University Diaries » ’This is one of the longest hearings in the Supreme Court of Canada’s history—and is the single hearing with the most governmental and civil society interveners in Canadian history—signaling its significance to Canada’s social and legal landscape.’

Anyone who cares about the right of secular states to maintain their sense of what state neutrality means should take some interest in the drama in Ottawa this week. The Court is hearing challenges to Quebec’s existing, and expanding, restrictions on religious garb in certain public sector jobs.

For UD, the matter is plain:

“With public service come responsibilities, among which is refraining from advertising one’s faith,” writes one local commentator. More precisely, another observer asks:

“How would an immigrant of Palestinian origin, contesting a conviction, feel in front of a judge wearing a kippah? Inversely, how would a young driver wearing a kippah feel faced with a policewoman wearing a hijab who just gave him a ticket?”

Just as importantly, the public realm of a secular state should, by definition, express the state’s secular convictions, which crucially involve the equality of women and men. Burqas (still legal outside of Quebec), and full-body veiling with most of the face veiled, are worn only by women and – scandalously – female children. Muslim boys and men would of course never hide themselves because they are a superior breed, not subject to the strictures which must hide the identity of girls and women.

Myriad forms of gender apartheid remain rampant in many Muslim communities. Recall the history of segregation even in British universities. And it still ain’t over.

For a truly egalitarian polity, public sector restrictions on private faith advertising seem to UD a no-brainer. We’ll see how the Canadian Supreme Court rules.

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Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
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