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Hey I need some help eroding the church/state separation. Lets ask the experts!

I’m not really sure what is so shit-hot about the attitudes and conventions of the Dark Ages, but Harper and his government have decided to fecklessly dive into the land of pants-on-head stupid and establish a official government bureau of “Religious Freedom”.  Let’s be clear, not something useful like an office sponsoring freedom FROM religion, so sorry Rishma of Pakistan, you still get be sentenced to death for allegedly burning pages from a magic book.  Because, obviously we need MORE religion in the world because rational thought is too fucking hard to deal with.

“The federal government’s long-awaited Office of Religious Freedom will be unveiled soon, officials say, after months of delays caused by difficulty in finding the right person to head the office.

The new body, which will be housed within the Department of Foreign Affairs, was expected to be up and running earlier this year.

But a senior government official told CBC News that Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird has had a hard time finding someone to fill the role of ambassador to head up the office. Two people who were approached ultimately turned the post down for logistical and personal reasons.?

Reasons why?  Because being head of the Canadian christian god brigade overseas is not appealing.  I’m really flabbergasted at my government right now.  I’m imaging that in some meeting some wonk pops this ass-blister of a suggestion and throws it out there –

“Hey, you know that separation of church and state thing, its dumb, lets set up an office and get the government officially involved in delusional religious shit”.  Ohh the meetings goes quiet.   “But where are we going to get the money?” says Economic Wonk, our resident member of brain trust of turdistan  says, “oh, well we closed a bunch of science and research down there is plenty of money saved from that…”.

And then there was cabinet/Harper approval.  Yes, lets close down scientific research on one hand and fund the promotion of stale religious brain-flatulence from the bronze age.  Brilliant!  How can we lose?  It is astonishing that people voted for people that actually endorse this sort of thinking.

“Some supporters of the idea have grown frustrated with the long wait. The $5-million office was first announced during the May 2011 election campaign as a centrepiece of the government’s foreign policy.”

A vesitgal bone thrown at the dumb-as-dirt religious value voters that worked.  Apparently jebus said lower corporate tax rates so we can screw the rest of society over.  To my idjit right of centre commentators, did you notice that you only get lip-service paid to your nuttily-regressive ‘social conservative” goals all the while the economic conservatives who hold the real power happily continue to gut the bastions of the social democratic state?  You think getting screwed over would become tiresome after the nth time, apparently you thought in 2011, *this* time it would be different.

Bhatti argues the new ambassador must be objective.

“The person shouldn’t be one-sided,” he said. “He doesn’t focus on the one religion, or one persecution. He will treat every religion equally and give his recommendation to the foreign office and government regarding truth and reality.”

I don’t even know what this means.  But I think I would be a good candidate for the job.  I all religions the same, with contempt, would this make me a good candidate for the job?  Probably not since the ability to think clearly is not selected for when trying to get a job within a religion.

“As CBC NEWS reported last year, internal Foreign Affairs documents showed nearly all of the panellists who participated in a closed-door consultation with Foreign Affairs last fall in Ottawa were drawn from Western religions, primarily Christianity. Few Muslims were in attendance and there were no Muslim panellists.

Arvind Sharma, a Canadian scholar of religion, has been carefully monitoring the government’s plans, and says the idea presents a great opportunity for Canada on the world stage.

But the McGill University professor warns that’s only if Canada avoids promoting proselytization.”

Yep, Canadian Christians for Christ, sponsored by the secular government of Canada? *sigh*  Canada is a secular democracy and really needs to axe this crumby idea.

Giving government support to mythology is stupid and needs to stop before even more people get that idea that religion is an still acceptable choice in the 21st century.