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Originally Posted by MarchHare
How did the discussion at RFD go down? Were the majority of posters supportive of the Muslim barber refusing to serve a woman, or were more people insisting that he fit in with the norms of Canadian society where we do not discriminate based on gender?
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From what I recall it was actually a pretty split discussion especially because it was rooted a little more deeply than the case of the Regina shop. In the Muslim case, the barber had a freedom of religion component in that he was forbidden to cut females hair while the female's equality right was being argued based on the same merits as in the Regina story.
Now that I look back on the National Post article there is an interesting quote:
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“When we in Canada talk about human rights in foreign countries, we’re talking about rights like the right you have for the government not to kill you — that is a genuine right,” said the litigation director of the Calgary-based Canadian Constitution Foundation. “When we talk about rights in Canada we talk about rights [that require] someone to do things for you. I don’t see that as a right at all.”
It’s misguided to try to balance these competing rights —which, she says, should have been anticipated when human rights codes were created in the 1960s — because “genuine rights don’t conflict,” she said.
“It undermines the meaning of the word ‘right’ because if they say this woman has the right to force the barber to cut her hair, essentially they’re saying he doesn’t have the right to practice his religion.”
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