> PARIS, Oct. 21 – To enforce its new law banning
> religious symbols from public schools, the Ministry of
> National Education has decided to get tough.
>
> This week it held formal disciplinary hearings and began
> expelling students who violated the law. The goal was to
> get rid of those defined as hopeless cases before the
> 10-day All Saints school vacation that ends with a
> national holiday honoring all of Catholicism’s saints.
>
> The French government sees no contradiction or irony
> here.
[NY Times] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/europe/22france.html)
The more I read about this French ban, the more shocked I am at how brazen the idea of secularism is being twisted to enact an edict clearly aimed against a particular religious group. Seeing the separation of church and state used as justication for persecution is a frightening exercise in spin to suit the mass’s need for a scapegoat.
French Religious Symbol Ban
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> PARIS, Oct. 21 – To enforce its new law banning
> religious symbols from public schools, the Ministry of
> National Education has decided to get tough.
>
> This week it held formal disciplinary hearings and began
> expelling students who violated the law. The goal was to
> get rid of those defined as hopeless cases before the
> 10-day All Saints school vacation that ends with a
> national holiday honoring all of Catholicism’s saints.
>
> The French government sees no contradiction or irony
> here.
[NY Times] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/international/europe/22france.html)
The more I read about this French ban, the more shocked I am at how brazen the idea of secularism is being twisted to enact an edict clearly aimed against a particular religious group. Seeing the separation of church and state used as justication for persecution is a frightening exercise in spin to suit the mass’s need for a scapegoat.