NationStates Jolt Archive

A friend and I have put together the following proposal, we're looking for feedback on possible improvements.

Title: Scholarly Freedom of Religious Symbols

Category: Human Rights
Strength: Mild

-Recognising that people have the right to religious freedom, as specified in UN law (including The Universal Bill Of Rights, passed Aug 8 2003)

-Postulating that religious freedom should include the right to bear symbols signifying various religious beliefs, especially if one's religion demands that these symbols be worn

-Given that the wearing of religious symbols generally does no actual harm to other individuals

-Given that, although some nations wish to protect the rights of private institutions and individuals to dictate what is permissible on their own property, government-run and -funded facilities should respect at all times the right to express one's religious beliefs by peaceful methods.

The Democratic Republic of Nickopopilis and The Liberal not-quite-Utopia of _Myopia_ propose the following UN legislation to specifically protect the right of citizens to wear religious symbols in all state-run educational facilities:

1. No UN member government may enact a law banning the wearing in state educational facilities of any religious symbols that do not pose a direct threat to others, including, but not limited to, hijabs, turbans, crucifixes and kippahs.
2. No UN member government may enact any law making it obligatory to wear any religious symbol in state educational facilities
3. No UN member government may allow any state-run educational facility to enact regulations which prohibit or make obligatory the wearing of any such religious symbols as specified in clause 1.

Any constructive criticism or suggestion is welcome. For instance, what would be an appropriate definition of "state educational facility"? Any better titles? (because I'm unsure as to whether what we have will fit in the box, but we have no other ideas that reflect the specificness of the proposal)

Speaking as a nation with a state religion, I wouldn't have a problem with turbans or stars of david, and especially not crucifixes and christian symbols, however, I do insist my my schools can mandate the removal of Satanic symbols if they so wish. We have our limits.

What exactly are you counting as religion then?

*double post*

, and especially not crucifixes and christian symbols, however, I do insist my my schools can mandate the removal of Satanic symbols if they so wish. We have our limits.
So your nation sanctions Christianity, but bans Satanism. Do you consider your nation to have freedom of religion? If so, how can you possibly support such an outrageous statement?

_Myopia_, how do you feel about the Sikh ceremonial dagger? It's as vital to the Sikhs as a cross or a Star of David is to Christians and Jews. What of the practioners of the Old Religion, whose practices mandate nudity on their holy days? If you're making international law, you have to consider the wide variety of international religious practices.
---------------
This is another of the multitude of national decisions being laid out as internationalist. Let each country deal with it as they will. You will never find common ground that both Theocracies and Anarchies would agree on, much less the dozens of other governmental and religious types.

Let it go. Please.

I have freedom of religion, but not equality of religions (or in other words indifferentism). I can and do prohibit certain religious practices (like human sacrifice).

Frisbeeteria: Well, as to the knife, that would be up to the individual nation as those nations which have laws against carrying such weapons (esp. in schools) could say that a knife poses a direct threat to others - but others could keep it because the text doesn't mention banning dangerous symbols, it only mandates allowing safe ones.

The nudity isn't covered by the proposal, because it talks about the wearing of religious symbols, not the religiously symbolic non-wearing of anything.

I don't think this will be dropped, because even if I give up on it, my friend feels more strongly about it and will submit it anyway.

Sanctavia: To make it more definite what counts, we can change it to say "objects which symbolise religious or similar beliefs". Satanism is just as legitimate as Christianity, up until the point where someone's hurting someone else.

Oh, and this wouldn't touch anarchies, since with no state, there can be no state educational facilities.

I have freedom of religion, but not equality of religions (or in other words indifferentism). I can and do prohibit certain religious practices (like human sacrifice).
If you ban symbols of Satanism, then you do not have freedom of religion. Symbols represent ideas, not actions, and your ban means that you refuse permission to express those ideas in any form.

It's your nation. If you choose to have a list of sanctioned religions and ban all others, that's fine by me. Just don't be a hypocrite and claim that you actually have freedom of religion, because you demonstrably don't.

And don't insist on pushing your idea of what the 'proper religions' might be on the international community. You won't like the results.

Myopia, please, pleeeease don't invite the anarchy crowd in here to tell you why you're wrong about them not having a government. I know I was the one who opened that door, but let's close it again. It's been done to death.

Frisbeeteria, I din't say there was no government, I said no state. If you're anti-state, how can you have state-run educational facilities?

i would agree with santavia on the front of not alowing a symboll that directaly exists to attack another religion like an upside down cross, however satanists should not be excluded from wearing a symbol of their relligion and as their bellifes if not hurting sombody mentaly or physicaly. so religous bullying of students would not be protected under this bill. and i the origanal author of this bill can tell you that its primerry function is to protect peoples existing religious symbolls and will not protect groups who exsist soly to attack a religion for example Nazis and Nazisme which was in effect a religion.
to Frisbeeteria as Myopia says it would be for the indavidual state to decide on what is harmfull or not but religions like Sikhism can find ways off still carrying an important religious symbol like their knife in a non offencive way for example many sikhs in britian carry rubber knives or a bluted knife as they are no permited to carry a real one as it is classed as an offencive weppon.

Ok, here's a clause to add to the preambulatory bit, to sort out problems:

-Defining a religious symbol as an object worn to symbolise beliefs about deities, the supernatural or the wearer's spirituality (or lack of said), but not symbols whose main purpose is to offend holders of other beliefs, and not objects which pose a direct threat to others.

Defining a religious symbol as an object worn to symbolize beliefs about deities, the supernatural or the wearer's spirituality (or lack of said), but not symbols whose main purpose is to offend holders of other beliefs, and not objects which pose a direct threat to others.

