Tokenism it ain't--it's character and narrative

It's interesting that many on the Democratic side and some on the Republican side are calling the Palin VP pick "tokenism" or a nod towards "diversity" and so on.

I frankly don't think that's what tipped the balance for McCain. I think he sees in Palin a kindred spirit, someone with proven character to make hard, even potentially painful choices, to buck the establishment when principles are at stake and who brings a Washington outsider's fresh perspective to Washington. If Sarah Palin were a white male with a similar narrative, I think McCain would have chosen him.

Here's an interesting line by line comparison of Palin's experience and Obama's.

The sexists start coming out of the woodwork

Andrew Sullivan is one:

Do you really believe that Sarah Palin understands the distinctions between Shia and Sunni, has an opinion about the future of Pakistan, has a view of how to exploit rifts within Tehran's leadership, knows about the tricky task of securing loose nuclear weapons? Does anyone even know if she has ever expressed a view on these matters? Here's a bleg: can anyone direct me to any statement she has ever made about foreign policy?

Duh? Her son is fighting over in Iraq. I suspect she knows about these things. And Russia is thirty miles away from her home state.

Victor Davis Hansen on Obama

After the Victory Column, and a Greek temple, what can one expect from Obama during the Republican convention–Mt. Rushmore?

Mark Steyn is baaaaack ---and he likes Palin

Welcome back, Mark. I am sure I'm not the only one who missed you!

Over at The Corner, he weights in on Gov. Sarah Palin as VP:

Next to her resume, a guy who's done nothing but serve in the phony-baloney job of "community organizer" and write multiple autobiographies looks like just another creepily self-absorbed lifelong member of the full-time political class that infests every advanced democracy.

Second, it can't be in Senator Obama's interest for the punditocracy to spends its time arguing about whether the Republicans' vice-presidential pick is "even more" inexperienced than the Democrats' presidential one.

Third, real people don't define "experience" as appearing on unwatched Sunday-morning talk shows every week for 35 years and having been around long enough to have got both the War on Terror and the Cold War wrong.

Heh heh heh.

Horrific Christian persecution ignored by the mainstream media

Horrible, horrible anti-Christian persecution is going on in India. Ron Dreher has linked to some awful details. But this jumped out at me from his blog post. Go over there and read all about it and follow the links from his site:

Until I saw the link on Amy Welborn's blog, the only thing I'd read about any of this violence was a story deep inside the New York Times earlier in the week, with the headline: "Faiths Clash, Displacing Thousands in East India." Ah, yes, "faiths clash;" what's next for the Times, reporting a gang rape by saying, "Sexes clash"? I've noticed this over the years when the MSM reports on violence members of other religions inflict on a Christian minority in a faraway land: they tend to present it as Just One of Those Things -- that is, as if there really were no victims, only clashing parties.

The Anchoress on generosity of spirit

The Anchoress writes (go to her site so the links will work):

In watching the coverage of John McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, I thought about generosity and the lack thereof and how they play out, and what sort of payback they bring you in the universe.

What I mean is, yesterday, on the fourth day of the Democrat National Convention, John McCain made an ad congratulating Obama - and the Obama campaign appreciated it and wished he would do more ads like those. McCain didn’t have to do that, but he did, and it was a fairly classy thing to do. No, not classy, it generous. It showed a generosity of spirit.

Today, McCain named Palin, and Obama’s first reaction was ungracious and ungenerous.

That got cleaned up and reconsidered, and Obama even took the corrective further, by calling Palin to congratulate her, but first responses often tell us what is in the heart, and the heart of the Obama campaign lacked generosity.

Barack Obama does not easily show much generosity of spirit. He has thrown a lot of people under the bus, when political expediency has demanded it, but I’m thinking specifically of his lack of generosity toward Hillary Clinton, when she suspended her campaign. His coffers are full-to-overflowing, but he did not offer to help Clinton’s debts from them. Instead, he said he’d ask his supporters to cover Hillary’s debts, but then - when the time came - he forgot to do that.

I'm afraid that B'nai Brith still doesn't get it

While B'nai Brith is sounding the alarm about political Islam and how proponents are subverting human rights commissions to stifle freedoms, it still supports human rights "hate speech" provisions.

Ezra Levant compared the organizations stand to George Orwell's "doublethink." I'm afraid Levant is right, as much as I am favorably disposed to B'nai Brith.

Joseph Brean has a piece in today's National Post about B'nai Brith's critique of human rights commissions:

Mr. Fatah described the Islamist strategy as two-fold. Non-Muslim critics of Islam are labelled "Islamophobic," which is equated in the public mind with racism, one of the most serious accusations in civil society. Muslim critics, however, such as Mr. Fatah himself, are labelled "apostates," which he called a "hidden death threat."

It is this context that Canada's human rights commissions have failed to appreciate, the B'nai Brith report says.

It singles out Barbara Hall, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, for her "egregious" and "appalling" treatment of the complaint against Maclean's, which she dismissed as out of her jurisdiction, but went on to denounce the magazine for racism. Mr. Matas said this "made a human rights threat more acute."

In addition to better education and training, the report calls for substantial procedural reforms, including the awarding of costs to successful defendants, a prohibition on filing the same complaint in multiple jurisdictions, formal guarantees of due process, the right to disclosure and the right to know one's accuser.

Those would be major improvements. But they would in effect make the tribunals real courts.
The open-ended "thought crimes" provisions in human rights legislation, however, are the problem, since they are so lacking in specifics, so open-ended, so subjective that they give government agencies a carte blanche to harass any group or person who happens to be "out" or "politically incorrect." Doesn't B'nai Brith realize the political Islamists are only following the hijacking of the system by anti-family, secular fundamentalist zealots who have systematically a attacked Christianity?

