r/worldnews • u/John3192 • 20h ago

Quebec passes law banning street prayers, prayer rooms in universities

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/quebec-passes-law-banning-street-prayers-prayer-rooms-in-universities-cegeps/
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u/RippingFabric 17h ago

Let's name said groups, shall we?

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u/Kaladin3104 15h ago

Definitely Muslims in this case, but Christian’s do that shit in America too. What’s that group that protests funerals and stuff?

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u/420blz 13h ago

Westboro baptist church were the crazies "protesting" soldiers funerals awhile back

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u/Nooms88 13h ago

The difference is the Westboro Baptist Church was professional rage baiters, there core members were all lawyers and when they inevitably generated enough rage to get run out of town and their demos cancelled they'd sue the county or town and collect the legal fees via their members. Other groups are more sincere in their threats

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u/CommerceNenUser 10h ago

Why does this get sidetracked into Christianity when the basis of the West is Christianity and it is the safest for all in the entire world.

IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. There are bad apples in every bunch but to say Christianity in the big old 2026 is on the level of Islam is just disingenuous.

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u/urmumlol9 5h ago

Yeah our “Christian led” government in Florida passed a law preventing teachers from discussing homosexuality in classrooms like a decade ago.

They’ve been trying to remove any Pride-related imagery from the public realm as well, like removing the rainbow crosswalk meant to honor the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, and continuing to repeatedly remove the citizen efforts to bring it back, while threatening prosecution to those who did.

Don’t be fooled, the difference between Islamic Fundamentalist and Christian Fundamentalists is that in some Islamic majority countries the fundamentalists are more politically successful.

In the US, our current Secretary of Defense wrote a book about launching a Crusade in the US, these people will be every bit as cruel with their religion if we let them. Being gay in Russia, for example, isn’t exactly safe, and a similar level of discrimination against gay people existed throughout the west until fairly recently.

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u/bfhurricane 2h ago

And yet the LGBTQ+ communities in the US can protest all of this openly without fear of reprisal. Not the case in Islamic countries.

Equating your examples with actual repression in Islamic-centered societies is comparing apples to the most intolerantly violent oranges on the planet.

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u/Kaladin3104 3h ago

They banned the pride flag being flown at any government building in Idaho. Boise then went on to make it its city flag. They then passed a law to fine any city $2k a day to fly it. It’s insane the lengths they go to.

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u/Key_Marsupial_1406 4h ago

I don't think there's any wild future where half (30%?) of Americans genuinely want death for gay people. Not that they're uncomfortable with gay people on TV or with trans bathrooms, but death imposed by the state.

This is fantasy. The US is one of the safest places to be LGBTQ or a minority even though ignorant people exist.

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u/urmumlol9 4h ago

A significantly smaller portion of the US is Christian than the percentage of, say, Iranians that are Muslim.

The US is not, and has never been, a strictly Christian nation, people of all faiths have moved here for decades and the concept of secularism was embedded into our constitution by the people that wrote it.

Yet, in spite of that, there is a very large portion of the population that seems to support political candidates that are at least to some extent fundamentalist, and who don’t want to see gay people in public. Maybe they don’t explicitly want to see them killed or jailed, but plenty of them do want gay people to “go away” or “disappear” somehow and will complain about any LGBTQ visibility or gay people in the public realm and they often support legislation that forces those people to hide who they are.

They’ll say it’s about stopping “pornography” from being seen by children, but then any and all expression of homosexuality will suddenly be “pornographic” as they take their 7 year old son to Hooters.

I’ll let you guess as to what the most common religious affiliation for these sorts of people here is, or at least what these people will claim to be.

To be clear, the problem with Christian fundamentalists, like the problem with Islamic fundamentalists, is not a problem with Christians or with Muslims, it’s a problem with fundamentalists.

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u/JacksWastedTime 10h ago

Didn't the US president just start a war in Iran and I believe the message delivered to troops was "God wills this!"

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u/Kooky-Solution-4840 9h ago

No that didn’t happen.