And now I shall make the case that forces you to retract this foolish statement. "Main purpose" is a rather subjective term, don't you think? To a Jew, the main purpose of the Cross could be to remind him that his people killed Jesus Christ. It's all about perspective. Likewise, to a Christian, the main purpose of the Satanic cross (upside down, not the true symbol of Satanism, mind you) is to denigrate the lord Jesus. Again, a matter of perspective. To an atheistic man, any religious symbol could be an affront to his secular, reason based beliefs. And finally, the mother of all misinterpreted symbols, the swastika. To a Jew, this could represent the holocaust (mind you, this is a Jew of post WW2, before then, synagogues regularly displayed the swastika), but to a Buddhist, and most of the world, it's a good luck charm, older than any other symbol still in use. It predates the cross, the Star of David, all of them.

You cannot make arbitrary decisions about religion. You cannot say that some religions are right and some are wrong. Freedom of religion means the right to practice anything. Even if your faith believes that Jesus was a fool, and that human sacrifice is needed. The belief is not evil, the action is. It's all well and good to believe in human sacrifice, it's another matter entirely to practice it. Kind of how many Christian evangelicals believe that adultery is a sin, but practice it anyway.

It’s all or none folks. You can’t pick and choose and continue to espouse religious freedom. The Sikh dagger is just as valid a religious symbol as the cross. The swastika is just as valid a symbol as the Star of David. The Ankh, just as much as Pentagram, upside down or otherwise.

Well actually, that's my point of view, but many, including my friend Nickopopilis, feel that certain extremist offensive viewpoints need suppressing. My clause was a work in progress and an attempt to leave that kind of decision up to individual nations.

The more you allow individual nations to decide points of your resolution, the more you leave yourself open for extremist viewpoints. The recent attrocities in Joccia come to mind.

Actually, the problems in the euthanasia resolution were because the author didn't listen to nations who pointed out the problems and loopholes.

Whatever the cause, the effect is quite clear, as is the moral. You must clearly define everything, and you must leave little room for national definitions. If you truly wish this to be an international issue, you must define everything so that regulations are the same throughout all member states. If your goal is to create a worldwide (or near to it) right to wear religious symbolism in state schools, then you need to be clear in this regard. Religion is religion is religion. Yes, extremist and bigoted viewpoints come about, but they ensure true freedom of expression. It is better to disarm your opponents by allowing them to make fools of themselves, then to deny them the opportunity.

First off, there's no freedom in religion. Religions regularly brain-wash people in order to make them think some other group of people are "wrong" or "sinful". Religion is the true reason behind the worst wars the world has ever known. Religion is why some of the best literature in the world is banned from schools. Religion is nothing more than a way to say "I am right and you are wrong." The only true freedom from religion is to completely divorce oneself from religion.

Mind you, I'm not saying to divorce yourself from faith. Faith and religion are two completely separate things. You don't need religion to have faith, and far too many people in this world don't have faith to back their religion. People should be free to believe as they will and keep to their own personal faiths -- but without the mental slavery that organized religion will force upon them.

Speaking of problems and loopholes, have you been paying attention to this discussion? You seek to allow everyone to exercise their freedom of religion, unless they belong to a religious group that you feel is "too extreme" to have their rights respected. Other member nations have pointed out religions that require certain less-than-mainstream practices, and no sooner had they pointed them out than you squashed their rights by amending the proposal.

This proposal reeks of ethnocentric hipocrisy, and I'd rather not have that smell lingering in the air here. Hopefully, the regional delegates will see through your attempts at legislation, and respect the rights of those believers whom you seek to push aside and silence.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel M. Hillaker
Minister of Foreign Affairs

I fully concede that some of the greatest (odd word for it really, great?) atrocities in history have been done in the name of religion. I would also concede that quite a few have been committed by perfectly evil secular people and groups (the Nazi's spring to mind).

However, not all religion is, as some have put it, "poison". The truly successfully religions, in my view, are the ones that teach self discipline, and self examination. A perfect example would be Buddhism. "Be a light unto yourself". Quite a contrast from Christianity, "No many enter into the kingdom of Heaven but through me."

Religion is not evil. Certain religions are evil yes, but religion as an institution is here to stay. It can be said that certain sciences are practiced religiously, Physics for one. For a long time, those who held notions of invisible, crumpled dimensions were written off as crackpots, the scientific version of the heretic I suppose.

I do not see the need to even entertain the elimination of religious practices. Religion has its good days too. Religion is not the ignorance of truth; it is the seeking of it. Belief is but a step towards truth.

What I was trying to do was to cater for the nations which are against allowing people to wear deliberately offensive symbols (I'm not one of them), by leaving the decision open. I didn't squash their rights, I simply tried not to force nations to give those particular rights if they didn't want to. Personally, I'd be for allowing any non-violent religious symbols at all.

I think I'm going to give up on this proposal, since there seems no way to reconcile different opinions, or to create a text specific enough.

Personally,I prefer the French view that citizenship is before relgion.

My problem with the clause ismost would use it to attack religions thay dislike (Islam especially.)

OK well I'm dropping this, but I think my friend Nickopopilis wants to continue with it, so...

it is of my opinion that some views are evil by human nature and to protect peoples right to not be bullied physicaly or mentaly some groups that exist soly out of hate do not have the right to wear their symbolls in schools. it is not unreasonable to want chilldren to go to school in an atmosphure where they have the right to wear the symbolls of thier relligion and not to be bullied or punished for doing so. so if you agrea with that then please vote for this proposle when i submit it.