But B'nai Brith still defends this legislation, according to Brean.

Free speech is "the media's favourite human right," the report reads, and "those who advocate freedom of expression often go on to deny the equal right to be protected from advocacy of hatred.... The Holocaust did not begin with censorship. It began with hate speech. Auschwitz was built with words. The killing fields of Cambodia were sowed with slogans. The genocide of Rwanda was spread by radio. Bosnia was ethnically cleansed by television."

This is where they are wrong. The Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Cambodian killing fields began not with hate slogans, but government led campaigns to wipe out targeted enemies. The slogans came from government bodies; the slogans did not create the government bodies.
The hate speech of the Nazis was prohibited before they gained power. Then those censorship laws were used to prevent dissent against their heinous regime.

We need protection from government suppression of rights, because it is totalitarian power that leads to genocide, not freedom of speech. Human rights commissions are promoting hatred against Christians, systematically marginalizing them and painting them as haters. Doesn't B'nai Brith have a problem with that? Or do they only want to make sure nothing can be said against the Jewish people, as if they are the only group that is vulnerable to hatred? Christians have been experiencing government-sponsored hate for over eight years now, including attacks from Liberal prime ministers in election campaigns.

I mean, really, Bosnia ethnically cleansed by television? Get real. Bosnia was ethnically cleansed by government troops and sympathetic militias: people with guns and bombs.

More needs to be done now to disarm government power to take away the rights of citizens.

The Rwandan genocide was orchestrated and planned. It did not happen because some radio station started making hateful remarks against Tutsis. The hateful remarks were part of the program. They did not create it.

It's about character, stupid

Remember the old Clinton election slogan "It's the economy, stupid!"

I have thought for a long time the most important slogan in any election is "It's about character, stupid!"

And character trumps experience. I would put her character up against say former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's experience aka. appeasement towards terrorist enemies any day.

That's why I'm thrilled about Gov. Sarah Palin as a vice presidential pick and I have no concerns about her lack of foreign policy experience. She has character, a proven record of making tough, costly, choices both personally and professionally.

So does Senator John McCain.

With the foundational character in place, the rest will fit together. The details---the names of the capital cities in the 'stans, whether a leader is a president or a prime minister, is not as important as whether one gets the big picture principles right.

We need to get back to big picture principles. Even the economy depends on the good character of the business actors. We need to have leaders who inspire us by showing that yes, making the tough choices for what's good, even if they are personally costly, are what builds self-esteem.

I was up in Centre Block in the Hotroom yesterday where journalists hang out when McCain announced his VP pick. You can tell something's happening when all the journalists stop working and cluster around the TV set.

Many were wishing they could get reassigned to cover the U.S. election. They were lamenting how boring the Canadian election was going to be.

Tell me, folks, who would you rather have dealing with Putin or Ahmedinejad? Sarah Palin or Barack Obama? (or Joe Biden with that irritating grin) Clarity and character vs. nuance and image? I can't wait for the debates. I am stocking up on popcorn.

My feature on REAL Women is up at Western Catholic Reporter

REAL Women of Canada was conceived in 1981 during debate over Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Gwendolyn Landolt and her friends grew disturbed when the only voices representing women were "just a bunch of feminists" with government funding, she said in an interview.

"The women of Canada demand so-and-so in the Charter," was the refrain Landolt kept hearing via the news media.

"Has anyone ever asked the women of Canada?" she said.

When the Liberal's Status of Women Minister Judy Erola announced there would be no tax credits for women who chose to stay at home, Landolt knew there had to be an alternate voice.

At first Landolt and six friends met informally around her kitchen table. "We were very aware at the time the family was in a state of crisis," said the Catholic mother of five who is also a lawyer and former Crown prosecutor. "We felt the fragmentation of the family was the major cause of disruption in society."

Harper government caves on Unborn Victims bill

An apparent attempt by the Conservative government to keep abortion out of the next federal election has shocked and disappointed pro-life Canadians.

Amid rumours of an October federal election, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson Aug. 25 distanced the government from Edmonton Sherwood Park MP Ken Epp's Unborn Victims of Crime Bill.

"We've heard criticisms from across the country including representatives from the medical community that Mr. Epp's bill as presently drafted could be interpreted as instilling fetal rights," Nicholson said.

"Let me be clear. Our government will not reopen the debate on abortion."

But one pro-life leader said Nicholson, a Catholic, moved beyond the Conservative Party's previous refusal to take a stand one way or another on abortion.

"He definitely entered the abortion debate - on the side of the pro-abortion camp," said Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) president Jim Hughes. "(Epp's) private members' bill had a real chance of being passed and the Conservatives are denying the humanity of the child in the womb."

I guess "treason" is a concept no one understands anymore

Blazing Cat Fur has a link to a video produced by Al Jazeera, featuring Canada's Avi Lewis hosting, that has a U.S. anti-war veteran saying on air:

"Our Hope is That Our Strategy Will Actually Topple Our Military From Within”

This veteran and his anti-military crew were part of the festivities around Barack Obama's nomination festivities yesterday. You need to listen to the very end to hear the money quote.

Will Obama distance himself from those kinds of remarks? I sure hope he does.

B'nai Brith faces its own hate speech complaint

Joseph Brean breaks the story in today's National Post:

B'nai Brith Canada revealed yesterday it is the defendant in a hate speech case at the Manitoba Human Rights Commission that is based on anonymous and vague accusations of Islamophobia and has taken nearly five years to investigate.

"The [Manitoba] Human Rights Commission itself is supposed to be promoting human rights, but in our view in this process it's violating some pretty basic rights: a secret proceeding, a faceless accuser, failure to disclose documents. These are basic procedural rights that are being violated," said David Matas, a prominent human rights lawyer and senior legal counsel to B'nai Brith.

