Friday, May 18, 2007

Those wacky Hutterites

I allowed myself a wry smile at the news that Hutterites in Alberta are now no longer required to have photos on their drivers' licenses.
There are apparently upto 30,000 Hutterites in Western Canada, some of whom are daft enough to believe that the Second Commandment in the Bible, which forbids "graven images", prohibits them from willfully having their picture taken (or, in their rather cavalier interpretation, "not being photographed is one of the Ten Commandments").
The judge ruled that their Charter rights were being infringed in this case, but now they are worrying about how to get round the US customs requirements, so we probably haven't heard the last of this nonsense.
Forgive my apparent lack of patience and cultural sensitivity here but, at the risk of sounding like a fascist red-neck, it seems to me that sometimes things are taken too far in the name of religious tolerance.
I don't object to people holding wacky religious views (so long as they don't impinge on others), but if you move to a country or province with certain laws then you have to live within them like everyone else, whether you like them or not. By all means, go ahead and try and change them through your vote, but if that doesn't work out then maybe you should be looking elsewhere.
If there were a religion which prohibited clothing and required mandatory euthanasia at age 30, would we be obliged under the Charter of Rights to suffer their pasty, naked flanks and sanction their joyous funeral pyres?
Gosh, I sound like a fascist red-neck. Who'd have thought it?

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