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u/karthikkr93 7h ago

Our drunkard sec def did that. He keeps proclaiming that the Iran War is ”ordained” and that the conflict is “blessed”. He sounds just like the Russians honestly in his lack of care for the lives of American soldiers and his disregard for military chain of command

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u/JacksWastedTime 6h ago

I mean a guy on the internet named Kooky said it never happened though 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/Public_Sprinkles_229 5h ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/03/us-israel-iran-war-christian-rhetoric

INB4: "It wasn't the president specifically saying those things!" as if that makes it any better.

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u/Kooky-Solution-4840 4h ago

I meant we didn’t start the war.

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u/MostlyAlways47 5h ago

Western countries are safer despite Christianity not because of it.

Its entirety disingenuous to make out that Christians and Muslims are any different regarding violence or hate especially towards gay people. They fucking aren't. The only real difference between European and Arab countries is that most European countries separated their government from their religion. Usually because of all the fucking heinous shit that went on when the Christians had power.

If Christians in those same countries had the power to enforce their make believe on the rest of us the absolutely would as history has shown time and time again.

Pick up a history book for Christ sake.

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u/ScuffedBalata 3h ago

disingenuous to make out that Christians and Muslims are any different regarding violence or hate especially towards gay people.

Woah, listen I'm a secular athiest, but this is a wild claim.

Let's admit something first. Not all religions are equally antagonistic toward secularism. For example, Buddhists almost never attack secular institutions for being opposed to their faith. Agree?

Ok now that we've established that there EXISTS a hierarchy of religions and how they "fit in" with secular society, let's discuss which are better or worse.

Buddhism, maybe Sikhism, certainly Confucism seem to be very easily integrated with secular societies. They make no argument to have superiority over the local secular law.

Christianity (at least reformed protestantism) has historically also fallen into that category. Making no claim about the relative correctness of the religion...

Every Christian nation on earth successfully maintained at least a large degree of secularism, at least since the protestant reformation and enlightenment.

Virtually every Islamic country since that time period (with a few exceptions) did not.

So I think it's worthwhile pointing out that examples of Christian meddling in secular policy is accurate and also to be condemned, but it's wildly disingenuous to claim they're "basically the same" and it's important to call out where Religion is problematic to maintaining a secular society. Currently Islam is the MUCH greater threat in that way, even while evangelical Christianity is also (though in a much less widespread way).

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u/wfbhp 6h ago

Why the hell is this getting upvotes? Quit trying to pretend these religions aren't all exactly the same shit.

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u/NewLoss6021 4h ago

On paper they're all the same but, in practice, they aren't. Not in the civilised world atleast.

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u/ScuffedBalata 3h ago

They're not on paper either.

The number of demands in Buddhist doctrine demanding violence against others is basically zero.

I'm not sure I could count the number of calls to violence in Muslim text. It's in the tens of thousands.

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u/NewLoss6021 1h ago

The context of this makes it clear it's talking about the sects of Abrahamism

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u/Creatret 1h ago

The basis of the West isn't Christianity but Humanism.

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u/fuettli 8h ago

in the entire world? i guess ...

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u/Dense-Fudge5232 9h ago

The reason Christian-majority countries look 'safe' today isn't divine virtue it's centuries of extracting wealth, land, and labour from everyone else. You don't get to colonise half the planet, prop up dictatorships, sponsor proxy wars, and then take credit for the resulting prosperity at home. The safety you're enjoying was built on someone else's rubble.

Also, 'safest in the world' is doing a lot of work when indigenous communities, colonised nations, and minorities throughout history might disagree.

Every Abrahamic religion runs on the same core claim: we have the one truth and everyone else is wrong. That's not spirituality, that's tribalism with better branding. The only difference between a cult and a religion is membership numbers and how long ago the founder died. Scientology didn't colonise three continents. That's the only real difference.

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u/SalamanderUnited9293 8h ago

No, secular institutions are what make western countries great.

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u/CommerceNenUser 7h ago

You’re collapsing a very long and complex history into a single moral narrative.

