$144 fines for religious worship

[Jayhawker Soule]

From The National Post

Quebec’s new secular norm: $144 fines for religious worship​

MONTREAL • On a Sunday morning two years ago, Paula Celani and about 80 members of her Catholic lay group gathered in a hall they had rented from the city. They watched an inspirational video, they prayed, they celebrated mass and they capped it off with a potluck lunch. “We had a beautiful day,” Ms. Celani recalls.

But now that beautiful day has generated a nasty court battle after she was hit with a $144 ticket from the city, which alleged her event was illegal because it involved religious worship.

This week her lawyer advised Montreal municipal court that he will challenge the fine on constitutional grounds.


The case illustrates how far the pendulum has swung in a province once dominated by the Church. Public displays of religious faith have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as Quebecers have embraced secularism. The opposition Parti Québécois has proposed legislation that would prohibit members of the civil service from wearing “ostentatious” religious symbols. In a move targeting Muslim women who wear the niqab, the Liberal government has introduced a bill to require that those giving and receiving public services do so with their faces uncovered.

Hope she wins ...

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hope she wins ...

Why's that?

 

[painted wolf]

I do too... I have to admit though, when I first read the title I thought that they were fining people for going to church or something.

Reading the rest of the story though, it looks like a misunderstanding of the purpose of government owned rental property. Rather than an active attempt to punish religious worship.

They rented a government owned meeting space... which apparently has strict secular rules because those in power currently think that any religious use makes the space itself religious and nature and it brings up the specter of state sponsored religion.

wa:do

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They rented a government owned meeting space... which apparently has strict secular rules because those in power currently think that any religious use makes the space itself religious and nature and it brings up the specter of state sponsored religion.

I don't think that's it.

They were fined because the hall's zoning doesn't include "place of worship" as one of the permitted uses. Legally, this case isn't that different from getting a fine for running a business out of your house in an area that's zoned residential only.

And I think the article engages in a bit of fear-mongering when it makes its slippery slope argument at the end, warning that the logical conclusion of this is that grace before meals will be banned. In this case, where they rent out a hall to hold mass in it, religious worship is the primary purpose of what's going on. Just as holding a garage sale at your house doesn't mean you're "running a business", saying grace doesn't make the gathering one for "religious worship".

 

[waitasec]

From The National Post

​

Hope she wins ...

The case illustrates how far the pendulum has swung in a province once dominated by the Church. Public displays of religious faith have come under increasing scrutiny in recent years as Quebecers have embraced secularism.

i don't...
the pendulum should stay in the middle.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

i don't...
the pendulum should stay in the middle.

Then what's the point of a pendulum if it doesn't swing?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I wonder what the fine might have been had they rented it for a Bar Mitzvah?

Hopefuly Canada will rethink this nonsense.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I wonder what the fine might have been had they rented it for a Bar Mitzvah?

Montreal has a very large Jewish population. I'd be very surprised if municipally-owned halls had never been rented out for a Bar Mitzvah; how many cases can you find where the organizers of one have been fined?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

None.

 

[Alceste]

One thing you can count on the Post for is silly, poorly researched and sometimes entirely fictitious stories that wind up conservatives. I would get a second opinion before taking this story at face value. Remember, this is the paper that printed a story made up by a US PR firm claiming Iran had passed a law forcing Jews to wear armbands on it's front page.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

None.

Well, there you go.

Also, keep in mind that the "place of worship" land use and whatever one actually applies to this hall (probably some "assembly" use) may overlap; just because events like bar mitzvahs and weddings can be religious in nature doesn't mean that they aren't explicitly allowed as part of an assembly use.

However, since I'm having trouble finding the actual text of the zoning by-law online, I can't confirm this suspicion.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Well, there you go.

I have no clue what that means ...

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I have no clue what that means ...

It means that the fact that, by any indication that we have, that people aren't getting fined for holding bar mitzvahs in city-owned halls is that the answer to your question is probably "they won't get fined at all".

 

[Willamena]

One thing you can count on the Post for is silly, poorly researched and sometimes entirely fictitious stories that wind up conservatives. I would get a second opinion before taking this story at face value. Remember, this is the paper that printed a story made up by a US PR firm claiming Iran had passed a law forcing Jews to wear armbands on it's front page.

I agree.

 

[Alceste]

I wonder what the fine might have been had they rented it for a Bar Mitzvah?

Hopefuly Canada will rethink this nonsense.

FYI, "Canada" is a large and diverse country with a very large degree of provincial autonomy. Montreal is just one city, and they're mad about writing tickets.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

... just because events like bar mitzvahs and weddings can be religious in nature doesn't mean that they aren't explicitly allowed as part of an assembly use.

From above:

Then it cites a zoning bylaw to declare that no activities of worship — “prayer, religious song and religious celebration” — are permitted.

It would be a strange Bar Mitzvah indeed.

 

[Willamena]

I'd be curious to see what case her lawyer makes to contrast zoning by-laws.

(That's kind of like calling on constitutional rights because your neighbour won't shovel his sidewalk.)

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

One thing you can count on the Post for is silly, poorly researched and sometimes entirely fictitious stories that wind up conservatives. I would get a second opinion before taking this story at face value. Remember, this is the paper that printed a story made up by a US PR firm claiming Iran had passed a law forcing Jews to wear armbands on it's front page.

I somehow missed this. It's good feedback. Thanks.

 

[Alceste]

I somehow missed this. It's good feedback. Thanks.

No problem. I have been looking for that second opinion but can't find anything but religious and conservative bloggers who just picked this story up verbatim and ran with it without any fact checking.

Smells fishy to me. You can rent the place for weddings, apparently, so there must be more to it than the simple presence of religious ceremony. I wonder if it might have something to do with trying to sell rosaries to other tenants - assuming any of the details of the story are true.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

From above:
It would be a strange Bar Mitzvah indeed.

In addition to Alceste's warning that the National Post isn't generally the most unbiased source of information on religious issues, you may want to consider that the reporter who wrote this story may not be familiar with the nuances of zoning by-laws.

In all the zoning by-laws I've encountered, land use is dealt with by specifying what's allowed, not by specifying what's prohibited: one zoning might allow land uses A, B and C; another might only allow A and B. However, this doesn't mean that everything in land use C isn't permitted in that second zone, because some of of what falls under land use C may also fall under land use A or B.

Just because "prayer, religious song and religious celebration" are included in the scope of the "place of worship" land use designation doesn't mean that anything and everything that might be considered "prayer, religious song or religious celebration" is forbidden in a zoning that doesn't include "place of worship" as a permitted use. And just because a full-blown mass isn't allowed doesn't mean that a family's bar mitzvah wouldn't be allowed either.