The discourse in favor of the establishment of places of prayer in schools is largely based on the desire for good understanding. This is an argument put forward in particular by religious leaders.
Pierre Murray, Secretary General of the Assembly of Quebec Catholic Bishops, said this in The Journal of Quebec : “ […] whether children get together to play chess in a room, to do yoga, to improvise or to pray, these are social activities that are equal”. Imam Hassan Guillet2In The Pressspoke of a “storm in a teacup”.
Both are wrong. Deeply wrong.
We are not talking about chess, but about religion: religion is a force that transforms the world, not always for the better. We understand Messrs. Guillet and Murray to be willfully blind on this subject, they preach for their parish, but the State cannot afford it.
Let’s first do a little portrait of what is happening in the world before returning to our schools.
For women’s rights, the worst countries in the world are theocracies, states where clerics govern, such as in Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. In Israel and Turkey, the religious demonstrate that progress is not inevitable, they are pushing their societies backwards.
In the United States, when we talk about the excesses of the right, we often forget the adjective “religious” to define it. It is because of the influence of religious movements on the right that the right to abortion is declining, that access to the abortion pill is limited, that the rights of sexual minorities are attacked, that the relationship to sexuality is twisted, that the definition of family is prehistoric, that books are banned. English Canada is no exception to this trend3.
Everywhere in the world, when women’s rights recede, religion is not far away.
It is because of the Church that Quebec women were the last in North America to have the right to vote. If Quebec had not rejected the Church with such force, the Quiet Revolution would not have taken place. What has been called “the great darkness” is primarily a religious fact.
In the organization that Bishop Murray represents, there are no priestesses. There is no popess. His organization is against contraception, against abortion, against the rights of sexual minorities. The practices and dogmas of the Catholic Church are fundamentally sexist.
It is the same thing in the Muslim religion represented by Imam Guillet. In a mosque, men and women are not subject to the same rules. In terms of inheritance, divorce or “modesty”, the rights of each differ.
The political positions of the Muslim authorities often resemble those of the Catholics. The practices and dogmas of the Muslim religion are also fundamentally sexist.
I could talk about the Jewish religion or the different types of Protestantism. There are variations, there are degrees, but the situation of women and sexual minorities is generally the same4.
Obviously, the balance sheet of religions is not only negative, but the above examples should encourage us to be wary of them and, above all, to clearly define the place that the State gives them or does not give them, particularly in the ‘school5.
We are witnessing, in the West at least, a great return to religion. The instrumentalization of charters of rights and freedoms as well as the idea of diversity by religious organizations to accentuate the presence of religion in public institutions is a well-documented reality. A group of Tunisian women in favor of secularism called this reality a “religious snack”6. We must fight this movement.
Allowing the installation of a prayer room in a school, wearing a religious symbol, or marking religious holidays (as many politicians do) are all positions taken on the religious fact. These are not neutral gestures, they are concessions to this “nibbling” that threatens important values.
No, the issue of the prayer rooms is neither a storm in a teacup nor equivalent to a yoga session. It is the duty of the State to protect secularism, without which equality between men and women, the rights of sexual minorities or even the freedom not to believe could very well become the sacrifices of goodwill.
1. I borrowed the title of this column from a book of the same name which deals with the French-speaking people of the Pontiac, some of whom were assimilated because the government and the Church left behind English-speaking Orange priests (today, we would say racist) apply in Quebec territory an Ontario law prohibiting the teaching of French (regulation 17). Fascinating story.
4. To read: Tristane Banon, The peril God. All religions are sexist.