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Comment by giraffe_lady | Hacker News Reader

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I think it was specifically just minarets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Swiss_minaret_referendum

Now, you might find even that a bit overbearing, but I believe the right of a community to influence the architecture of their local town shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. The feeling was that the few minarets that already existed were incongruent enough, that they didn't want a carte-blanche on more sprouting up, which I think planning permission had already been applied for.

Minarets. Another referendum - in fact the first one ever to be accepted since the reconstitution of Switzerland as a federal state post-Napoleon - banned kosher/halal slaughtering of animals (at the time it was directed against Jews, not Muslims). The ban stands to this day.

Sounds like an argument for direct democracy to me. The will of the people was implemented, even though it's politically incorrect.

I don't always know what "politically incorrect" is being used as a euphemism for but banning mosques seems straightforwardly bad to me idk I guess I'm just a woke dumbass hey.

As said above, it was not banning mosques, but minarets specifically. There were only 4 minarets in Switzerland at the time, and no plan to build any more. You could try to build a minaret in Switzerland, get the permit refused, appeal, and try to go up to a court high enough to make that law illegal. But it seems like nobody cared.

It was more political theater at the time. Not that it was a good vote, but I wouldn't say that the Swiss democracy doesn't work based on that. Switzerland is an example of consensus, and a functional democracy.

No euphemism. It is politically incorrect.

Not that you're a woke dumbass, just probably not a true believer in democracy. The thing described above I also dislike, but I recognize I'm not a resident or voter there and I shouldn't get a say in their lives

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