Hockey and religion

There are parallels between Religious extreamists and Hockey nuts. Notice I didn't say religious nuts.

They are similar in their adamant defence of their "beliefs" in the face of scientific evidence.  What brought this to mind lately, is the furor over the new Ontario school bullying bill and the way a Catholic fringe group called the bill an attack on Catholics and religious values etc etc. (The CBC again giving more air time to a fringe group than is warranted).

The religious fanatics' response is very much like the hockey nuts who keep saying that fighting and hard checking is part of hockey and critics should just butt-out. It's tradition and should be left alone etc.

You can of course, get away with calling the hockey people "nuts", you usually cannot get away with calling the religious fanatics "nuts", and therein, of course, is a major difference.

But it points out an obvious fact;  that it is not the hockey, or the religion, or whatever else, that is the problem, it's the way people settle into their little foxholes of belief feeling completely safe and refusing to leave, no matter what.

One, of course, always thinks that he is viewing others in their little foxholes of belief from the vantage point of level ground. It may be, however, that we do not understand those people in their little foxholes because we are so deep in our own that we only see their heads poking out.

"Political correctness" gone too far

Recently I was again made aware of the school Principal, Erik Millett, in Springfield, N.B., who bowed to pressure from “a couple of families” to ban the singing of the Canadian national anthem in the school.

I don’t know which is worse, those who objected to the anthem being sung, or the principal who bowed to their ridiculous demands.  This “political correctness” nonsense has gone far enough. I’m all for avoiding needless offence, as I believe most Canadians are, and for that very reason, I find it completely mystifying that someone would offend an entire nation in order to avoid what can hardly even be understood as an offence to “several families”.

I can only assume that these “several families” are immigrants, for what Canadian would demand such a ridiculous thing? And, if I am wrong, I apologise deeply to all immigrants.

However, I would say this to all immigrants:

I sincerely welcome you into my country. It is a country that respects individual rights.
It is country in which EVERYONE has equal rights and everyone is equally important.
It is a country where EVERYONE has the freedom to practice their beliefs.
Which means that EVERYONE also has the right to enjoy freedom FROM religion and religious belief.
It also means that I will respect your right to disagree with those values, but I will not grant you the right to change them. This is the lifestyle we practice in my country, and if you feel impelled to impose the religious, cultural or political values that you fled your homeland from, on my country, then, I invite you to go back to your home, for this is not it.
And to those in my country who would, in the name of political correctness, compromise those values, I invite you to go with them.