This is an issue regarding The Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada. It is explicit. No discrimination against religious beliefs. What constitutes a belief shouldn't be up to the Government to dictate, unless that belief may cause harm to an individual or those around them.

I don't really see how this is hard to understand. Be accepting, and don't judge people. It has the happy side effect of making you a better person, too.

(Note, I'm not religious at all. I'm here advocating based entirely on my belief that we have an amazing Charter of Rights)

So police and government officials shouldn't be able to identify someone wearing a Niqab? Hiding one's identity is a safety issue, and harm could follow...

I fully agree with the rest BTW, but you do need to realize, there are unsavoury practices around the world that are justified by 'religious' belief...

the unsavory things you speak of around the world, well, they aren't here.

> Should government employees have no dress code?

Except insofar as dress is actually related to the performance of the substantive duties of the job, probably.

Much of Islam (most, probably) sees the Niqab as being optional, including many Sunni scholars, and every moderate Islamic sect.

Every Islamic sect allows polygamy (other religions also allow it). So tell me, why are we infringing on that belief?

In November, 2011 the court released its 335 pages long decision, which was that the polygamy abolition law is indeed constitutional, but that it should not be used to persecute minors for having taken part of a polygamous marriage.[21] Chief Justice Robert Bauman conceded that there is a conflict between this law and some civil right principles, but stated that there are other and "more important" issues which in this case takes precedence. He wrote (as quoted by CBC news[21]):

    "I have concluded that this case is essentially about harm. More specifically, Parliament's reasoned apprehension of harm arising out of the practice of polygamy. This includes harm to women, to children, to society and to the institution of monogamous marriage".

The decision was welcomed by the attorney general of British Columbia, and by a representative for the group Stop Polygamy in Canada. Likewise, according to the CBC news,[21] some polyamorous groups in Canada expressed their relief, since Bauman had stated that the law shouldn't apply to them unless they decide to formalize their unions.

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reference [21] is a broken link on wikipedia, http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/11/23/bc-polygamy... so i offer this one instead: http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/legalfeeds/568/B.C.-court-u... it is more focused on the harm aspect and does not notice the polyamorous angle.

Which doesn't stop it from being a religious issue.

> Every Islamic sect allows polygamy (other religions also allow it). So tell me, why are we infringing on that belief?

Whether something is a bona fide religious issue is not, alone, dispositive of the treatment it should have by the State. So pointing out that other religious practices are prohibited by the State is irrelevant when the discussion at hand was over whether the issue was really a religious issue.

For the religious definition of marriage, there are no laws saying you can't be married in your religion to multiple people. The only stipulation is that you can only be legally married to one person because of the aforementioned legal and tax benefits. There's no law prohibiting me from having six female roommates who are exclusively in a relationship with me. There is a law saying I can only be legally married to one of them at a time. The rest of the women would be legally single and religiously married.

How does this behavior of your wife say anything about what is or is not a religious issue for others?

Plenty of questionable behaviour gets glossed over as a 'religious' belief. Carrying weapons, polygamy, subjecting women and minorities, violence, etc... There absolutely has to be a line in the sand concerning what we as a society are willing to accept.

Some fundamentalist Christians think they should burn witches and homosexuals, and in the past, did. Yet our society no longer considers that acceptable.

Instead, it's usually both mixed-age and arranged: effectively, families coercing their daughters to join the harem of a rich man. (There may also be a dowry, in which case the family is selling their daughter into the harem of a rich man.)

This is a pretty bad thing, but it's hard to write a fully-general (e.g. gender-neutral) legal definition of it that doesn't also cause problems for regular poly people.

Polygamy is accepted by many religions, and we have no problem trouncing those rights, yet we will bend over backwards for other questionable 'rights' (like the Burqa/Niqab, which is not 'required' except by extremist sects - and is nearly universally regarded as a tool of oppression).

I mean, every everyone is a consenting adult, what does it matter?

The proposal forbids a variety of religious adornments, for more than those involving face covering. I have no problem identifying someone in a hijab (headscarf), for example, which would also be outlawed for government employees under this proposal.