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Eugene Volokh links to a proposed UN resolution to "Combat[] Defamation of Religions" in general, and specifically, to attack "the negative projection of Islam in the media and the introduction and enforcement of laws that specifically discriminate against and target Muslims."
That kind of reminds me of the SNL Weekend Update gag a few weeks ago about things that contribute to a negative image of Islam, viz., terrorism, but also of something else that was at Volokh a couple of weeks ago: a town in Quebec adopted
a "declaration of norms" that it says would-be immigrants should be aware of before they settle in this town ... B'nai Brith Quebec deemed the declaration "an anti-immigrant, anti-ethnic backlash" and Salam Elmenyawi, head of the Muslim Council of Montreal, called it insulting. "Why are they picking on Islam and Muslims?" he asked, adding he wonders why the Herouxville council hasn't weighed in on society's ills in general."
Wow! What were these "anti-immigrant, anti-ethnic" norms that the town of Herouxville was going to impose on residents? What are these horrible proscriptions by which they "pick[] on Islam and Muslims?" Well, let's see. Inter alia:
it is forbidden to stone women or burn them with acid. Children cannot carry weapons to school. That includes ceremonial religious daggers ... However, children can swim in a pool with other children — boys and girls alike because they can't be segregated. And for the record, female police officers ... can arrest male suspects. Also part of the declaration is to allow women to drive, dance and make decisions on their own.
Here's a hint: if you want to fight back against the "negative projection of Islam," you could start by not voluntarily characterizing a law that forbids brutalizing women as one that "specifically discriminate[s] against and target Muslims." If Islam doesn't tolerate "ston[ing] women or burn[ing] them with acid," this isn't a law targeting muslims. If it does tolerate such things, then you're going to need a lot more than a resolution by the United Nations to dispel that "negative projection."
I would again recommend Phyllis Chesler's excellent book The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom.
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Absolutely Repugnant
Is the only proper description of these sorts of severe assaults on free speech. And it shows why we should resist such gentle sounding proposals as outlawing hate speech. That prohibition is already being used to promote policies that basically outlaw criticizing religion in anything but Victorian parlor terms.
That being said, part of the Herouxville policy really was quite intolerant and offensive. The thing about weapons in school is targeted at Sikhs who believe they must carry kirpans as a central tenet of faith. I've never heard of anyone being attacked with a kirpan (it's a religious object, not really a weapon) and Sikhs aren't exactly at war with the west, although they get profiled plenty at the airport.
But most of it is totally reasonable. It's especially valuable for us to try and advocate better gender norms to new Muslim immigrants. I just think they took it a little far, and far more confrontationally than necessary.
I preach Employment Division
I preach Employment Division v. Smith chapter and verse, so I don't really have an objection to the kirpan thing. If you have a law that says "no weapons at school," unless the legislature explicitly carves out an exception for a particular religious group (or class of weapon), which I think it should be free to do, I'd read that to mean "no weapons." And a knife is surely a weapon even if that isn't its primary purpose, just as a pencil surely isn't a weapon even if if can be used as such.
In context...
...I'd say that this has more than a whiff of Church of Lukumi Babalu-Aye to it; this seems like a pretextual rule aimed at suppressing an unpopular religious belief, not a neutral and generally applicable rule. And whether or not I'm right about the intent behind the restriction, there is still room for reasonable people to say that we oughtn't infringe on people's religious exercise when that exercise isn't harming anyone. I don't think the Sikh population of French Canada is exactly public enemy number one. I think carrying a small cermonial dagger is exactly the kind of self-regarding action that we ought not to regulate.
"No weapons at school" is pretextual?
Sure, the Sikhs don't generally run around stabbing people with their kirpans, and carrying it is most certainly a real requirement of a real religion. But that's not the point. If they're allowed to carry daggers, what do you do when some of the Muslims decide that their religion requires them to carry daggers? Pretty soon, the government has to decide whether the tenets of your religion really require that or not, or they have to open up the gates to anybody who claims a religious requirement to carry weapons to school. For that matter, what if some group of Sikhs gets a bit carried away and decide that the pronouncements of Guru Singh should be updated in light of modern technology, and that the rationale behind the carrying of the kirpan requires that they now carry guns?
Moreover, Sikhs in general are no less susceptible to the lure of fanaticism than the rest of us. There are, indeed, violent people who claim to be Sikhs in the world. And there are children who, though their parents try to teach them right, do not actually follow their parents' faith as their parents intend. Are these teenagers allowed to carry their weapons to school, too?
As a practical matter, what do you do the first time a hot-headed 15 year old brandishes his kirpan in an altercation with another kid? Prohibit him after that from carrying his kirpan? What if there is a dispute, he says he just rested his hand on the handle of the dagger, while the other kid says he pulled it out just a bit, while making a threatening statement or gesture? What if he doesn't touch the dagger, but a kid claims that the Sikh kid pointed at the dagger, then made a throat-slicing motion? Things could get out of hand very, very quickly. We know from long experience with immigrant cultures of all types (white, black, brown, and all other colors included) that younger generations tend to part with the ways of the older generations in pretty short order.
"No weapons at school" is perfectly reasonable, rational, and defensible. It's an easy to enforce rule, with generally very little judgment call involved.
Now, if you want to make a general exception, say for small pocket knives with blades below a certain length, and the kirpan is below that length, then I've got no problem with that.
Pat, I'm not saying that a No Weapons in School policy...
...is generally pretextual. But I'm saying that this policy, being announced in the middle of what amounts to a rant against certain types of religious fundamentalism, seems more likely to be one than most.
And yes, I acknowledge that there can be problems with abuse of religious exemptions, but I think those can mostly be dealt with as they come. I think there are plenty of problems we need to worry about in terms of keeping schools safe; I just really doubt that kirpans are much above 487th on the list. I'm not saying that schools can't legally ban kirpans, as part of a neutral and generally applicable ban on weaponry; they obviously can. I'm just saying that I think religious practices that aren't harming anyone else should be tolerated wherever possible, and this seems a paradigmatic example of such a practice.
just really doubt that
I think it depends if you count Heckler & Koch as one entry on the list or two. ;)