by Jacob T. Levy

I haven't had a chance to consolidate my various posts on this into one OU-friendly post, so I thought I'd just put up the links: Over at my home blog, I've been commenting on Herouxville, the small Quebec town that briefly became world-famous last month for adopting a code of lifestyle norms to be communicated to new immigrants, one that ranged from "no stoning women" to "no covering of one's face except on Halloween." After the international hubbub subsided, Quebec's premier appointed a blue-ribbon commission to investigate the cultural accommodation of minorities in Quebec, and the limits to such accommodation. The commission's co-chair is none other than Charles Taylor--one of the world's leading political philosophers, a Montrealer and a defender of both Quebec's distinct identity and of multiculturalism. My most substantial post on the Herouxville norms is here. My translation of some of Taylor's remarks in an interview with Le Devoir is here. The norms are here in an official English translation, though there are differences in meaning between that document and the original in French. (The currently-posted French version has been amended; the English is a translation of the original version, not of the new version.)