The Jewish human rights group has long been co-operative with and supportive of Canada's human rights commissions, but has recently called for reform to prevent their hijacking as a political platform. This is the first and only time it has been named as a respondent in a hate speech case.

-snip-

Ezra Levant, a blogger who leads the campaign against human rights commissions, said in an e-mail that B'nai Brith, which has intervened to support hate speech laws in other cases, "has been a party to some of the grossest violations in due process themselves."

"All I can say is: What goes around comes around," he wrote. "It's a bit rich for [B'nai Brith] to discover their love of natural justice now."

Obama--the good and the bad

From FrontPageMagazine:

It is only fair to acknowledge that Obama’s nomination stands as a significant benchmark in American history: it is the first time that a black American has been selected by a major U.S. party to bear its standard for the presidency. If the relentless harping on this point by Democratic operatives is not exactly disinterested, that makes it no less admirable. Just as significant, the nomination is a tribute to the impressive political skills of a man whose name was largely unknown as recently as four years ago. To go from a humbling defeat in a congressional race against Black Panther Bobby Rush in 2000 to clinching the Democratic Party’s nomination just eight years later is a singular political feat.

Both themes were neatly highlighted in the biographical video that preceded Obama’s speech. In it, Obama affectionately recalled his grandfather’s dictum that Americans “can do anything if we put our minds to it.” Echoing his grandfather’s wisdom, Obama affirmed that what the country needs most is to “make sure opportunity is there.” There is no better proof of the truth of that statement than the political success of the man making it.

All the more jarring, then, that this introduction was followed by a speech that dispensed with the do-it-yourself ethos of Obama’s grandfather in favor of a nanny-state liberalism that sees government intervention as the only reliable guarantor of success. True, Obama acknowledged that “government cannot solve all our problems,” and that “we are responsible for ourselves.” But these concessions seemed merely symbolic, as the bulk of his speech counted the realms – the environment, the economy, healthcare, the housing market, education, etc. – where government could expand its reach. Aside from a single remark about parental responsibility, which would be controversial to no one save Rev. Jesse Jackson and the more aggressive peddlers of racial grievance, it was not clear where, if anywhere, a President Obama would be prepared to place limits on government action.

Signs of the future of the First Amendment under Obama?

The station, WGN, has made a stream of the broadcast available online, here, and it has to be heard to be believed. Obama’s robotic legions dutifully jammed the station’s phone lines and inundated the program with emails, attacking Kurtz personally. Pressed by Rosenberg to specify what inaccuracies Kurtz was guilty of, caller after caller demurred, mulishly railing that “we just want it to stop,” and that criticism of Obama was “just not what we want to hear as Americans.” Remarkably, as Obama sympathizers raced through their script, they echoed the campaign’s insistence that it was Rosenberg who was “lowering the standards of political discourse” by having Kurtz on, rather than the campaign by shouting him down.

Kurtz has obviously hit a nerve. It is the same nerve hit by the American Issues Project, whose television ad calling for examination of the Obama/Ayers relationship has prompted the Obama campaign to demand that the Justice Department begin a criminal investigation. Obama fancies himself as “post-partisan.” He is that only in the sense that he apparently brooks no criticism. This episode could be an alarming preview of what life will be like for the media should the party of the Fairness Doctrine gain unified control of the federal government next year.

GREAT piece by Lea Singh in the National Post

Read the whole thing. Here's an excerpt:

Hold the horses. Conscientious objection won’t automatically strip a doctor
of his licence. The policy goes on to say that such an objection may be OK if
the doctor has communicated clearly and promptly with the patient, given
information about access to another doctor and treated the patient with respect.
Of course, these criteria are as vague as they are subjective, and a doctor
might rightly worry that the CPSO has far too much interpretive power here in
deciding the fate of his license. Follow your conscience at your own risk.

But the most disturbing section of the policy has been largely overlooked.
What does the CPSO mean by treating the patient with respect? “This means that
physicians should not express personal judgments about the beliefs, lifestyle,
identity or characteristics” of a patient, “should not promote their own
religious beliefs” or “seek to convert” their patients.

I’m on board with the second and third part, but what does it mean for a doctor to “not express personal judgments,” even about a patient’s lifestyle? Traditionally, we’ve always looked to doctors for guidance on how to live our lives in healthy ways.
When we go to the doctor, we expect guidance and commentary such as “you’d
better stop eating those greasy fries.”

But now, the doc has to worry about offending us when talking about our lifestyle choices. Of course, it won’t be the fries comments that get doctors in trouble. But it could be the comments about the increased risks of certain types of intercourse, or
premarital sexual activity or the negative effects of abortion on women.

Is any of this a surprise? The CPSO policy is beginning to take on the
familiar markings of an age-old quest to silence those who might point out the
problems with our problematic conduct.

The Globe has a piece about the Ontario Human Rights Commission

Murray Cambpell writes:

Ontario has overhauled its human-rights system, but the question that
remains is whether Mark Steyn is still in trouble. The answer isn't clear yet,
but he would be wise to keep his lawyers on speed-dial.

snip

In later interviews, Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall said the media have a
duty to put their writings through "a human rights filter" and promised to
return later to the subject of the portrayal of minorities in the
media.

She is getting her chance. The newly revamped Ontario human-rights system
gives Ms. Hall's commission a focus on broader, systemic discrimination issues
while leaving the adjudication of individual allegations of discrimination in
the hands of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. A separate legal support
centre will provide lawyers and paralegals to guide people through the
system.

The three agencies are independent but are also intertwined, so that
Ms. Hall's commission can initiate actions before the tribunal and intervene on
behalf of others while the tribunal may also refer matters to the
commission.

