The moral price of a passport; thank the Buddha for secular humanists

Christie Blatchford of the Globe can distinguish between dung and shinola (full text not online).
...
What the controversy has revealed as starkly as anything else is a remarkable lack of courage in media and government quarters...

Denunciations of violence are useful, but not so much when fear of inciting more of it serves to turn the speaker mush-mouthed. Was that really Canada's new Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay who in a statement this week said that "this sensitive issue highlights the need for a better understanding of Islam and of the Muslim community?"..

...We Canucks think we have the best passport in the world...I regret to say we appear determined to keep it that way, whatever the cost.

While Dan Gardner of the Ottawa Citizen finds a certain Louise Arbour of the United Nations unacceptable (full text not online).
...
In early December, Ms. Arbour [UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and erstwhile justice of the Supreme Court of Canada] responded in a letter to an Islamic organization that had complained to the UN about the cartoons. "I understand your reaction to the images that appeared in the newspaper," she wrote. "I find alarming any behaviours that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable."

I have to admit that my first thought when I read that statement was, "thank Christ she's not on the Supreme Court any more." But then I realized that some people might find that offensive. So I thought about slipping in a quick word of gratitude to Allah as well, but given the current circumstances, maybe not. A nice, generic "thank God" would do, I suppose, except I am a secular humanist who believes all religions are dangerous nonsense...

So I decided not to thank anyone for the fact that Ms. Arbour and her censorious views views are no longer shaping the laws of this country. I will just say I am pleased.

If that offends anyone, I apologize. Please don't kill me.

But if you do, we're even.

I wonder how our current Supreme Court would rule on this.

"We are trying our best to avoid a demonstration," Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said.

Instead, imams want the federal and Quebec governments to pass laws making anti-Islamic action a hate crime.

Posted by markc at February 10, 2006 09:38 AM | TrackBack