Back in Canada, Where We're This Nervous About Religion

A story from the CBC:

Some fellow passengers are questioning why an Orthodox Jewish man was removed from an Air Canada Jazz flight in Montreal last week for praying.

The man was a passenger on a Sept. 1 flight from Montreal to New York City when the incident happened.

The airplane was heading toward the runway at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport when eyewitnesses said the Orthodox man began to pray.

"He was clearly a Hasidic Jew," said Yves Faguy, a passenger seated nearby. "He had some sort of cover over his head. He was reading from a book.

"He wasn't exactly praying out loud but he was lurching back and forth," Faguy added.

Sad, really, that prayer can make a person so nervous so as to kick a man off a plane. But check this:

"The attendant actually recognized out loud that he wasn't a Muslim and that she was sorry for the situation but they had to ask him to leave," Faguy said.

It boggles the mind. He wasn't a Muslim, so they actually weren't afraid that he would pray the plane out of the sky? But prayer is still so dangerous, or nervous-making, that he had to leave?

Pokes a hole in the "Canadians are tolerant" theory. Or perhaps a confirmation that we are tolerant and understanding of just about everything but religion?