Last Saturday, The Globe ande Mail ran an op-ed piece by 10 prominent women on the legal status for Muslim family courts in Ontario. I read it carefully, a few times, till I was sure they did not just oppose status for Muslims but for any religious court. That meant they favoured revoking the status already granted to Jewish, Christian and other groups, though they didn’t spell that out.

If these women are so reluctant to be explicit, I thought, probably so as not to sound inflammatory, then what hope is there the government will take any action, and take the flak? Yet, the very next day, Premier Dalton McGuinty declared there will no longer be legal status for any religious court in arbitrations. He could have just said: Let the outrage begin.

It didn’t take long. This week, both a representative of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and Rev. Raymond de Souza in the National Post, said the faiths now involved in such arbitrations are doing fine; it’s those pesky Muslims everyone is worried about. The McGuinty decision, they said, means throwing out the baby with the (Muslim) bathwater. Interesting image. But surely you don’t get your rights for good behaviour. You get them because they’re your rights. They belong to all citizens or none. On that basis, the right had to be given to Muslims, or be cancelled.

It would have been politically easier to extend the rights, since no one likes having things taken away. But apparently another principle was involved: the separation between religion and politics, not quite as fusty as it used to sound. Family law is still law; there can’t be laws that apply to some and not others. That would be kind of lawless. (We believe in “one law for all Ontarians,” said the Premier.) So even though the law guarantees freedom of religion, laws and other legal rulings themselves can’t be “religious.”

Another issue lurks behind this one, especially in Ontario: education. Catholic schools are publicly funded here (and elsewhere in Canada), even if it seems to contradict the separation principle. It goes back to the deal that made Canada possible in 1867. But in the 1980s, pressures due to big postwar immigration from Catholic countries led to higher funding in Ontario. That evoked demands from Jewish, evangelical and other groups for money for their schools.

The debate is still on. The Mike Harris Tories were sympathetic; the McGuinty Liberals want to rebuild the public system. But more support to private/religious schools would undermine the public ones, tending to leave only those without resources in them, like the people in New Orleans who lacked private means to get out of town on their own. Giving legal sanction to religious courts had become part of a trend, lending momentum to those who want greater public funding for private and religious schools.

And another issue lurks behind this other issue: the surging role of politicized religion worldwide — in places such as the United States, Israel, Muslim countries, India, Sri Lanka. For what it’s worth, I’d like to endorse the separation principle that has marked Western politics in the modern age. In its origins, in Greece and Rome, politics did fine without religion, and the medieval combo of the two was not exactly a high point.

When religion directly enters politics, it tends to disguise all the usual national, imperial, anti-imperial and economic agendas behind theological rhetoric. At the same time, it starts to lose touch with its transcendental, ineffable roots. As it politicizes, it desacralizes. It loses its soul, that’s all. I think it’s impressive that Ontario’s government has found a way to take a stand on this question. (I don’t mean, by the way, that religious people or groups can’t make political choices grounded in their religious beliefs, but the political realm itself should remain distinct.)

As for Dalton McGuinty — he doesn’t look brave or risk-taking. More an undershirt-tucked-into-underpants kind of guy. But I’d say this is twice now that he’s shown courage. The first was when, in order to save public health care, he broke his promise not to raise taxes. Real men aren’t supposed to do that, though it takes a real man to do something real men are afraid to do for fear of not looking like real men. This is the second time. Maybe premier is his secret identity.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.