An old debate between secularism and religion was re-ignited this week at the University of Waterloo.

The controversy that initially sparked it concerned a religious student’s request to be exempted from interacting with female classmates at York University.

Prof. David Seljak of the University of Waterloo has again put this issue in the spotlight.

His stance is that Prof. J. Paul Grayson, who denied the student’s request at York, has it all wrong.

Seljak believes secularism has become so intrusive that it violates Charter rights, which guarantee religious freedom to all Canadians. He asserts religious rights should be valued as much as gender equality.

In his opinion, the male York University student should have been accommodated in his request, perhaps by having his lessons delivered via Skype. This provision would have had no negative impact on the female students in his class, Seljak argues.

However, the issue obviously goes beyond whether the sentiments of religious students have a negative impact on their classmates.

Surely we should discourage any kind of culture which implies interacting with women is somehow detrimental to the well being of young men, religious or otherwise.

If this is what religious rights entail, perhaps the Charter should not consider religious rights to be as valuable as gender rights.

The identity of the York University student has not been revealed. Of course, we have not been told his religion.

However, it would be a fair guess that he practices a prominent Middle Eastern religion that is obsessed with sexual taboos, patriarchy and notions of female inferiority.

Perhaps the student does not even know his own faith.

No religion forbids gender mingling when it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Even fundamentalist Muslims, perhaps the most obscurantist religious group, recognize that on occasions men and women must come into social contact.

In the previous case, the York University student claimed his religious beliefs forbade him from meeting with female students.

When Prof. Grayson refused his request, the student agreed to join the group project, while school authorities assured him he did not in fact have to interact with females.

Prof. Grayson refused the student’s request because he feared that acquiescing would set a disturbing precedent.

If a student is accommodated based on his antipathy towards women, what stops other religious students from being accommodated based, say, on their aversion to rival religious groups?

The intersection of religious beliefs with Canada’s secular principles has been tested before and will be again.

Whether it is discrimination against women in mosques, or polygamous unions in Bountiful, British Columbia, this intersection will continue to cause controversy until the Charter is clarified.

It was drawn up in 1982, when the religious environment was relatively simple.

The complexity of 2014 demands clearer insight, not to mention greater judicial oversight.

The Charter does allow governments to restrict religious rights if such action can be “demonstrably justified.” If secularism is trumping religion, as Prof. Seljak claims, it is doing so for the best of reasons.

Religious freedoms are fine, but many disregard the values Canadians have come to cherish.

While members of individual religious faiths have the right to their opinions, liberty and secular gender equality are rights that we as a society have agreed upon collectively.

They are more comprehensive and thus more fundamental than any religious rights.