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Quebec to ban public prayer in sweeping new secularism law
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2025
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Let’s ban something that never happened.
The only public prayers in recent years were done by far right extremism who were protected by the police from the counter protesters.
Fuck the CAQ gov
This is most likely not the case. It's very much not a newsworthy thing, but Muslims will occasionally just do one of their daily prayers on the side of the road/in a convenient corner, and this law empowers the police to harass them for doing so.
Here in Coquitlam, our parks get flooded with public prayers at noon. It makes me uncomfortable as someone who moved out of sharia law country.
Which parks exactly are being flooded with people on prayer mats?
If you tried that in Mundy, you’d likely get hit in the head with a frisbee.
Most of the other parks I know of in Coquitlam don’t have enough flat space to do such a thing, being filled as they are with trees and trails.
Tri Cities? Sure… there are also people doing yoga, going for prayer walks, sword dancing, and many other things from many cultures. But none are really flooding anywhere.
Nothing wrong with public prayer, even a large gathering. I'm an atheist, and as long as no one is causing a health or safety issue, fuck it.
Well I don't feel very comfortable in a space like that personally.
Then don't be in that space?
So you feel the same when a bunch of people are meditating? Same action, really.
Lived in Coquitlam for years and I have no idea what you're talking about.
Coquitlam, British Columbia? No they don’t. That has literally never happened. Not even once.
I love it. Public prayer shouldn’t happen at all.
The problem is not if it should or shouldn’t happen
The problem is that it will not be enforced equally between religious communities and Christian poser asshole
It’s racism with more steps
What bothers me about this perspective is the implicit assumption that everyone who thinks that public displays of religion should be banned is actually motivated by racism, rather than recognising that somebody can be against this for non-racist reasons.
It just so happens that it always boils down to policing what Muslims do. Just one big coincidence.
That's very fair yes. But how can you tell those who are anti-religion for racist reasons from those who are for not?
There are two hazards in our discussion:
I prioritize hazard 1 as having a lower consequence than hazard 2.
In other words, I care much more about eradicating systemic racism than the hurt feelings of someone whose motives are misunderstood.
OK that's a good argument. It's perhaps a flaw of the word "racist" that it can include systemic racism, when it connotes individual racism.
Sure, you can be against it for authoritarian reasons as well. Disturbing.
Religion has been used time and time again to justify committing atrocities and still used as such today.
There is a legitimate debate to be had about the religion's place in a society.
I don't really see how that's related. Even if it were motivated by racism, that'd be equally authoritarian to any other motive, since authoritarianism is about ceding rights from individuals to the government and it doesn't matter what the motivation for that is.
Fair enough: regardless of whether racism is involved or not, there is an authoritarian bent to this law. In my opinion.
Why...? This isn't much better than, say, Iran's morality police.
Religion is like sex. You can do it in your home and maybe even designated enclosed places in groups, but you should never do it out in public—and under no circumstances should you ever involve children.
Ah, yes, [thing] is like [completely different thing]. You can believe that as much as you want, but you haven't explained why your beliefs should be enforced on others via state violence.