… how massive majorities in UD‘s Maryland want the assisted suicide law that Illinois just voted in (it’s the thirteenth state to do so), but powerful religious lobbies have been able to block the legislation.

It’s hard to read the actual religious justification for letting dying people undergo protracted suffering without your eyes bugging out. National Review, which takes itself to be a respectable national publication, should be ashamed for publishing this mad screed, which tartly instructs us that God wants us to suffer because he loves us, and if you have trouble making sense of that, tough titties.

How can the strong will of a populace (62% of Maryland’s Catholics want assisted suicide) be overruled by obscurantist sadism?

Can’t be a judge in Germany if you won’t take off your hijab. Reasons here.

This harsh attack on Quebec’s evolving secularism laws chastises that province for failure to love diversity, but nowhere makes an effort to figure out why, in certain parts of the world (see France), large majorities vote decisively in favor of a secular public realm. Nowhere does the writer note that burqas are banned in countless countries, many of them middle eastern. Nowhere does she wonder why people find the sight of three year old girls in hijabs and thick black robes disturbing. She appears to find comments like this one, from a Canadian day care owner about her staff, convincing:

“I have had [college] students [who work in the day care center] that have been wearing burqas and hijabs. And it did not affect the way they interacted with the children. Actually, it was a very good thing because the children were curious and they were asking a lot of questions and they wanted to know why were they different, why were they wearing that. And, you know, so again, it gives them the opportunity to understand and to learn something that they may not have been exposed to otherwise.”

Indeed, very young female children spending all day with women whose very mouths are covered up (along with everything else except their eyes) are going to find that curious for sure and are going to want to know why they can’t see their teacher. What a wonderful early lesson in diversity for them to know that certain cultures insist women be totally hidden from the world. No doubt they are learning inspiring truths about their gender and how it is valued.

Anyone who thinks there’s the slightest difficulty interacting with someone who won’t let you see their face, or the mere contours of their body, or even their hands, is a party pooper.

Which is to say – if you’re to go all-out against any form of public secularity, you’re going to have to take seriously the grounds of majority opposition to some forms of public religiosity.

Organizers of a marathon where participants said fuck you to a hijab/black winding sheet as their running outfit have been arrested for“violating public decency.”

If he’d met her at a Catholic singles meet and greet; if she’d been in her mid-twenties… But… nah…

Quebec’s secularizing like mad, adding further restrictions on religious activity/symbols in public settings.

… Bill 21, which was passed in 2019 […] placed a prohibition on ostentatious religious symbols being worn by certain government employees, including teachers, judges, police officers, effectively banning kippahs, turbans, and hijabs. Bill 94, [which is about to pass], extended that ban throughout the entire school system, throughout the entire public education network, extending to cafeteria workers, parent volunteers, daycare personnel, janitors. […] It also imposed a ban on face coverings in the elementary and high school network, as well as banning the use of school property for religious purposes, meaning facilities couldn’t be rented out in the evenings and weekends for religious purposes by local mosques, churches or synagogues. And the Quebec government was very clear that there was more coming. 

… [There will be] a total ban on face coverings from daycare through to university. That means no kneecaps or burkas… Parents coming in will not be allowed to have a face covering. That’s being banned. What’s also going to be banned are halal-only food menus for daycares, the subsidized daycares, so that toddlers have a choice in what they’re eating.

As well, another ban on using the property, prayer rooms in colleges and universities: out.

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Nothing scandalous here, if the separation of church and state means a lot to you, as it does to Quebec.

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‘There has been some pushback from the Quebec bishops to the prayer ban. Bishop Martin Laliberté, president of the Quebec Bishops’ Assembly, published an open letter asserting that the “secular nature of the State does not require the secular nature of society.” In an opinion piece for La Presse, Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine wrote that state secularism does “not require the public erasure of faith in society.”

But in a province where only 2 percent of the Catholic population attend weekly Mass, and the political class is tone-deaf if not outright hostile toward religion, the Church is a weak voice in the “common culture” wilderness. One can hope that the saints of New France are interceding on behalf of the new, secular Quebec.‘

This is from the notorious First Things, vehicle of Vermeuleism, so whaddaya expect? Why, given high-profile nutbags running around calling for burning people at the stake, are you surprised that lots of people feel outright hostility toward religion?

And uh actually yes a secular state is overwhelmingly likely to want a shared public life (call it “society”) as free as possible from overtly religious prayers and parades and meetings and proselytizing and all. I wasn’t terribly happy, as a secular person walking around Salt Lake City, to be repeatedly approached by groups of Mormons inviting me to join their church. But I recognize Utah as a very religious state, and okay. Quebec on the other hand is a very secular province, and religious people there should extend the same sort of courtesy.

Even with the new laws, you are apparently going to be able in Quebec to apply for local permission to hold outdoor religious events. Particular municipalities will probably make their own decisions. ‘Short public events with prior approval are exempt.’

You might just take a gander at my FORMS OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE category to see some of the reasons.

More clarity from the clergy.

A member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts notes the failure of the country’s H-H infrastructure:

“Drought, water crisis, and reduced rainfall are signs of God’s warning to awaken us from negligence and inattentiveness toward Him. The Islamic Revolution is built on the blood of martyrs, and it is not right that our streets become a parade ground for open sin, unveiled women, and public immorality. These behaviors have consequences…”

… yellow stars.

Respect for all forms and practices of religion is so engrained in us that passionate defenses of secularism may feel bigoted. But for strikingly secular countries and provinces (France, Quebec), the rejection of burqas in the public realm, for instance, expresses a reasonable desire that the lived reality of their laicité, the laicité of the courts, schoolrooms, and streets, be maintained. How secular is your culture if city thoroughfares feature large outdoor prayer?

Some religious practices are disgusting (FGM) but difficult to stop because imams preach their necessity from the pulpit; some are objectionable to modern people (gender segregation, face/body veiling) because of their graphic derogation of women. The reason you see so many European countries banning burqas and arresting people who cut off children’s clitorises is because they feel passionately that some forms of behavior denominated religious range anywhere from unacceptably uncivil to outright criminal.

Religious or cultural practices that deliberately and cruelly harm children must be confronted. No tradition can ever justify torture. A girl’s body does not belong to her father, her family or her community. Her integrity is not a token for tradition, not an ornament for family honor and not a site for control. It belongs to her alone. 

Beating women and stoning women, as well, is no special scandal to high-profile Muslim intellectual/rapist Tariq Ramadan. He is far from alone.

So yeah, Quebecers are passionately secular, and this blog doesn’t have a problem with their being so. Details here.

“If there are no changes within the Haredi community that succeed in bringing them into the 21st century and making them understand that without core curriculum studies, a modern society cannot function, in 30-40 years, Israel will be a theocratic state.“

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2025/10/dauphin-county-pastor-under-fire-for-pointing-assault-style-rifle-during-sermon.html

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1532976134540145

… are the most religious.

Trends.

Killing babies and lethally imperiling the rest of the population: The ultraorthodox way.

Responsible ultraorthodox are vaccinating. These people are however unable to stop the insane among their lot from letting children fall ill.