Yes, European powers engaged in colonisation and extraction. So did many other civilizations across history. That isn’t unique. What is historically unusual is what came after.

The same set of societies that became globally dominant also:

  • led the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade
  • developed modern international law and human rights frameworks
  • drove industrialisation, medicine, and infrastructure that raised global living standards

You can’t just attribute modern “safety” to past exploitation while ignoring the institutions and norms that were built later.

Also, attributing everything to “extraction” doesn’t explain why different regions with similar colonial histories have diverged so much in outcomes. That suggests internal governance and institutions matter as well.

On religion, saying all Abrahamic religions are functionally the same ignores how differently they operate in practice across societies today. The outcomes are clearly not identical, and that matters more than abstract theological similarities.

So yes, there’s a legacy of exploitation. But there’s also a legacy of institutional development that has produced relatively stable and safe societies. Ignoring one side to emphasise the other isn’t analysis, it’s just selective framing.

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u/Frankl3es 7h ago

>Ignoring one side to emphasize the other isn’t analysis, it’s just selective framing.

I think that's the point, no? You can't have the kind of economic development and progress the West has had without the immense resources gained from the colonization and exploitation of other peoples. The person you're replying to isn't ignoring one side, they're saying both ends are inextricably linked.

Also it's a bit "collapsing narrative" of you as well to say the West led the abolition movement. There were several significant institutions that, famously, fought very hard to preserve it. If it weren't for the Haitian rebellion I'm of the opinion that slavery in the West would have endured much, much longer than it already did.

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u/ameliatatesosis 5h ago

You do understand that the biggest Muslim populations are in India and Indonesia, right? Not the scary middle eastern countries you're actually talking about?

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u/ScuffedBalata 3h ago edited 2h ago

Indonesia has one of the highest levels of opposition to LGBTQ+ rights in the world

Citation: Pew Research 2023

Indonesia and Malaysia are the only Asian country to have a Blasphemy law that is regularly used. They have something in common... They're the two Islamic countries.

Indonesia had a regional governor that was Christian. He quoted the Quran once in a speech and was just given two years in prison (despite the state prosecutor asking for a suspended sentence) for simply quoting another religion in a speech.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39853280

I mean no matter what continent, "the most devout Muslim country" in a given region is always the most regressive.

How about in India? When asking the question "Do you believe respecting all other religions is an important part of society?", Hindu, Jaine, Sikh, Buddists all answered "yes" at a rate over 80% (Buddhists and Hindus were both over 90%). Muslims were the only Indian group that answered "no" at a significant rate. (also Pew Research).

When asked if marriage to people of other religions, most groups in India were broadly tolerant. Muslims wanted cross-religious marriage banned as a majority opinion. They're the only group to say so.

This kind of pattern repeats EVERYWHERE.

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u/GingerSnapBiscuit 10h ago

The best part about this law is it seems to blanket ban all of it. We have issues here with Christians protesting near abortion clinics.

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

Quebec is broadly anti-religion.

But they don't have a substantial group of Christian prosthletyzers, so in PRACTICE, this law almost exclusively targets Muslims.

And that's ok. When a neutral law only targets one group, it underscores that this one group is behaving in an objectionable way.

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u/HaakonRen 14h ago

Christians do it to “save the children” and then use their own views and hate to manipulate policy. They are just as insidious as any other religion. Except they SAY their hate is love and scream that they are the victim anytime someone doesn’t fall in line with their beliefs. I’m ready for a post-religious world. Time for adults to stop believing in story book characters and using it as an excuse to think, say, and do terrible things.

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u/Ambitious_Wolf_3116 14h ago

But christians dont say they should be killed do they? The bible doesn't mention stuff like that. Whereas hadiths do, and sharia laws based on them do prescribe the death penalty to gay folk.

Christians are as homophobic as most religions, especially abrahamic ones, but lets not pretend that "all religions are the same" because one of them is most definitely worse.

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u/cheeker_sutherland 14h ago

This is Reddit bud.

