While the restrictions to human freedoms are immoral in a general sense, in the context of a pandemic, it is permissible to impose them to stop a genuine threat.
Our Constitutional rights include these fundamental freedoms all of which touch on religious practice.
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
However, the Canadian Constitution, unlike its American counterpart, allows these freedoms to be abridged, essentially when a legislature decides it is in the public interest to do so. The legislatures are very limited in their abridging powers, but it is very likely that a court of this Country will say that the pandemic restrictions are reasonable. So good luck to those who challenge the restrictions on legal grounds.
By the measures imposed on us, no one as lost their right to hold in their conscience such beliefs as they wish including a specifically "religious" belief. No one has lost the ability to communicate with others about those beliefs except from the pulpit before a congregation, or from one congregant to another.
The only impingement is on assembly and association in a church or hall. Online meetings are not prohibited. So, we are down to a very narrow, temporary loss of a "freedom" that is not a necessary element of religious belief.
Those who are aggrieved by the closure of a church ought to remember this part of the Lord's Prayer:
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
It is tempting to promote the cause of church services - but it is better not to give into the temptation, not just because it is against the law, but because the prohibition is meant to deliver us from the evil of the virus.
Perhaps you have your own definition of "inalienable," but the word is normally used to describe something that can't be taken away from its possessor. Then you go on to describe a circumstance in which you think an "inalienable" human freedom can and should be taken away.
The model you're laying out isn't one of inalienable rights, but of a kind of borrowed rights, with citizens free to exercise their rights in good times but expected to surrender them when their betters wish it. Rights under such a system aren't rights at all, particularly in our fallen world in which we can expect politicians to act from cynical motives as often (more often?) than they do from good faith motives.
Your essay implies that AHS has not yet provided the public with a “compelling, transparent, and evidenced-based rationale for the current restrictions.” I agree. Now, after 13 month of said “temporary” restrictions and a press that is prostrate, what on heaven or earth makes you think they would freely provide them now?
One could just as easily argue that Pastor Coates is standing up for the truly vulnerable. The people who have had their plights dismissed by canned talking points and pejorative eye rolls made by government officials and the mainstream press for a year and counting: overdose victims and their families; the teens who have developed eating disorders at unprecedented rates; the children who have had their educational and social development halted; the people who don’t yet realize they have tumours that are festering away, undiagnosed. Who speaks for them?
Pastor Coates has demonstrated the courage to attempt to activate* the court system whose job it is to adjudicate exactly the kinds of questions that you raised toward the end of your piece, Reverend. If you were truly interested in a detailed analysis of those points, you should celebrate their airing in court. Nevertheless, it would seem that Dr. Hinshaw is more sheepish about presenting the medical evidenced than you’d hoped*.
(Granted, this link is from the legal body representing Pastor Coates; however, I could not find another press release describing the procedural delay.)
Our Constitutional rights include these fundamental freedoms all of which touch on religious practice.
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
However, the Canadian Constitution, unlike its American counterpart, allows these freedoms to be abridged, essentially when a legislature decides it is in the public interest to do so. The legislatures are very limited in their abridging powers, but it is very likely that a court of this Country will say that the pandemic restrictions are reasonable. So good luck to those who challenge the restrictions on legal grounds.
By the measures imposed on us, no one as lost their right to hold in their conscience such beliefs as they wish including a specifically "religious" belief. No one has lost the ability to communicate with others about those beliefs except from the pulpit before a congregation, or from one congregant to another.
The only impingement is on assembly and association in a church or hall. Online meetings are not prohibited. So, we are down to a very narrow, temporary loss of a "freedom" that is not a necessary element of religious belief.
Those who are aggrieved by the closure of a church ought to remember this part of the Lord's Prayer:
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
It is tempting to promote the cause of church services - but it is better not to give into the temptation, not just because it is against the law, but because the prohibition is meant to deliver us from the evil of the virus.
Perhaps you have your own definition of "inalienable," but the word is normally used to describe something that can't be taken away from its possessor. Then you go on to describe a circumstance in which you think an "inalienable" human freedom can and should be taken away.
The model you're laying out isn't one of inalienable rights, but of a kind of borrowed rights, with citizens free to exercise their rights in good times but expected to surrender them when their betters wish it. Rights under such a system aren't rights at all, particularly in our fallen world in which we can expect politicians to act from cynical motives as often (more often?) than they do from good faith motives.
Your essay implies that AHS has not yet provided the public with a “compelling, transparent, and evidenced-based rationale for the current restrictions.” I agree. Now, after 13 month of said “temporary” restrictions and a press that is prostrate, what on heaven or earth makes you think they would freely provide them now?
One could just as easily argue that Pastor Coates is standing up for the truly vulnerable. The people who have had their plights dismissed by canned talking points and pejorative eye rolls made by government officials and the mainstream press for a year and counting: overdose victims and their families; the teens who have developed eating disorders at unprecedented rates; the children who have had their educational and social development halted; the people who don’t yet realize they have tumours that are festering away, undiagnosed. Who speaks for them?
Pastor Coates has demonstrated the courage to attempt to activate* the court system whose job it is to adjudicate exactly the kinds of questions that you raised toward the end of your piece, Reverend. If you were truly interested in a detailed analysis of those points, you should celebrate their airing in court. Nevertheless, it would seem that Dr. Hinshaw is more sheepish about presenting the medical evidenced than you’d hoped*.
* https://www.jccf.ca/court-permits-government-to-avoid-producing-dr-hinshaws-evidence-on-lockdowns-at-may-3-trial-of-pastor-james-coates/
(Granted, this link is from the legal body representing Pastor Coates; however, I could not find another press release describing the procedural delay.)