After outcry, Quebec hospital restores crucifix taken down in interest of religious neutrality

[Heddi]

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/after-outcry-quebec-hospital-restores-crucifix-taken-down-in-interest-of-religious-neutrality

MONTREAL — After a patient complained last month about the presence of a large crucifix on the wall of the publicly funded Saint-Sacrament Hospital in Quebec City, management determined that in the interest of the “religious neutrality of the state,” it should come down.

It seemed a reasonable response in a province where religious symbols are frequently seen as an affront to secularism. A bill now before the National Assembly would prohibit Muslim women who wear the face-covering niqab from receiving government services in the interest of “fostering adherence to State religious neutrality.”

But when it comes to religious symbols in Quebec, some are more equal than others.

..
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said Wednesday that he does not think “people from other cultures” are bothered to see Christ hanging from a cross in the provincial legislature or in a hospital.


“Managing this question of diversity does not mean turning our back to our heritage and our history,” he told reporters.

..
The hospital had said it decided to remove the crucifix because patients are not there by choice and religious symbols can have a “coercive” character for some. “We must first respect the rights of our patients, who are in a way confined in the institution,” the hospital wrote in a statement.


Bernard Drainville, the former Parti Québécois cabinet minister who championed a charter of Quebec values that would have prohibited public servants from wearing the hijab or kippa, urged listeners of his Quebec City radio show to sign the petition.

Étienne Dumas, a spokesman for the group, applauded the government’s intervention to have the crucifix returned. He said he does not think people of other faiths should take offence.

“I don’t think they’ll faint over this,” he said. “We are in our country. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

Quebec City Archbishop Gérald Cyprien Lacroix had urged the hospital to return the crucifix. Its removal, he said, showed “a lack of sensitivity toward our people and its history, as well as a lack of respect toward the religious women who founded the hospital and who worked there for many decades.”

..
Barrette said he understands that some people might see a double standard in the attention paid to restricting minority religious symbols in Quebec while people leap to the defence of a Catholic symbol hanging in a hospital or the legislature. But he said they are mistaken.

“It’s not a symbol of authority,” he said of the cross. “It’s heritage.”
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Ah! How quaint. Discrimination okay for thee but not for me

[old guy]

1. Disgust is the least of my emotions on this type of double standard.

No sir, they are not mistaken.

[guillaumeb]

2. 400 plus years of heritage.

From the article:

Bernard Drainville, the former Parti Québécois cabinet minister who championed a charter of Quebec values that would have prohibited public servants from wearing the hijab or kippa, urged listeners of his Quebec City radio show to sign the petition.

The proposed Chartre des Valeurs Québécois did not pass among an electorate that, correctly in my opinion, saw it as very thinly disguised Islamophobia. Former Premier Pauline Marois, an open atheist by the way, pushed the CVQ as her poll numbers were falling. So was this atheist using Islamophobia as a political tactic?

The Parti Québécois also has a history of advocating for a separation of Québéc from the rest of Canada. While I understand the motivation behind the separatism, the Islamophobia should always be rejected.