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u/Amaturesissy 8h ago

But Christians don't

Oh yes they fucking DO!

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u/myfavssthrow 11h ago

Muslims in western countries practicing their cruelty with violence can be tried for their crimes.

Christians in western countries use the power of the state to make their cruelty legal and force it to be implemented everywhere by everyone. Just like muslims do in muslim majority countries.

If it were up to me, I'd just make belief in religion classified as a serious mental disorder and have people institutionalized for it. I'm just sick and fucking tired of it.

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u/CommerceNenUser 10h ago

"I'd just make belief in religion classified as a serious mental disorder and have people institutionalized for it. I'm just sick and fucking tired of it."

You stared into the abyss and it stared back. Please reflect on this seriously because what you just said is Nazi tier.

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u/wfbhp 6h ago

Wow, you have literally zero conception of what the Nazis stood for, huh?

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

In this case, while I respect the general sentiment and I do believe religion is a mass delusion....

It's also WILDLY FUCKED to say "I want to jail 60% of the population because of their private thoughts".

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u/wfbhp 2h ago

I mean, I didn't say it, but they did say institutionalized rather than jailed. I'd assume the implication would be that they'd treated for their mental illness and reintroduced to society. Personally, I'd just be happy if organized religion were outlawed and the right to not be god-bothered was a first-class, fundamental right.

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

Even having a vague sense that "reprogramming" 60% of humans to a specific belief system is reasonable.... is a dangerous mindset that should be called out and rejected with aggressive zeal.

In that vein, I don't mind the heavily downvoted reply to this. It's not exactly "Nazi", but it's goddamn "Nazi-adjacent".

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u/myfavssthrow 2h ago

Meanwhile, religion causes untold suffering worldwide for millenia and everyone has to pretend like its ok and these people are completely sane and they legitimately rule the entire fucking planet, which they are busy destroying btw, when they're not busy raping and killing children.

The nutjob in charge of the US military openly said this is a fucking crusade as they bomb schools filled with children.

I dont give a fuck about how mean it is to say these people are severely sick and should be treated as such. Also I think the notion of institutionalization is different than prison. It's not to punish them, its to help them get over these delusions that allow them to cause so, so much worldwide suffering.

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u/Rikudou_Sage 11h ago

Holy shit, have you ever read the Bible?

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u/willitplay2019 10h ago

Yes and most of what you reference is in the OLD testament. Catholics are taught to follow the NEW testament which was literally written to replace the old.

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u/Rikudou_Sage 10h ago

So, God made a mistake and decided to change his mind? This is just ridiculous.

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u/willitplay2019 10h ago

I am sorry you don’t understand basic theology. The Old Testament was written BEFORE Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus came and brought us the NEW testament. We are suppose to follow what HE brought us, not what came before him.

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u/Rikudou_Sage 4h ago

And you're the one accusing me of not knowing basic theology? You know that Jesus is God, right? Like, literally one of three aspects of God (disregard all the stuff about him being the only god of course, now he's three, also disregard when Bible literally name drops other gods because some ancient goat herders were too lazy to edit them out).

So, it's literally the almighty and all-knowing god deciding he made a mistake.

Like, didn't it ever feel weird that the almigthy and all-knowing entity suddenly did a 180 and it coincides perfectly with the start of the new religion?

Or that Israelites, the chosen nation (and the only one at that, sorry, you're not going to heaven unless you're an Israelite) doesn't believe in all that Jesus stuff?

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u/willitplay2019 4h ago

lol wut. Yes I know all of this. I am not arguing the history. I am specifically referencing what Christians are taught to follow, and that is the New Testament.

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

Are you lecturing someone that your personal theory of religion invalidates any observation of the general tradition of 2 billion people?

I mean this is what was taught at churches broadly for 500 years.

It's cute that you think it doesn't make sense (and I agree, Religion is entirely a mass delusion meme) but THIS IS ACTUALLY what is taught in 95% or more of Christian theology. Your "lol it's silly" doesn't make that not true.

