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New Canadian paves way for others to recant oath to Queen

New Canadian paves way for others to recant oath to Queen

A new Canadian citizen has started a website for others like him who wish to renounce their allegiance to the Queen.

Dror Bar-Natan, a Toronto math professor who was born in Israel and emigrated to Canada 13 years ago, was one of three people who challenged the constitutionality of the citizenship oath – specifically, to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.“

Bar-Natan called the requirement “repulsive,” in a letter last month to citizenship judge Albert Wong.

“To me, it states that some people, the royals and their heirs, are born with privilege,” he wrote. “It is a historic remnant of a time we all believe has passed, in which the children of peasants could be nothing but peasants, and in which aristocracy existed as a closed club.”

While Ontario’s top court ruled last year that the oath does not violate any rights, it did say anyone who took issue with the vow to the Queen has “ample opportunity to publicly disavow any association with the message that they attribute to the oath.”

Bar-Natan did just that, in a second letter to Wong that he handed the judge right after he took his citizenship oath on Monday.

He also created a website to let others know they can do the same, regardless of when they took the oath.

He and his supporters find the monarchy part of the oath “bitter to swallow, each for her or his own reasons,” he says on disavowel.ca.

Indeed, there are so far a dozen others who have publicly recanted their allegiance to the Queen by posting on his site — many of them in the past few days.

“Monarchies are anachronistic abominations; addressing other human beings as ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘Your Royal Highness’ is utterly absurd. I am no one’s subject,” wrote Karolina Sygula, who took the citizenship oath in November 1985.

"As someone put it recently, because it’s 2015,” wrote Masrour Zoghi, referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s reason for having a gender-parity cabinet.

Terence Stone, who became a citizen earlier this year, wrote, "Since February 11, I have carried the terrible feeling that I compromised my integrity; and so now I’m repairing that harm to myself by disavowing my pledge of allegiance to the Queen and body Royal in perpetuity.”

They’re not alone in the Commonwealth.

Jamaica allows would-be citizens to make an “affirmation” if they do not wish to swear allegiance to the Queen.

But Jamaican Simone Topey, a co-applicant in Bar-Natan’s case and a Rastafarian, lost her appeal here after arguing that her religion forbids taking an oath to the Queen.

In 1984, Australia replaced its Oath of Allegiance with a Pledge of Commitment that removed a promise to “bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Australia, Her heirs and successors.”

“From this time forward, [under God,] I pledge my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey,” it reads. The words “under God” are optional for pledge-takers.

Belize, too, makes “So help me God” optional, but not allegiance to the Queen.

In the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, historic constitutional reforms that include divesting of the monarchy are being considered right now, the result of a report 10 years in the making.

Other Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and Barbados have so far resisted efforts to strip the Queen from their citizenship oaths.