Progressive Conservative MPPs Lisa MacLeod and Randy Hillier are trying
to find out the views of the people who will sit on this beefed-up tribunal.
Last week, they grilled nine nominees to the tribunal about whether they think,
for example, that freedom of speech has to be filtered. Again and again, Ms.
MacLeod asked: "Does discrimination trump free press or does free press trump
discrimination?"

Great letter by Tim Bloedow on pornography

I am a freespeecher, but I do not think the raison d'etre of freedom of speech is a Canadian-made porn channel.

I am especially dismayed that the CRTC, which licensed Northern Peaks, has turned down an application for a teaching/spoken word/ and classical hymn Christian radio station in Ottawa.

Like we need still another popular music station in Ottawa instead. I guess I should be glad that it was a spoken word porn radio station they licensed.

Tim Bloedow has a good response to Rob Breakenridge's charges that social conservatives are inconsistent when they protest against CRTC-approved pornography.

He writes:

The noble and democratic Judeo-Christian tradition of speech freedom was
intended to provide a realm of liberty for the debating of ideas. It was to
provide a realm of peace and liberty in which people who held differing
views could debate them verbally and rationally instead of trying to chop
their enemies' heads off or slipping poison into their goblet.

It is worth noting that the demand for greater freedom for pornographic
viewing and violent media is taking place at the same time that we are
seeing a decline in people's interest in freedom of speech. Government
sanction for more pornographic and violent media is being realised at the
same time as our governments are clamping down on genuine freedom of speech.
These dynamics by themselves are compelling evidence that the impulse for
these two things come from very different places.

And they do. It is not philosophically inconsistent to be a strong opponent
of "pornographic freedom" while also vigorously championing speech freedom. It may be inconsistent if your starting point is libertarianism and a view which does not recognize a qualitative difference between speech freedom and crass or carnal impulses. But libertarianism is by definition relativistic, so libertarians would be hard-pressed to require others to either accept their philosophical starting point as objectively true or concede to being
logically inconsistent.

It may be Christian to recognize a qualitative distinction between speech
freedom and pornographic freedom (although I suspect many non-Christians
would also affirm this point), but Mr. Breakenridge has failed to make the
case for his claim that it is logically inconsistent.

Tim also points out there's a big difference between the government granting public licenses (or funding) for pornography and the government hounding private individuals whose speech is not politically correct. Amen and Amen and Amen.

Most interesting comments from Tom Flanagan

Tom Flanagan, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, believes Harper would be satisfied to return with a strengthened minority -- a result that would throw the Liberals into chaos, thereby advancing the prime minister's longterm strategy of destroying Canada's so-called natural governing party.

"I don't think Harper has to be thinking about a majority at all," Flanagan said in an interview.

"Strategically, this is sort of a prolonged war of attrition."

As Flanagan sees it, the first major battle in this incremental war occurred in 2004, when Harper managed to reduce Paul Martin's Liberals to a minority. In the second clash in 2006, Harper won his own Conservative minority.

The third skirmish, which Harper appears set to launch next week, likely won't kill what Flanagan jokingly refers to as "the evil empire." But, if the Tories can win a few more seats at the Liberals' expense -- an outcome Flanagan considers realistic given Harper's superior campaign skills and the Tories' fatter war chest -- he predicted that would be enough to throw the Grits into a longterm tailspin that could eventually lead to their demise.

The Synod of the Word

There is a big Synod of Bishops on the Word of God coming up in October. I'm working on an advance story about it. Here's a link to the Synod's working document and a cool paragraph:

Knowledge of the Old Testament as the Word of God seems to be a real problem among Catholics, particularly as it relates to the mystery of Christ and the Church. Because of unresolved exegetical difficulties, many are reluctant to take up passages from the Old Testament which appear incomprehensible, leading to their being arbitrarily selected or never read at all. The faith of the Church considers the Old Testament a part of the one Christian Bible and an integral part of Revelation and, hence, the Word of God. This situation urgently requires a formation centred on a reading of the Old Testament with Christ in mind, which acknowledges the bond between the two testaments and the permanent value of the Old Testament (cf. DV 15-16) (14). This task can be assisted by liturgical practice which always proclaims the Sacred Text of the Old Testament as essential for understanding the New Testament, as witnessed by Jesus himself in the episode of Emmaus, in which the Master "beginning with Moses and all the prophets, interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself" (Lk 24:27). In this matter, St. Augustine’s statement is certainly applicable: "Novum in Vetere latet et in Novo Vetus Patet (15)" ("The New is in the Old concealed and the Old is in the New revealed"). St. Gregory the Great maintains: "what the Old Testament promised is brought to light in the New Testament; what was proclaimed in a hidden manner in the past, is proclaimed openly as present. Thus, the Old Testament announces the New Testament; and the New Testament is the best commentary on the Old (16)". This understanding has many important practical implications.

Conservatives risk losing socon support--Fr. de Valk

I'm not the only one wondering about this. I received the following news release from Catholic Insight Editor Fr. Alphonse de Valk this morning via email:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 27, 2008

Harper government risking loss of social conservative support, says editor

With its move to override Private Member’s Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act – and with the explicit statements it made while doing so – the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper may well have irrevocably alienated its social conservative support base, says the editor of Canada’s national Catholic magazine of news, analysis and opinion.

“When considered in tandem with past actions, such as squandering the parliamentary vote on so-called same-sex marriage, failing to rein in human rights commissions run amok and not taking steps to overturn the naming of Henry Morgentaler to the Order of Canada, it is clear that the Harper government’s initiative to squelch C-484 means it may well lose the support of social conservatives in Canada,” says Father Alphonse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight magazine. “This will likely have dire electoral consequences for Mr. Harper and the Conservatives in the next election.”

