Machjo

To be clear, Islam does not prohibit homosexuality, It prohibits homosexual acts. In the same way, it does not prohibit heterosexuality. It prohibits fornication. And a point about Shari'a. Koran 4:3 and Koran 4:129 when read together enjoin monogamy. Turkey is the first majority-Muslim state to enjoin monogamy, but it did so on the basis of a secular legal code. However, Tunisia is the first to enjoin monogamy in a religious legal code. Due to a conflict between Islam and many traditional ethnic traditions in Muslim states, some Muslim states have downplayed the importance of Koran 4:129. But even those states that do not prohibit polygamy still discourage it. In Malaysia, one must obtain permission from a judge to take a second wife. If he marries outside of the country to skip that process, he pays an exorbitant fine to the state. In Iran, though the state does not enforce Koran 4:129, it allows the woman herself to enforce it by including a monogamy-clause in the marriage contract along with pentalties for violating it, which can include the right to divorce her husband and material compensation. The Iranian model is the most common one in Muslim states, except that women in many such states are unaware of their legal right to include a monogamy-clause in their marriage contract. Some in those states have suggested that the marriage registrar be reuired to present a standard contract with a monogamy-clause by default with the bride-to-be being free to strike it out at her discression. In the end though, you will not find one single Muslim state that encourages polygamy, and those that strictly apply Shari'a such as Tunisia enjoin monogamy. Since the Koran promotes family unity and discourages divorce, Tunisia still recognizes polygamous marriages contracted abroad but also enforces monogamy-clauses in marriage contracts with the first spouse, which could permit her to divorce her husband and receive financial compensation for his having violated the contract. I don't profess Islam myself, but just pointing this out to show how ignorant people are of Shari'a. I see flaws in Shari'a myself, but again, its interpretation varies from state to state and many Mulim states do not follow strict Shari'a but rather an admixture of Shari'a along with local ethnic traditions such as polygamy.

Question for those who oppose Trudeau visiting a mosque on 'feminist' grounds. Should the government pass a law prohibiting a PM from entering any place of worship that discriminates between men and women in any way?

Are you suggesting we copy China? In China, no religious community can organize except under the CCP.

Could Harper not have atended a Catholic mass led by a woman? To be clear, I have no problem with Harper attending a mass led by a man since the Catholic Church is not the Government of Canada and so is free to establish its own rules.

There should be a very obvious difference here. One is state policy, the other is the policy of an NGO. If an NGO wanted to organize and allow only white people to join, I'd have no problem with that. Though I'm white myself, I'd have no interest in joining it, but that's a personal matter for those who join it. Should the government adopt a whites-only immigration policy and use my tax dollars to defend it, that's a whole different ballgame.

You mean fortunately. In France, Turkey, and China where religious freedom is strictly limited, we have terrorism, deadly riots, and attempted coups. In the UK, where Anglicanism is the state religion and where religious freedom is extremely well protected, you have problems there too, but nothing compared to the other three states. How do you square that?

I would prefer making it a municipal as opposed to provincial division myself. But should Quebec reject that, then maybe make it provincial in Quebec and municipal in the rest of Canada. But the principle is that with only one official language of local municipal, provincial, and federal government administration, anyone who wants to access emloyment needs learn only one offiical language, not two. If he doesn't speak an official language, that means only two not three languages.

Another way of looking at it. We should not reward lazy English speakers in Quebec and lazy French speakers in the ROC. Insread, the government should hire more people who speak a sign langage or the local indigenous language, etc. Canada should remove itself from its colonial past and stop acting like a little Europe in North America.

Okay. Imagine the following: Pete speaks Algonquin and French. Mark speaks French and English. They both live in Quebec. They are equally qualified on all non-language fronts. If they apply to work for the provincial government in most departments, they have equal access to employment. If they apply to work for the Federal government, Mark clearly enjoys the advantage. Now, Nick speaks only English and Jim speaks only Inuktitut with a smattering of English and no French. Are you going to tell Jim that he should thank his lucky stars that he gets to choose between English and French when communicating with the government? Now John speaks English and French and lives in BC. Matt speaks English and ASL and lives in the same city. Both are equally qualified otherwise. Who should the government hire to make the government as accessible to the least fortunate citizens as possible? And who will it hire to promote official bilingualism? I think you get the point. French in English Canada holds everyone else back. English in French Canada likewise holds everyone else back. Is that fair?

