film, which criticized Islamically-rationalized misogyny and abuse was followed by governmental neglect in dealing with attempts at citizenship renewal by critic/victim of Islam and refugee-turned-Dutch-politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali. To say the least, the Netherlands has been tiptoeing about the daffodils, hoping to avoid stirring up the sentiments of its Muslim population. Political cartoonist, pseudonym ‘Gregorius Nekschot’ was arrested for the internet publication of several cartoons satirizing what he termed ‘Islamically-inspired apartheid against women’; despite the arrest, he has maintained that free speech ‘should never go to the point of calling for violence’. Given the 139 dead from the earlier Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy in Denmark (where the Prophet Muhammud was portrayed as wearing a turban-bomb), there are understandable consequences to freedom of expression, but why is it that the expression that condemns the religious evoke such violence?

It is the nature of criticism to provoke some degree of response, preferably responding with amendments or amelioration of the criticized practice. While it can be unrealistic to expect amicable resolution at every disagreement, a stated avoidance of violence should at least be an indicator of what separates civilized discourse from the barbaric. This need for a rational response, rather than a physical one, is a common feature of our enacted civil legislature. But where is this a feature in religion; ‘Do unto others…’, right? In the same book where we are told to turn the other cheek, we are told to stone to death those who work on the Sabbath, or those that do wrong to their parents. In the same book where we are charged not to harm the innocent, a mere dissension from the faith, even to speak against it, is an act punishable by death. In the same book where we are commanded to honour the family, we are compelled to demean women and children as mere possessions.

The apologists of faith cite the favourable passages, claiming it as the origin for all morality or ethical behaviour. The more unsavory commandments are gently excused as being relics of the times. We should be so fortunate as to implicate the entire body of belief in being similarly antiquated and ignorant. To claim that the Sun revolves around the earth is to invite correction; to claim that dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans is to invite instruction; to claim that so-called divine precepts are of questionable value is to apparently invite violence and aggression. So precious and unquestionable is the literarily inspired opinion of theism that disputation is impossible, even if discussion is based on evidence, rather than ideology.

Return to Canada now, where the threats to free speech loom from above, below, and all sides. After a failed attempt to change the previously legalized ability of homosexuals to marry, our evangelical Christian Prime Minister instead cut budgets for women’s advocacy, and for certain gay-related festivals. This was timed closely to legislature that would protect religious groups from discrimination charges should any action be based on religious belief.

But we Canadians also have the Canadian Human Rights Comission. Surely, these upholders of liberty would reduce the double standards on free speech between individuals and religious organizations. Well, only so much. In December 2008, Montreal Salafist imam A.H.S. al-Hayiti was brought to court for his online book which advocated the beheading of homosexuals, as well as the killing of those who blasphemed against the prophet Muhammed, ‘be they muslim or not’ (directly translated from French). In marked contrast to that aforementioned Dutch author, it was firmly ruled that the imam’s writings ‘did not seem’ to promote hatred as defined by the commission’s criteria for the act. Lest we forget the Criminal Code of Canada, as “under Section 318, it is a criminal act to “advocate or promote genocide” – to call for, support, encourage or argue for the killing of members of a group based on colour, race, religion or ethnic origin”. Yet, to do so religiously is to apparently avoid blame. In particular, this ruling was loudly criticized by the National Post, among others, who stated-

“It is increasingly obvious these commissions were set up deliberately to lower the standard of proof and get around rules of natural justice, thereby ensuring people who would never be convicted in court are punished to the satisfaction of the activists and special interest groups that hover around the tribunals.”

Which special interest groups would these be? Well, Tarek Fatah, a prominent founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, denoted the links between the chrc, The Canadian Islamic Congress, and the Canadian Arab Foundation, these latter two of which displayed ‘contempt for Canadian values’. The closeness of the three groups was rather protested by Tarek Fatah, who, despite his Muslim status, is strongly critical of the ‘Islamicist’ mentality of some chrc members. As Fatah noted- “Our human rights cannot revolve around religion. It’s not about [religious] rights, it’s about human rights.”

Certainly, our local system of justice must be far more cognizant of the need for abolishing the double standard when enforcing the law—but again, unfortunate occurrences remonstrate the optimistic.
Justin Trottier, an outspoken leader in the Toronto secular community, and Executive Director of the Center for Inquiry Canada, experienced both aggression and humiliation in one unfortunate moment. When putting up advertisement for a public discussion on the recently published “God: The Failed Hypothesis”, he was approached by a pair of individuals who voiced their disapproval. This followed with a defacing of one of the print advertisements. Sometime later, Trottier was again approached by the pair, and this time, was physically assaulted, with nothing but verbal protests from Trottier. Coming out of the incident shaken and bloodied, the evident motivation would lead one to consider this a hate crime. But, there are no recourses for atheists; Justin’s assault was recorded as any commonplace fistfight. To write on a bathroom wall, ‘Jews burn in hell’ is to commit an hate crime; why must this overt religiously-fuelled physical beating be treated any less severely? Again, the ugly double standards rear their head.

“I think I discovered the hard way the boundaries of freedom of speech,” said Justin Trottier. “The fact that an atheist should fear for his well being while advertising for a university event that seeks to promote free inquiry is alarming, and though I feared for my life briefly, I’ve never felt as strong about my atheism. My colleagues and I have only strengthened our resolve to forge ahead with our agenda to push for secularism, science and freedom of thought.”

We Canadians are a privileged group. Our naivety speaks for itself, and it is still largely oblivious to the overtones of inviolable and unquestionable sacrosanct ideologies. From the standpoint of government, it must first be admitted that nothing is sacred. Above all else that we must hold true as a fundament of our democracy– is the primacy of free speech.