No smoking for you infidels in Vancouver, but you Muslims can light it right up!

Power Line has this item that references both Mark Steyn’s column in the National Review and a story at The Vancouver Sun. The gist? Smoking is a public threat and no smoking is to be allowed on sidewalks, bus shelters, and even in taxis just passing through Vancouver. But hookah-parlors are OK since “houkah lounges provide an important cultural space for the city’s Muslims”.

I’d never be one to defend smoking, not in any degree. But to say that Muslim culture demands that one be allowed to smoke in public spaces but that western culture – a culture that’s been smoking stuff for centuries – can be freely denied this activity is placing Muslim culture in a superior position to those of the West. Not equal, but superior.

This is the direction Canadians want to go?