Interesting. The study I referred to is mentioned at the end of your article. I guess it shows science is always evolving. However, we're also talking about apples and oranges. A slaughter method is a slaughter method. Stunning is stunning. When comparing slaughter methods without stunning, the halal method is still preferable. As to whether stunning prior to slaughter could further reduce the pain, the jury appears to still be out on that even according to your article. But again, stunning and slaughter are two separate things. If we forget stunning for a moment and focus on slaughter methods, halal and kosher methods are still more humane than other methods due to the fact that they have a certain stunning effect on their own even without prior stunning. So as for slaughter methods, there appears to be not much debate on that front. Now the debate has moved on to whether stunning should precede slaughter regardless of what slaughter method is used.

Though Muslims consider Jewish kosher meat to also be halal. Muslims also consider vegan food untainted with alcohol or any other mind-altering substance to also be halal. That means that though not all halal food is kosher, all kosher food except alcohol is halal. And though not all halal food is vegan, all vegan food except alcohol is halal. Bicycles are 'halal' too. The Arabic word halal translates into English as 'permissible.' Just a fancy word with a basic meaning.

Whose culture? I trace my roots back to New France, yet consider the consumption of meat, any meat, to be cruel if it's done unnecessarily. Does that make the consumption of meat an un-Canadian value?

An EEG study was done by the Veterinary University of Berlin that showed that the halal slaughter method inflicted less pain on the animal than the common western methods. We shouldn't let anti-Muslim sentiment distract from hard scientific proof. That said, I still eat vegan since even the Halal method inflicts pain on the animal. It's all relative But if I had to eat meat knowing what I do, I'd definitely choose halal over other methods. The Kosher method also inflicts less pain. Then again, the halal and kosher methods are nearly identical escept for details. In principle, if someone truly objected to a Muslim prayer being recited as the animal is slaughtered and he didn't like Jews either, even just secular exsanguination would reveal comparable results. Playing baroque string music in the bakcground would probably likewise calm the animal in a compararably similar way as reciting a Muslim prayer would.

They did eat dog in China, but always either in Korean restaurants or otherwise it was still thought of as a Korean dish. I'd eaten dog soup once before realising what it was. Yuk! but you're right. What's the difference between one animal and another?

What a silly idea. Just revise the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so that English is no longer obligatory in French Canada and French everywhere else. Not complicated, really. And as for the 2.4 billin a year, that's Federal and Provincial combined, does not include second-language learning nor translating federal laws since those apply Canada-wide. It was limited to services that apply exclusive to minority English or minority French in any specific province. Again, it did not include second-language instruction in school, but the actual provision of services. It also subtracted the cost of the service itself so as to isolate the extra cost of providing it in an official-minority language of the province. Quebec pays into that too. You pay taxes in Quebec. Are you okay with this kind of fiscal waste?

On a more serious note. I'm vegan, so don't eat meat. If I did eat meat, I'd prefer halal. The method used to slaughter halal meat causes less pain than traditional methods as it drains the brain of blood more quickly. That has to do with science, compassion, and my values, nothing to do with Islám.

I hope they make poutine part of the values test. That and maple syrup. If you say you don't like those, we feed you to the sharks. Hockey and Tim Horton's should be included on the values test too. To make sure they're not lying on the Tim Horton's question, we can measure their height and weight. If not overweight, suspicious.

I'm not necessarily an indépendentiste, but I'm not against it either if it saves money and promotes efficiency. I am a decentralist though. According to studies, official bilingualism costs 2.4 billion yearly.

Actually, number of victims has zilch to do with it. It all comes down to proof. A murderer can have a thousand victims but if he covers his tracks well, still no proof. A murderer can have one single victim, but got caught by CCTV and two cops passing by with cameras on them catching him red handed.

Do official bilingualism is good because it's not as bad as 20 official languages? Most French Canadians in the RIC know English, so why waste money on French services in the ROC except in French-plurality municipalities? And most English-Quebecers know French too, so why waste money on English except in English-plurality municipalities? It just makes no sense?

http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html

Correction. I did say Canada and the US were among the world's worst systems. My mistake. They're among the worst among developed countries only.

I never said it had the worst system, but certainly ranks low among developed countries.

So why find ministries of health and infrastructure cooperate more to promote higher-density cities, discourage suburbanisation and maybe reintroduce agriculture into once-sprawling suburbs? A gas tax would help with that by making living in the middle of nowhere less attractive.

The world's best health care systems (France, Sweden, Singapore, etc.) all share one thing in common. They are two-tiered systems with a quality public system functioning side by side with a private one. Some of the worst systems (the US, Canada) are mostly one-tiered. The US has a poor public system and Canada a poor private one. It's time to put blind ideology aside and copy the best systems.