Some of the objections raised to Quebec's plans to roll out an ethics and religious awareness class in schools revolve around the fact that it isn't Christian enough, and that parents might prefer catechism classes rather than a general ethics and awareness class. I wish to criticize this approach and outline a better curriculum.
I am stunned by the short-sightedness of this veiled kind of Christian fundamentalism, and for once I might, God forbid, side with Quebec. These classes should have no kind of religious bias, because the values we all share are born of a deep moral awareness that goes beyond the mere religious belief of the historical and actual majority. Catechism has to do with this as much as cabbage with dessert. If these classes are highly focused on other religions the reason for this choice is pretty clear: political correctness and the fact that we live in a Christian country, thus the Christian message reaches us already and there's no need to hammer it excessively through yet another medium.
These ethics classes, however, should focus on what defines our society, not just on religion. Christianity doesn't define Canadian society on its own, Canada would be just as great and just as free had it adopted the same civic values and remained atheist or Confucian or whatever. Religious belief is just what it is defined as: a privately held belief that should have no place in public life or in the public education system. Fostering awareness of others' beliefs doesn't go half the way towards creating a united social fabric.
The manifest desire of certain factions of our own Christian majority to impose broadly shared moral values through a religious optic misses completely the point of ethics, values and morality, and is a symptom of greater reliance on the government to sanction irrational and anti-democratic backlashes against fellow Canadians guilty of sharing a cultural heritage different from our own.
The true values that shape a civilized society are to be found in writings of atheists and devout practitioners of many religions alike. As the Bible and the Gospel might hold certain founding principles of the society we see today so we may share and indeed unconsciously endorse principles enshrined in the Tao Te Ching or the US Declaration of Independence.
If classes in schools have to promote awareness and a cohese society I propose that we don't limit ourselves to the narrow optic of religious beliefs. Actually, throw religion out of this altogether and teach the foundations of our society with the words of the thinkers that shaped it. Teach the culture of individual rights through the great writings of the 18th and 19th century libertarians, the orations of James Otis against the writs of assistance, the great European thinkers who contributed to shaping modern society and modern economics, instil in the youngsters the spirit of the US Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Human Rights, teach them the inviolable rights and freedoms every one of them and every single human being has to enjoy. If one wants to avert the sad facts of Mississauga one teaches the young and the newcomer immigrants that in Canada everyone has the right to live as he or she pleases and no-one can impose behaviors not explicitly sanctioned in Law upon them.
Regardless of anyone's religion.
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