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That depends on how people see right from wrong — but also right-wing from left-wing. For this controversy is increasingly about ideology — and identity.

Lest we forget, the bubble debate goes way back — long before the conflict in the Middle East was superimposed upon a Canadian template. It predates the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and hostage-taking, and the Israeli counterattacks and overkill that followed, and the antisemitic outbursts that have long been out of control.

In the beginning was the abortion debate, pitting the right to harass against the right to choose. Put another way, bubble zones were first conceived in the context of zygotes, not Zionists (What is a Zionist? A supporter of self-determination for the Jews of Israel, which defines most Jews in Canada).

Progressives, legislators and judges long ago agreed that pregnant women in distress deserved better than to be tormented on their way into an abortion clinic. So-called free speech was restricted so that vulnerable women could do what they were legally entitled to do, under protection of law.

Later, bubble zones were extended to protect medical professionals — doctors, nurses, clinicians, assistants — who were trying to keep people healthy, not just in abortion clinics but vaccination clinics. The courts have consistently upheld the right of freedom from harassment from the right to free speech in such circumstances, where pro-choicers (and pro-vaxxers) have no choice but to be at a clinic.

ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s new bubble bylaw came into effect last month after a year of bitter debate on city council. It sparked much hand-wringing on the sidelines from self-styled civil libertarians about the value of uncivil discourse, and from self-styled progressive protesters about the virtue of unpleasant demonstrations.

This month, we learned that more than a dozen Jewish schools and synagogues have sought and received anti-protest protections, requiring protesters to keep 50 metres away during service hours. Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca led the way with a similar bubble zone, albeit 100 metres wide, after a series of ugly confrontations that he believed crossed a line outside synagogues.

Why shouldn’t religious minorities have the same protection accorded to doctors or nurses, pregnant women or vaccine patients? If Canadians don’t believe in compelled speech, why compel worshippers to face hateful protests or violent incidents that recur with disturbing frequency?

This glaring contradiction about who deserves bubble zones — and who doesn’t — reminds me of the awkward irony that infuses the anti-abortion movement in America: Life begins at conception and cannot be aborted, but capital punishment is a fitting punishment for those on death row, we are told in the same breath.

It seems a bubble zone is a lightning rod and a litmus test. But this doesn’t pass the smell test.

Many Muslims feel vulnerable after a London family of four was killed by an attacker in 2021, said Sheila Carter, who co-chairs the Canadian Interfaith Conservation and also works with Islamic Relief Canada, adding: “We should, as Canadians, be able to move forward safely, freely, happily with whatever faith we are,�

Ask civil libertarians, however, and they insist that free speech is an absolute — abortion excepted.

Anaïs Bussières McNicoll of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association argued against ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½â€™s bubble zone by quoting an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling that protests are a time-tested way of “redressing grievances.â€�

Really? How could Canadian Jews, whose schools have been targeted, address grievances against a foreign government — unless one believes school-age Jews, like all Jews, have magical powers to transcend borders?

Bussières quoted approvingly from another court ruling that protesters must not be barred “from public space traditionally used for the expression of dissent because of the discomfort their protest causes.â€� But the House of Commons isn’t a house of worship or a classroom, so when did people at prayers or students at school become “traditionally” fair game for the “discomfort” of hateful confrontations on their sabbath?

Let’s not confuse the thought police with the right to be protected. Banning books is bad because people should be exposed to diverse ideas and can choose what they want to read; people at prayers have no such choice if they are going to a mosque or synagogue.

I don’t have to persuade progressives of the need for abortion bubbles, because they (and I) support them: They cheerfully back a bubble to shield pregnant women from religious zealots at an abortion clinic, yet they reflexively oppose an anti-bullying bubble to protect religious people from overzealous protesters.

To be clear, protest has its place in a public space. But no one, whether prayerful or pregnant, should be compelled to endure unwanted harassment — be it at a medical clinic or a house of worship.