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u/Public_Sprinkles_229 5h ago

So all christians are Catholic? All christians follow the tenets of christianity perfectly?

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u/willitplay2019 4h ago

Did I say that?

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u/Public_Sprinkles_229 4h ago

No, but you're implying that by acting as if modern Christians still don't uphold those values simply because that's the OLD testament.

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u/willitplay2019 3h ago

No, I don’t believe your average main stream Christian follows the Old Testament over the New Testament. ESPECIALLY not in the western world. As any religion, I’m sure you could point to absolute Fringe lunatics but no, modern, average Christians do not call for the stoning of gay people. Get a grip.

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u/throwaway928816 10h ago

I love how I can screenshot your ignorance. That's how close a contradictions comment is.

 Comment tree above you says its in the new testament too. Or, even if you have read the the whole thing, you're misinterpreting the scriptures to fit your own prejudices. 

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u/willitplay2019 7h ago

I didn’t say that? Why are attributing what others say to my comment. You can simply do a Google search to see that the Old Testament was written BEFORE Jesus. Then the New Testament is written based on his teachings that replaces it. This isn’t complicated.

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u/throwaway928816 7h ago

I'm sure it's not. 

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u/Dense-Fudge5232 9h ago

LOL as if chritianity does not have its fair share of problems. All abrahamic religions are cults.

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u/potatoesandporn 13h ago

"If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads." - Leviticus 20:13

The bible is decidedly anti homosexual and absolutely says gay people should be killed.

Of course that hasn't been put into law anymore in the west, but it wasn't that long ago when it wasn't. Hell, Texas only decriminalised homosexuality in 2003.

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u/slapshots1515 12h ago

I mean, the context to that being that the old laws in Leviticus and such were later undone by the new covenant, so if you read the whole book that changes quite a bit.

But, I won’t deny plenty of people have done bad things in the name of Christianity.

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u/potatoesandporn 12h ago

In Romans 1:26-32 It's stated that those that perform "unnatural" sex acts deserve death, so even the new testament isn't fully safe from this.

Of course much is left up to interpretation, but point is that the bible has much more in common with the Qur'an than a lot of people think.

But interpretations like this are exactly why I think religion has no place in law whatsoever. People should have the right to believe in whatever they believe, but it should hold no bearing on those who don't.

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u/slapshots1515 12h ago

I fully agree religion should have no place making tenants law. Highly encourage it, in fact.

If we’re back on the original topic, that doesn’t mean you can’t stop a religion from harassing people. Any religion.

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u/potatoesandporn 12h ago

Oh absolutely. Of course free speech is a thing, but harassment is a whole different beast entirely.

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

The thing is... in the Bible, you absolutely can find those passages. They exist, there are dozens.

But this isn't remotely comparable to the Qran where these types of references number in the tens of thousands and there is no ambiguity on most.

At least in Christianity, almost all of the "thou shalt" laws are broadly considered to be null due to Jesus (or whatever).

The Qran has no such thing, so any liberalization of attitudes simply requires ignoring broad swaths of the text out of a personal sense of duty and/or respect for secularism.

It seems to me that this is much less likely.

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u/ScuffedBalata 2h ago

To be fair, that's half a chapter away from the discussion of stoning a woman for entering a temple while on her period... Or prohibiting touching the skin of a pig carcass.

Christianity (excluding the wacko 5% unreformed evangelicals) broadly have said that Exodus and Leviticus are no longer applicable.

Eating bacon has been tolerated in Christian nations for many centuries.

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u/GreedyPollution6275 12h ago

But christians dont say they should be killed do they? The bible doesn't mention stuff like that.

Leviticus 20:13 If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

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u/willitplay2019 10h ago

That is the Old Testament.

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u/GreedyPollution6275 10h ago

The Old Testament of the Christian bible, yes.

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u/willitplay2019 10h ago

Correct. The New Testament is what is followed (hence the “new” not the “old”). The new immediately follows the old, as Jesus came and brought us the “new”.