De Valk noted that it is one thing to not put forth or support legislation specifically dealing with the abortion issue. But it is quite another to go so far as to undermine a private member’s bill that specifically asserts it has nothing to do with abortion and instead, seeks to recognize some value in law of a wanted preborn human being and her mother. A prime ministerial spokesperson was quoted as saying that there is not even a hint of compromise as far as abortion not being part of the Conservative party agenda.

This is remarkable, considering that Canada is one of the few countries in the world without any abortion law whatsoever, meaning that preborn human beings can be killed right up to the moment of birth, said de Valk. Apart from the human toll of more than 100,000 abortions a year, the state of affairs means Canada’s birthrate is not even at replacement level, there is increasing strain on our social safety net, the medical system is drained of tens of millions of dollars yearly and increasing numbers of women come forth to testify about how their abortions have damaged them physically, mentally and emotionally. “It is unconscionable that such phenomena are not on the government agenda at all,” he said.

“Time and again, social conservatives have been let down by the Harper regime,” he added. “It is evident his party carries the title ‘Conservative’ in name only.” De Valk saluted MP Ken Epp, sponsor of the Bill C-484, for vowing he will not withdraw it, despite the government’s intention to put forth a watered down version that will make pregnancy only an “aggravating factor” in the sentencing of violent offenders. At the same time, de Valk criticized other Conservative MPs who have been acting as “submissive sheep” and have allowed themselves to be silenced by their leader’s office.

De Valk said his magazine will encourage readers and all Canadians to vote according to the merits of individual candidates, rather than the parties, in the next election. This will mean that a candidate who proves his or her credentials in terms of standing for the right to life, the traditional family and other morally correct positions will receive an endorsement, regardless of the party with which the candidate is affiliated.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Father Alphonse de Valk, Editor (416) 204-9601

Ship of Fools gives my church at 9 out of 10!!!!

The full review, with a picture, is here

Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?

The service was formal Anglo-Catholic – it could be described as stiff upper lip, but not in a bad way. The Book of Common Prayer was followed rather faithfully, with the interpolation of minor propers plus the Orate fratres before the eucharistic prayer and the Ecce Agnus Dei before distribution of communion. The epistle and gospel were chanted. The homilist noted the lack of red-letter days in the ensuing week, and reminded us that Friday is a day of abstinence. The bishop, vested in rochet, mozzetta, and zucchetto, sat down on the floor to give a children’s address before the sermon to two little girls who had come forward.

Exactly how long was the sermon?
14 minutes.

On a scale of 1-10, how good was the preacher?
6 – Bishop Reid was well-spoken and his homily was doctrinally rich, if not particularly polished.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about?
Jesus’ parable about the blind leading the blind reminds us not to judge others, as we ourselves deserve judgment. Too often, the need for repentance is swept under the rug in our modern age, but it must not be neglected. Penitence, however, should not lead us to obsession or despair, but to joy in the infinite mercy of God.

Which part of the service was like being in heaven?
I was delighted that the chants were all congregational, unlike many Anglo-Catholic churches with choirs that take much of the service music. There was also a prolonged silence before the communion rite, which was just what my restless soul needed. Also, in a gesture that underlined how unsubtle our entrance had been, the homilist opened by welcoming "our visitors."

Howard Rotberg's case goes to trial tomorrow

Kathy Shaidle has more:

Howard Rotberg still shudders when he remembers hearing the words.

“He is a f***ing Jew!”

His attacker wasn’t a Nazi brownshirt in Germany circa 1938. Rotberg, an author and lawyer, experienced the anti-Semitic verbal attack at a Canadian college town bookstore in 2004.

Rotberg was launching his self-published novel, The Second Catastrophe, at the local Chapters-Indigo, Canada’s largest bookstore chain, with over 70% of the nation’s book sales. Incredibly, his novel — about a Jewish professor whose angry words during a lecture land him in trouble — practically came to life before his eyes that night. Years later, Rotberg is still feeling the aftershocks.

Rotberg had no sooner begun his lecture when, as author and columnist Phyllis Chesler later recounted:

Suddenly, two Muslims interrupted his speech. The first disrupter, who identified himself as a Palestinian, accused Rotberg of saying or perhaps thinking that “all Muslims are terrorists.” The disrupter admitted that he had not read the book. A second man, who identified himself as an Iraqi Kurd, began “ranting about how Americans and Israelis are the real terrorists and that democracy is really fascist.” They did not allow Rotberg to speak. According to Rotberg, they used “Gestapo tactics to completely disrupt [my] lecture.” One called Rotberg, the son of a Holocaust survivor, “a f***ing Jew.”

To Rotberg’s amazement, not a single member of the Chapters store staff, which included one young woman in a hijab named Raneem Al-Halimi, intervened — “that is,” writes Chesler, “until Rotberg responded that he would ‘not be called a f***ing Jew.’

”

Howard Rotberg writes:

To the extent that the press covered the initial incident at Chapters, they tended to do so with typical moral relativism. Rather than diligently follow up with the names of reputable witnesses that I provided them, they were only too happy to portray the event as some kind of "spat" where a reputable author, invited to give a lecture at Chapters, was in some kind of heated argument with protestors.

Think about it. I was invited to give a lecture. The store manager introduced me and walked away. No one from Chapters monitored the event. A Palestinian and an Iraqi Kurd "took over" the event and basically prevented me from speaking. The Iraqi was making truly bizarre statements about the U.S. and Israel being "fascist", etc., and this was extremely disruptive.

There is a lot more to this case. Read all about it following the links above.

I am all for shutting down the shutter-downers, the people who use brownshirt fascist tactics to shut down the speech of others in private functions, university lecture halls, and public functions where one group has a license to hold a rally. I don't care what ideology the shutter-downers represent---even if they share mine, I abhor those tactics. They do not belong in a civil society.

