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The debate about the now-infamous “attestation” that Canada Summer Jobs requires from applicants to its employ-a-student-for-the-summer program has been cast much too narrowly. It now seems to come down to the right of religious belief against the right to “reproductive liberty,” which, unlike the first right, is not actually mentioned in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Since the Charter’s birth, we’ve all come to understand that rights often have to be weighed. Does one person’s right to A outweigh another person’s right to B, when the two seem mutually exclusive? Or can some way be found to avoid the offence to one right while still pursuing the other? It’s all so (ho-hum) relative. Besides, religious rights, unlike other rights, tend to be practiced by people of faith, an outlook on life that we of secular bent find peculiar.

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Government should not hand out money based on political, religious or other beliefs

So try casting it another way: As a question of equality before the law. Equality arguments, as any parent knows, deeply implicate the emotions (“He got more than me!”), so doing this helps move the analysis from brain to gut, where people’s most basic instincts and understandings reside. In effect, the government is saying to applicants: You over here get assistance because you have attested your “core mandate” is consistent with our progressive agenda, while you over there are denied it because you haven’t sworn such fealty. It is deeply offensive to most people’s understanding of liberty that access to government services depend on kowtowing in this way.