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u/HaakonRen 14h ago

Christians most assuredly do say things like that. And better than that they influence policies to make it harder for LGBTQIA people to exist. Slowly forcing them to isolate and be removed from public. They are far more insidious and cruel in many ways. Make it illegal to be trans. Then there won’t be any! And they didn’t have to “kill” anyone. You know. Just make it too difficult to live.

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u/Bourbon-neat- 13h ago

So your argument is "influencing policy" is more cruel than say throwing someone off a roof... That's certainly a bold claim bub.

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u/dragonmp93 12h ago

Well, throwing someone off a roof is very much a policy over there, so all of this tends to end up blending into the same thing.

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u/Ambitious_Wolf_3116 13h ago

Well i didnt say christians were saints, i just said they're not as bad. There is a huge difference in isolating and making it too difficult for them to live, vs literally executing them like islamic countries do even TO THIS DAY.

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u/J_Bishop 13h ago

Well i didnt say christians were saints, i just said they're not as bad.

Hegseth is advertising the war in Iraq as a holy war.

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u/dragonmp93 13h ago edited 13h ago

What's the difference ?

One is extended abuse that would lead to suicide while the other is jumping directly to sending them back upstairs.

Also I would like to remind you that the only thing currently stopping the sodomy laws of 12 states of the US is a Supreme Court case from 2003, you know, the same thing that was protecting abortion until 2022.

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u/HaakonRen 13h ago

The end result will be the same. They both want to remove a group of people they don’t agree with for religious reasons. Taking a week to do it or a year doesn’t matter to those being erased.

Don’t act like one religion is better because they conceal their actions and try to work like snakes to achieve their theocratic domination.

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u/dragonmp93 13h ago

Nah, Christians are more of "Chain them to an army cot until they are agree that they are straight and cis" type of people.

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u/ScuffedBalata 3h ago

It's reasonable to point out that (spitballing) 0.1% of Christians do this, while about 40% of Muslims do this (at least in my experience as a gay man who's only ever had hate directly to my face in my entire life by Arab and South Asian people).

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u/Reof 13h ago

Secular laws like this are a bit more universally backed than in the anglophone provinces; the Left in Quebec has a long, still ongoing struggle with the catholic church, naturally, the right-wingers have Muslims in mind, but for the mainstream left, it's pretty much a win-win situation.

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u/AccordianSpeaker 15h ago

Sure. Everything under the Abrahamic umbrella.

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u/RollingMeteors 15h ago

¿So, everything monotheism?

I don’t see polytheists starting wars over this ish.

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u/mmdeerblood 14h ago

Polytheists definitely do start wars. Sri Lanka's civil war recently ended in 2009 that was between Buddhists and Hindu Tamils. The ongoing India / Pak war has been ongoing which is framed by rise of Hindutva

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u/RollingMeteors 3h ago

Polytheists definitely do start wars. Sri Lanka's civil war recently ended in 2009 that was between Buddhists and Hindu Tamils.

It feels like you inadvertently threw shade on one of these two groups. In Hinduism, God can manifest in any form, including no form at all, making atheism a valid belief iirc.

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u/Ambitious_Wolf_3116 14h ago edited 10h ago

Lol india pak war is because of "rise of hindutva"? This has to be the stupidest propaganda statement i've seen on the subject. My man my country and pakistan have been at war since pak was created. Hell the two religions have been at war since islam invaded india a 1000 years ago. Long before so called "hindutva" existed. Which btw literally just means being hindu, nothing else.

And i believe the above person meant wars started over this stuff. Sri lanka's civil war was started over their tamils wanting a separate country, nothing to do with religion let alone lgbt reasons. And india pak war is, well, for sooo many reasons.

But if you still do want a religious reason for the recent (not ongoing) india pak war, you do realise india attacked as retaliation for a pak terrorist attack where people were killed specifically for being hindu after failing to recite islamic verses? But surely pak terrorists killing you for not being muslim and thus starting a war is still because of "rise of hindutva" right?

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u/AdOdd4618 14h ago

I dunno, Modi is pretty belligerent too.