The Democrat's Catholic problem . . . .

The Democrat's "Catholic problem" erupts in the United States, according to Rocco Palmo at Whispers in the Loggia:

Hours into a week the Democratic leadership's sought to script down to its most minute detail, the party's "Catholic problem" roared to the fore today as, in an unprecedented move, the opening of the Blue bloc's Denver convention saw four senior hierarchs publicly blast the event's chair -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- for "misrepresent[ing] the history and nature" of the church's teaching on abortion in the California congresswoman's latest defense of her pro-choice stance.

It comes as a shock all right

LifeSiteNews.com writes about the shocking news today:

OTTAWA, August 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In news which came as a shock within and without the Conservative Party of Canada this afternoon, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has announced that the Conservative Government will introduce legislation to bolster penalties for those who assault pregnant women. The legislation will in effect kill the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, a private members bill with wide public and legislative support that would have recognized in law the separate life of unborn children - at least those who are 'wanted' or intended by the mother for birth.

Conservative MP Ken Epp's private member's bill would ensure that a criminal would receive separate punishment for killing an unborn child in a violent attack on a pregnant mother. Even though the bill explicitly excluded consensual abortion and acts or omissions by the pregnant woman, the Conservative Government fell prey to the arguments of abortion activists who saw any fetal rights, even of 'wanted' children, as an assault on abortion.

According to Nicholson, the upcoming Conservative bill would add the fact of a woman's pregnancy to the list of 'aggravating factors' which must be considered when sentencing criminals. The proposal is in fact nearly identical to a Liberal private member's bill which was proposed in May by by pro-abortion Liberal MP Brent St. Denis.

In his announcement of the measure, Nicholson noted that the Conservatives accepted the arguments of abortion activists. "We've heard criticisms from across the country, including representative from the medical community, that Ken Epp's bill could be interpreted that Mr. Epp's bill as presently drafted could be interpreted as instilling fetal rights," he said.

"Let me be clear, our government will not reopen the debate on abortion," added Nicholson who in the past was recognized as one of the more heroic and reliably pro-life Conservative MPs. "For this reason, and in the context of the government's tackling crime agenda, I'm announcing that the government will introduce legislation that will punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women but do so in a way that leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights."

This is the second time this year that Nicholson has betrayed and shocked Canada's social conservatives. In May he presented the Conservative government Justice Department's 50-page defense of the notorious subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act that has permitted major assaults on freedom of expression and freedom of religion by the Human Rights commission kangaroo courts.

When asked if Epp was even told of the new legislation, Nicholson indicated Epp was not informed, or consulted on the matter, saying only that he would find out with everyone else.

I listened to Epp on an Edmonton talk radio show tonight. He was pretty gracious and loyal, considering.

Nicholson has deeply alienated social conservatives. His continuing support, through the Justice Department, for the Canadian Human Rights Act's draconian Section 13(1) through his department's intervention on behalf of complainants is a source of outrage. He has been caution personified, but the people he is pussyfooting around are the likes of pro-aborts and mainstream news types that are traditionally hostile to conservatives.

The Tories may think they are going to gain votes in Quebec or some ridings in the 905 area-code around Toronto by keeping abortion off the table. The problem for the Tories though is that a number of Catholic voters left the Liberals last time around over the marriage issue. Just the thin promise of a marriage motion was enough to dislodge traditionally Liberal Catholics from their usual home and prompt them to support the Tories. I'm not number-cruncher, but I would not be surprised if that Catholic vote helped give them their minority win, even in Quebec!

As Stephane Dion told Michael Coren, Catholics vote Liberal. If there is no reason--all things being equal on abortion or marriage or family--they will go back to the default position.

I'm afraid that the Harper government takes social conservatives for granted, thinking they have nowhere else to go. Well, fiscally-conservative evangelicals may be unlikely to vote Liberal, but they could stay home, stop donating any money or vote for the Christian Heritage Party to send a message.

Nicholson "cuts loose" Ken Epp's private members' bill

According to the Globe and Mail:

The Harper government cut loose a contentious private member's bill that would have made it a crime to take the life of a fetus just as election speculation hits fever pitch.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced Monday that the government will draft a new bill to replace Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, so that it closes the debate about fetal rights and focuses instead on penalizing criminals who harm pregnant women.

The act, which was introduced last year by Tory MP Ken Epp of Edmonton and passed second reading in the spring, would make it a separate offence for killing an unborn child when a pregnant woman is slain.

Pro-abortion advocates have denounced it for giving the fetus some human rights. Last week, the Canadian Medical Association voted to oppose the bill, and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion spoke out against it, challenging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to clarify his own views on abortion.

This is sad, really. Strategically, though, I can understand it. The Tories want to make sure to kill any notion of a "hidden agenda" on abortion before a fall election. They don't want to fight on this issue, especially when it comes to winning more ridings in Quebec and 905-area-code ridings around Toronto.

But it is sad because the issue at stake here is whether the unborn child has any human rights.
Thus the present fiction continues---that the unborn child is not a person.

CJAD's Brian Lilley asked a couple of humdinger questions:

From the transcript of the news conference:

Unidentified Male: Brian Lilley, CJAD.

Brian asked: "You say that there’s differences between your bill and Mr. Epp’s bill so that it can’t be misrepresented as doing something that doesn’t, giving fetal rights. If we do go to an election, you won’t have a chance to table this in Parliament. Will Canadians get a chance to see the difference between Mr. Epp’s bill and what you’re presenting so that they can determine whether there is any difference?

