{"id":6697,"date":"2008-03-19T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2008\/03\/19\/premier-of-ontario-canada-asks-for-a-more-comprehensive-prayer\/"},"modified":"2008-03-19T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-19T12:00:00","slug":"premier-of-ontario-canada-asks-for-a-more-comprehensive-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2008\/03\/19\/premier-of-ontario-canada-asks-for-a-more-comprehensive-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier of Ontario, Canada, Asks For a More Comprehensive Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"source\"><a HREF=\"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2008\/3\/19#3.shtml\">www.hinduismtoday.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"summary\">TORONTO, CANADA, March 19, 2008: (Via Religion News Service) The premier of Ontario has dropped a political hot potato with his recent announcement that the daily recitation of the Lord&#8217;s Prayer in the provincial legislature should be dropped. &#8220;It&#8217;s time for us to ensure that we have a prayer that better reflects our diversity,&#8221; Dalton McGuinty, a Liberal Party member, said last month. &#8220;The members of the Ontario Legislature reflect the diversity of Ontario &#8212; be it Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or agnostic. It is time for our practices to do the same.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Canadian leaders have been increasingly more supportive of religious pluralism. In 2007, at the opening of the Swaminarayan Mandir in Toronto, McGuinty said &#8220;Toronto is a place where people from all over the world can come together to create something beautiful &#8212; a strong and diverse society.&#8221; At the same event, Canada&#8217;s Prime Minister Stephen Harper said &#8220;Today we celebrate one of our country&#8217;s greatest strengths&#8211;its commitment to pluralism.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>McGuinty&#8217;s proposal has touched off a decidedly religious debate in largely secular Canada, and one that echoes similar fights south of the border over the proper role of religion in civic spheres.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. debate, for the most part, has not centered on the Lord&#8217;s Prayer but on other references to the divine &#8212; specifically, whether civic councils can open with prayers that end &#8220;in Jesus&#8217; name.&#8221; That&#8217;s the fight playing out in a federal appeals court in Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>www.hinduismtoday.com TORONTO, CANADA, March 19, 2008: (Via Religion News Service) The premier of Ontario has dropped a political hot potato,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6697\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}