I think most people in Canada, and by most people I mean a good eighty percent, would agree that the mixing of religion and politics is a bad thing, or that at least it leads to a seriously messed up society.
After all, one of the reasons why our European forefathers and mothers immigrated to the west was to get away from all that ‘Divine right’ nonsense in the first place.
Point proven by the rise of secularism in Europe after the French revolutions and after its ideological importation into North America, in the United States and Canada by Thomas Paine, Jefferson and subsequently George Brown.
Why is mixing religion and government a bad thing? some may question.
Well, leaving aside some of the nonsense and dogmas some religious people believe, it wouldn’t in itself be a bad thing if the entire population of Canada were say of one denomination, e.g. Christian.
Then, all can easily subscribe to the same religious laws.
However, we live in an inevitably multicultural and multi-religious world, which requires us to have a system that is inclusive of all faiths, all political attitudes and also of non-belief.
The only system that can effectively do that in this century and most likely in all centuries to come, is secularism. And again, most likely, all future systems of governance will include some form of separation between church and state. Any reversal of such a system will only produce a sectarian and theocratic society, unfree and under the tyranny of a vicious majority.
So, I ask myself: Why is it that Christian movements in Canada and the U.S., like the PEI Family Party, insist upon fusing their religion with politics? And more viciously attempt to make their religious dogmas, law?
Really the more extreme the dogma, the more these people will get laughed out of civilized society!
For example, the Prince Edward Island Family Party, openly proposed on its website to remove from teaching materials mention of “deviant sexual behaviour”, including lesbianism, sodomy and transvestism.
Alright, so far so good, straight from the Christian textbook.
I am perplexed though as to why the Family Party called this initiative “protecting children from sexual indoctrination”, because I was under the impression that if you wished to prevent indoctrination, then you must expose as many individuals to as many different ways of thinking as possible. Also, you’d need to use a multitude of examples to demonstrate certain points.
Isn’t indoctrination the opposite of that: exposing individuals to only a single point of view instead of many?
The PEI Family Party should at least fly under its true colors.
They are the colors of a movement that wishes to combine politics with religious practice and belief. And consequently have everyone else in PEI subscribe to their Christian ethical code.
The PEI Family Party and the CHP, Christian Heritage Party, the other right wing religious party in Canada, should finally put a sock in it and stop acusing the secular world of indoctrination.
