Quebecers fought hard to free themselves from the Roman Catholic Church's control during the Quiet Revolution and they must prevent newcomers from imposing religious values here again, speakers said last night at the start of a three-day conference on secularism.
"We must not let other religious groups bring back religious practices," said conference organizer Djemila Benhabib, co-founder of the Collectif citoyen pour l'égalité et la laïcité (CCIEL).
"The rights of women, children and homosexuals are threatened by the demands of reasonable accommodation," Benhabib told an audience of about 225 at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The journalist is the author of Ma vie à contre-Coran, a critique of Islamic fundamentalism. She fled Algeria in the 1990s under a death threat. [The Gazette] Read more [via Islamophobia Watch]