The Hon. Rob Nicholson: Well, we’ll have to see if Parliament gets called back. Again, I’m proceeding on the basis that we will introduce legislation and quite frankly, that’s the basis I, I have been operating on for the last year and a half. We can’t be governed by threats by Mr. Dion or anybody else and so I’ve got to continue to move forward.

Question: We’ve seen in the US election again this past weekend with Senator Biden nominated the issue of faith and abortion coming up and it can be a pretty heated topic. I want to ask how, as a Justice Minister, and as a Roman Catholic, you feel coming here and saying my government will not move forward on giving fetal rights because it’s something that would go against the, the rules of your church?

The Hon. Rob Nicholson: Well the government though has been very clear and the Prime Minister has been very clear on this, that we are not reopening the debate on abortion. And that has been consistent all the way through going right back to the 2000 election. I’m proud to be a part of this government and I realize that this is an issue that divides Canadians but we have been very clear as a government that we are not reopening this debate.

Reuter's Randall Palmer:

Question: If I can switch back to abortion. Your position, the government’s position seems to be parallel to that of Barack Obama. It’s about as liberal as

The Hon. Rob Nicholson: I’m sorry?

Question: Your position seems to be parallel, about as liberal as Barack Obama’s on abortion. As a Conservative government, why wouldn’t you, why do you insist on, on excluding fetal rights, not trying to do anything about fetal rights?

The Hon. Rob Nicholson: I’m not an expert on where Mr. Obama stands on this, so I’m not commenting on that. But I know we have said very consistently and we have said that going back now several years that we are not reopening the debate and we’ve been consistent on that.

A beauty contest for nuns

From the New York Times:

ROME (AP) -- An Italian priest and theologian said Sunday he is organizing an online beauty pageant for nuns to give them more visibility within the Catholic Church and to fight the stereotype that they are all old and dour.

The ''Miss Sister 2008'' contest will start in September on a blog run by the Rev. Antonio Rungi and will give nuns from around the world a chance to showcase their work and their image.

''Nuns are a bit excluded, they are a bit marginalized in ecclesiastical life,'' Rungi told The Associated Press after Italian media carried reports of the idea. ''This will be an occasion to make their contribution more visible.''

Rungi, a theologian and schoolteacher from the Naples area, said that visitors to his site will have a month to ''vote for the nun they consider a model.''

Nuns will fill out a profile including information about their life and vocation as well as a photograph. It will be up to them to choose whether to pose with the traditional veil or with their heads uncovered.

I saw many beautiful young nuns at the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec, by the way.

Morgentaler petition delivered to GG

The Catholic Register has posted my story about the presentation of petitions last week:

OTTAWA - Signatures of 30,000 Canadians demanding that abortionist Henry Morgentaler’s Order of Canada be revoked were delivered to the Governor General’s residence Aug. 20.

“I am here to say there is nothing heroic or award winning about taking the life of an unborn child,” said Silent No More Awareness Campaign national co-ordinator Angelina Steenstra on behalf of Campaign Life Coalition. “As a woman who has suffered an abortion, I know that to be true."

When Governor General Michaelle Jean named Morgentaler to the Order of Canada earlier this year, it stirred up strong feelings among many who felt his inclusion dishonoured Canada's highest honour.

“Giving an abortionist Canada’s highest honour is dividing the nation, contrary to the award’s original intent,” she said, noting the signatures were gathered from across the country. She said more petitions were still circulating and would be presented once Parliament resumes after its summer break.

“National division on this award is not diminishing over the summer months,” she said.

California court ruling sets ominous precedent

Of course, Canada already shows signs that equality rights will trump all other rights . . .meaning really that the state is eager to take away God-given rights such as religious freedom, freedom of conscience and freedom of speech.


From Maggie Gallagher:

The California Supreme Court made one thing perfectly clear this week as a matter of constitutional law: When it's a case of religious liberty vs. sexual liberty, sexual liberty wins.

In the case of Benitez v. North Coast Women's Care Medical Group, the California Supreme Court asked: "Do the rights of religious freedom and free speech, as guaranteed in both the federal and the California constitutions, exempt a medical clinic's physicians from complying with the California Unruh Civil Rights Act's prohibition against discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation?"

And the majority flatly ruled: "Our answer is no."

-snip

Equality trumps liberty in the eyes of our courts.

Guadalupe Benitez, a partnered lesbian, chose to be artificially inseminated. She has the freedom to make that choice under California law. The California Supreme Court just transformed that liberty of private action into a powerful new right: the right to use the power of government to force a doctor to inseminate her, regardless of the doctor's own views.

We are not talking here about necessary medical care but an elective procedure -- artificial insemination -- that is obviously fraught with moral issues which are necessarily different from, say, the decision to have your appendix removed or a knee replaced.

I understand even that there are real conflicts in this case. If you are happily planning to have a child, it would be a rude shock, an affront to your feelings, to be told that the doctor is not willing to help you do so.

In this case, the doctor said she was perfectly willing to help treat Guadalupe's infertility -- restoring a natural function of the body -- but she had moral qualms about impregnating (which is basically what the doctor does in these situations) a woman without a husband.

Michael Coren talks with Stephane Dion about God

Most interesting column in today's National Post by Michael Coren:

I pushed a little further. Is this God of whom you speak an important factor in your life? "It is part of the hope I have" was the reply. "A creator who is full of love. I hope this is true. I am a man of hope. I will play hope but Stephen Harper plays fear." Aha. So it's less the God of strength, love, judgment and mercy who is the eternal alpha and the omega, but rather the postmodern godhead of secular niceness who we hope might be the ABC of solving our social and economic problems.

There are worse people to worship. Or pretend to worship. And there are far worse people than Stephane Dion, a profoundly decent man who is a perhaps the most honest leader of his party in living memory. Being a prime minister, however, requires more than Canadian niceness. Sadly, it requires steel and guile.

