Centre for Inquiry Canada, Christian and non-Christian Saskatchewan residents (and other concerned parties) are petitioning the Saskatchewan Government to end
1.Opening prayer in the legislature.
2. Christmas messages delivered by Premier Brad Wall on behalf of the Saskatchewan Party that identify Christianity as superior to other beliefs and non-belief.
Brad Wall’s 2015 Christmas message was explicitly Christian and made claims for the superiority of Christianity:
For example, the 2015 address identifies Jesus as “the divinest heart that ever walked the earth.” Government exclusion of minority groups is certainly not the right thing to do and also not aligned with the duty of neutrality described above. We need our government to represent the interests of the entire population and to protect the rights of minorities. Premier Wall needs to cease these messages or make any such messages religiously neutral.
This is a petition all atheists and secularists should support. Please sign the CFI Regina petition:
The Saskatchewan Government Must Stop Promoting Christianity
This is something all of us concerned with ending the promotion of religious dogma in the government (and public!) spheres should support!
Catholicism has very deep roots in Saskatchewan. It’s in the education, health and security apparatus. I grew up in a small prairie town where the school system divided up the neighborhoods from first grade. The children we grew up playing beside were syphoned off to another system while we went further afield to establish new friendships within our new tribe (the public school children).
I was born two hundred kilometers away from home to escape the Catholic Hospital system.
None of this is very sinister but it does illustrates the divisiveness of church involvement in the smallest of communities.
Pointing out that the indoctrinations of the Catholic Church are no more relevant to anything real, than the indoctrinations of the Gospel Hall, should emphasize the most salient fact about all of this. We are encouraging societal division and distrust for very stupid and fictitious reasons, even in the smallest of our communities.
Religion & praying belong in the places of worship, not in the public square, the schools, the hospitals, & especially NOT the government!