New teacher leaves Quebec over Bill 21
Anglo media are covering the story of a newly graduated teacher who won’t be able to work in Quebec because of Bill 21 rules, so is leaving for British Columbia. Amrit Kaur wears a turban: here’s a BBC piece on why some Sikh women wear a turban although they have traditionally been worn mostly by men.
Chris 10:42 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
According to the BBC piece, it isn’t a religious requirement, at least not one imposed from on high, but merely self-imposed (which I suppose you could argue is always the case anyway). Basically, they’re wearing the turban because they want to (which is fine of course), not because her group requires it.
steph 19:45 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
Does the law allow wearing a turban for non-religious reasons?
Michael Black 20:53 on 2019-08-15 Permalink
The religious requirement is to not cut their hair. The turban is to keep the hair tidy. Thus the turban is an obligation of the long hair. If they didn’t wrap their hair, others would probably complain that the long hair is a religious symbol, or messy and shoukd be cut.
The Sikh women who wear turbans aren’t choosing, they are interpreting. Apparently the obligation isn’t specifically for men, but many have interpreted it that way. Now some women are interpreting it to mean every SIkh, and thus don’t cut their hair, and wrap it. It’s all in that BBC article, which was a good adjunct to the news story.
Michael
Chris 10:04 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
Michael, how is ‘interpreting’ not a kind of ‘choosing’? (And of course they are interpreting, they have no choice but to, since the gods steadfastly refuse to actually come and tell us what they want.)
steph, I haven’t read the actual text of Law 21, so I don’t know. The Alberta law exempting Sikh’s from wearing motorcycle helmets specifically refers to “bona fide members of the Sikh religion”[1], presumably to prevent anyone from just wearing a turban to get out of wearing a helmet. A possible loophole to Law 21 would be to say “I’m not Muslim, this isn’t a hijab, it’s just fashionable fabric I like”. Presumably they thought of that and the item is banned regardless of actual religion conviction, the opposite of Alberta, where actual religious conviction is required.
[1] https://www.alberta.ca/helmet-exemption-sikh.aspx
Bill Binns 13:28 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
The “won’t be able to work” line that is in every article about this subject drives me nuts. She would not be able to have that job if people with brown eyes or people under six feet tall were banned. She can have that job any day she likes by leaving her (completely removable) hat at home.
Blork 14:17 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
@Bill, how would you feel if all of the jobs you were qualified for required you to stand and state a pledge to Jesus and the church at the beginning of every work day? I know you could CHOOSE to suck it up and just do it, but you wouldn’t like it and you would probably feel discriminated against and would be very vocal about the fact that you shouldn’t be forced to abide by a religious formality that you don’t believe in.
Arguably, people who have religious faith might feel that enforced atheism is no different than enforced religion.
A truly secular society is one that doesn’t give AF about what you believe, the same way it doesn’t give AF about what color socks you wear or whether you’re right handed or left handed. This so-called secularism of Bill 21 is not that kind of secularism. Instead it’s the cult of atheism, which itself is a kind of “faith.”
(BTW, I say this as an atheist.)
Bill Binns 14:57 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
@Blork – Nobody is being told to pledge anything to anyone. People are being told what to wear to work. This practice is totally accepted and legal, right up until somebody says that god wants them to dress a certain way. People are being *exempted* from rules the rest of us must follow based on which fairy tales they claim are their favorites.
I would be on board with this if we all got to enjoy these rights to wear our favorite things to work regardless of what our employers wanted. If Mr Singh gets to wear his turban and Mrs Abboud gets to wear her burka then Mr Binns should be able to wear his big foam cowboy hat.
Blork 16:14 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
@Bill, you’re wrong. They aren’t permitted to wear those hats SPECIFICALLY because they are religious. You can wear a scarf if your head is cold, or if you’ve lost your hair due to chemotherapy, but you can’t wear a scarf to show you are Muslim.
Blork 16:20 on 2019-08-16 Permalink
…and if a teacher wore a big cowboy hat in class, nobody would fire them. Worst case is the principal would tell them they look like an idiot.