Calgary Herald Column: Boundaries Between Church & State

This week's Herald column from yours truly examines how some recent court cases help define the boundaries between church and state: 

...As we've now learned, there are clearly areas that are the state's purview, and areas that belong to organized religion.

 

The Supreme Court of Canada has been most helpful in its ruling (divided, albeit) rejecting the claim from Alberta Hutterites that they are entitled to photo-free driver's licences. The complainants demanded an exemption from the photo requirement, claiming their religious beliefs prevent any "graven image," photos included.

 

The court rightly noted that highway driving is a privilege, not a right, and freedom of religion does not "indemnify practitioners against all costs incident to the practice of religion."

 

The ruling also notes the difficulty in both principle and practicality in tailoring "a law to every . . . sincerely held religious belief."

 

Just as one is free to not obtain a driver's license, one is also free to not be a marriage commissioner, if doing so conflicts with one's religious beliefs.

 

A decision last month in Saskatchewan strikes much the same tone as the nation's highest court.

 

A Court of Queen's Bench judge has ruled against marriage commissioner Orville Nichols who argued that he should be exempt from marrying same sex couples because of his religious beliefs.

 

Well, no Christian church should be required to perform such a ceremony, but the law allows same-sex marriage, so public marriage commissioners should follow the law.

 

It would seem to me that the beliefs Nichols claims frown on same-sex marriage would also frown on marriages performed outside of a church or religious setting. Perhaps Nichols is in the wrong profession. In any case, no one is forcing him to remain in it.

 

But just as the religious should not be calling the shots in the public square, the state should not be calling the shots in the religious square.

 

The question of who does or does not work as a volunteer altar server in a Catholic church should not be of concern to anyone outside the Catholic church.

 

Not everyone agrees. A gay man has filed a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission after he was asked by the Bishop of Peterborough to step down as altar server.

 

The decision may seem petty, but it ought to remain an internal matter. I'm sure any Catholic church would deny me the opportunity to serve in that position for the simple fact that I am not Catholic. If one follows the logic behind this complaint, I am being discriminated against on the basis of religion.

 

It would be absurd for me to make such a claim, and it would be equally absurd for the Ontario Human Rights Commission to stick its nose in this situation.

 

These are the same human rights commissions that seem totally disinterested in radical imams calling for gays to be "exterminated" and "beheaded," yet jump to action if a gay man is denied the opportunity to ring the altar bell.