I, Ashu M. G. Solo, filed the following:

1. Civil rights case against the City of Saskatoon (Mayor's Office) and Councillor Randy Donauer for prayer recitations at government organized events

2. Code of Conduct complaint against Mayor Don Atchison for potential online campaign advertising violations

3. Civil rights case against the City of Saskatoon (Saskatoon Transit Services) for promoting holidays from only one religion on city buses

4. Human rights complaint against the City of Saskatoon (Executive Committee) for retaliating against me by not reappointing me to the Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Committee and not appointing me to another civic committee or board

5. Human rights complaint against the City of Saskatoon (City Solicitor’s Office) for retaliating against me by trying to deprive me of my right to directly communicate with members of City Council and by telling employees of other City of Saskatoon departments to not talk to me

6. Human rights complaint against the City of Saskatoon (Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Office) and City of Saskatoon (Living in Harmony Ad Hoc Subcommittee of Cultural Diversity and Race Relations Committee) for retaliating against me by not considering my submissions to the Living in Harmony Contest

This site contains my media releases, some case documents, emails to City Council, etc.

I don't waste my time arguing with opponents.

The backlash makes me much more determined to fight against bigotry and shows the need for these civil rights cases, so I'll be filing more civil rights cases. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Update on Civil Rights Case Regarding Christmas Messages on Buses and Religious Messages by the State


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

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