From: Ashu M. G. Solo [mailto:amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us]
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 9:10 AM
To: amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us
Subject: Update on Civil Rights Case Regarding Christmas Messages on Buses and Religious Messages by the State
Sent: Monday, December 24, 2012 9:10 AM
To: amgsolo@mavericktechnologies.us
Subject: Update on Civil Rights Case Regarding Christmas Messages on Buses and Religious Messages by the State
Dear Media and Saskatoon City Solicitor’s Office,
City Council’s decision to leave the “merry Christmas”
greeting on buses was cowardly and bigoted. City Council has referred
this issue to the Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Committee, an advisory committee
to City Council. Having served on that committee, I know its members are
fairly progressive. Because the Christmas messages will only be on the
buses for another day I assume and then won’t be up again for 11 months, I will
wait and see what recommendations the Cultural Diversity and Race Relations
Committee makes and whether City Council adopts them. If the policy
resulting from this process is discriminatory, I will proceed with a civil
right complaint to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission. If this goes
to the human rights commission, I will seek a judgment that has the effect of
banning religious messages by the state throughout the province of Saskatchewan
and that has persuasive value in other provinces too.
City Council says that instead of getting rid of “merry
Christmas” greetings on buses, it may include messages for other cultural
holidays. This is better than before when they only had a Christmas
message, so I’ve already won a partial victory. However, this is not a
practical idea because there are over 10,000 religions, 150 of which have 1
million or more followers: http://www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html
Most of these religions have multiple holidays. Therefore, it would be
impossible to have messages for holidays in all other religions. Are they
going to have greetings for Scientology holidays and Voodoo religion
holidays? They would have to hire a staff just to figure out all of the
religious holidays and program all of them into each of the 100 buses in the
fleet. The bus drivers can choose which programmed messages they want to
display at their discretion, so I doubt if many of them will display
messages for religions that they don’t believe in. I wouldn’t.
Are you going to force bus drivers to display messages for religions that they
don’t believe in? This is a totally impractical idea.
I was told that Christians have a religious requirement
to push their religion onto others. That’s why there is so much opposition
to removal of Christmas greetings from buses. They should not be using
the state for proselytization. If Christmas greetings are so important to
them, they can put them on their own personal vehicles instead of on city
buses. “Merry Christmas” might be a secular greeting to many, but it is
also a religious greeting to many. Otherwise they would not oppose
getting rid of the greeting or replacing it with a more inclusive greeting like
“happy holidays.” Many Christians say “merry Christmas” to push their
religion onto others and that’s why some of them boycott retail stores where
clerks are told to not say “merry Christmas” to customers.
“Merry Christmas” on programmable bus signs doesn’t
offend many people who are of Christian ancestry because their families
celebrate it and they're accustomed to it. People argue that Christmas is
secular to non-Christians, but the people that they’re talking about are mostly
of Christian ancestry and the same can be said about all religious holidays. Eid
is secular to non-Muslims who are of Muslim ancestry. Hannukah is secular
to non-Jews who are of Jewish ancestry. But the bus doesn't display
messages for Eid or Hannukah. It can't display messages for all religions
because there are over 10,000 religions, 150 of which have 1 million or more
followers (http://www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html). This doesn't include branches of each religion. Therefore, it shouldn't display messages for any religions.
It has been claimed by some that this issue is
petty. If it’s petty, why did I get massive media coverage, numerous hate
messages, and threats? This is a yearly occurrence on Saskatoon
buses. I’m not the one being petty. My opponents are the ones being
petty by insisting on having “merry Christmas” on Saskatoon buses instead of
“happy holidays.” This isn't just about religious messages on Saskatoon
buses. If this goes to the human rights commission, this is about getting
a permanent ban on religious messages by the state throughout the
province. Also, I strongly believe that it’s always better to vigorously
stand up for what’s right than passively sit down for what’s wrong.
Finally, I wanted to start a national debate on religious messages by the state
like I started a national debate on prayer recitations at civic events and
that's exactly what I’ve done.
My opponents either don’t care about religious liberty or
secularism or don’t understand the fundamentals of religious liberty and
secularism. Those who aren’t of Christian ancestry who oppose me are
bootlickers, minions, and myrmidons to the Christian majority. They need
to have more dignity and stand up for their rights as minorities instead of
trying to ingratiate themselves with the majority.
I don’t like my taxpayer money funding buses that promote
a religion I don’t believe in. I was born here, served in the army
reserve here, and don’t have to tolerate religion in government here.
It’s hypocritical for the Canadian Armed Forces to fight for separation of
religion and state in Kabul when this doesn’t fully exist in Saskatoon.
Canadians like to believe that their country is
respectful of diversity, but the extremely racist and bigoted backlash against
me proves that Canada is an extremely racist and bigoted country. The
racist and bigoted backlash shows how important it is to make complaints like
this. The racist and bigoted backlash
for my prayer recitation complaint motivated me to make this complaint. The racist and bigoted backlash for this
complaint motivates me to make more complaints in the future.
Ms. Christine Bogad, you wanted me to send my emails
regarding this matter to you instead of directly to City Council. Please
forward this email to City Council and Saskatoon Transit management and acknowledge
doing so or I can forward it to them. This email message will also be
posted at http://atchison-discrimination.blogspot.ca.
I have many more complaints planned to advance the birthrights
of liberty. I made many complaints before the prayer recitation
complaint, but didn’t make them public. I got two other discriminatory
city policies changed this year by not telling the public about them. If
I hadn’t told the media about this complaint on Christmas messages on buses, I
think the city manager would have gotten rid of the discriminatory message and
nobody in the public would have known the difference, so maybe I made a mistake
by making this complaint public, but at least I started a national debate on
this issue. I make these complaints because not only is the business of
government the business of people, but the business of people is the business
of government.
Best regards,
Ashu M. G. Solo