After the show, Dion asked about the denominational breakdown of those of our viewers who are Christian. "You see, the Catholics can be relied on to vote Liberal, always, but the Protestants much less so," he explained. "It's very difficult to get them to vote for us. I am a Catholic." As were Trudeau, Chretien and Martin. Men who championed abortion, same-sex marriage and many other policies that ran counter to basic Catholic teachings. In other words, they were Catholic by birth but Liberal by belief and works.

His words seemed so naive, so vulnerable to critique, so -- forgive me Mr. Dion-- callow and such a product of inexperience. Goodness it's hard not to like him but it's equally hard to imagine him being tough with our enemies and careful with our friends. He listens to well-meaning but weak advice and then admits that he's been moulded for the moment.

Delicious article about Michael Moore

Kathy Shaidle's latest in FrontPageMazgzine:

He’s been keeping a low profile for a while now, but the controversial Oscar-winning filmmaker (Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko) issued his 2008 Election Guide this week. Rolling Stone magazine reprinted some of Moore’s unsolicited advice to his fellow Democrats (whom he refers to as “pathetic” “crazy” “professional losers.”)

As usual with the over-the-top provocateur (whose last hit film was 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11) Moore’s sarcasm is difficult to distinguish from his serious suggestions. Among other things, Moore dares Barack Obama to “denounce” him and reject his endorsement, for the candidate’s own good.

He had better back away not only from me but from anyone and everyone who veers a bit too far to the left of where his advisers have told him is the sweet spot for all those red-state voters. I won't take it personally. After all, I'm not the guy who married him or baptized his kids. I'm just the idiot who went to the same terrorist, Muslim school of flag-pin desecrators he went to. […]

So Barack, by denouncing me, you can help McCain get elected. Because when you denounce me, it's not really me you're distancing yourself from — it's the millions upon millions of people who feel the same way about things as I do. And many of them are the kind of crazy voters who have no problem voting for a Nader just to prove a point.

If his advice seems oddly narcissistic rather than tactically sound or even logical, Moore’s next idea is even more counterintuitive.

I am going to The Cry today--how about you?

The Cry is taking place in Quebec and Ottawa today.

I will be heading over soon. If you are in Ottawa, why don't you join this Christian rally to pray for the unborn?

Meanwhile, I am listening to coverage at www.am930thelight.com

More on Senator Obama and infanticide

Blazing Cat Fur has a link to a gateway of links, including some powerful video of a nurse who witnessed live babies, born after late-term abortions, being left for dead in a dirty hospital utility room containing a urinal.

More questions to ask on the "culture of death front"

ProWomenProLife's Andrea Mrozek has some questions:

To me, there’s a story behind the story here: The Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons didn’t just change their policy and decide to force doctors’ hands at a whim. Recall the Canadian Medical Association Journal guest editorial of July 2006. It was co-written by Jocelyn Downie and Sanda Rodgers. Jocelyn Downie had been appointed to advise the interim board of the CMAJ–a lawyer, she was, not a doctor, and a lawyer who advocates for decriminalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia, alongside her pro-abortion views (death all round, but let me not digress). Questions: How did she get appointed to the CMAJ interim advisory board? Why was she allowed to guest write an editorial? What are these two doing today? Do they have influence over the Ontario College?

Another example of how the Ontario Human Rights Commission is a menace to religious freedom and conscience rights

From today's National Post:

The Ontario Medical Association wants the licensing body for doctors in the province to change a controversial document that could strip doctors of their right to exercise freedom of religion when making decisions in their medical practices.

snip

Don Hutchinson, legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said he believes the proposed document was heavily influenced by a letter sent in February this year to the college from the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

In it, the commission said it has concerns that the "religious or moral beliefs of health-care providers can have a discriminatory impacts on [Human Rights] Code rights relating to sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status and disability, among others."

It goes on to advise the col-lege that the protection of one right cannot "be based on the total disregard of another."

"While the expression of their religious beliefs is essential for religious officials in the performance of their duties, secular service providers cannot claim that the performance of their job function is an expression of their deeply held religious beliefs."

Mr. Hutchinson said that the draft policy will mean interests of physicians "will no longer be considered in the same capacity" as it has up until now.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is telling doctors--and everyone else for that matter--that the only publicly acceptable ideas are secular humanism---and that everyone else must toe the line or else.

"Respect for diversity" is a mask, an example of doublespeak, for this forced state conformity. Ontario, through this commission, is attempting to force moral relativism and the culture of death on everyone who provides a public service. This is a far cry from a genuine respect for diversity, pluralism and religious freedom, one that would allow people to be who they are in the public square--whether gay, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist--without fear that the state is going to violate their conscience or beliefs through coercive measures. Let's have reasonable accommodation folks. The Ontario Human Rights Commission is anything but respectful of reasonable accommodation, especially when it comes to Christian belief, or the tried and true natural law foundations, based on reason, of Western Civilization.

Canada's bad reputation is forcing political scientists to think twice

The National Post has a story today with the headline Academics fear to speak freely in Canada.

A group of U. S. professors launched a campaign this week protesting plans by a prominent political science organization to hold its annual conference in Toronto next year, claiming that Canada's restrictions on certain forms of speech puts controversial academics at risk of being prosecuted.

Bradley Watson, professor of American and Western political thought at Pennsylvania's St. Vincent College, said he will present a petition calling for the American Political Science Association (APSA) to re-evaluate its selection of Toronto for its 2009 conference at this year's annual meeting, taking place over the Labour Day weekend in Boston.

His protest has garnered support from dozens of professors across the United States, including prominent scholars such as Princeton University legal philosopher Robert P. George and Harvard University's Harvey Mansfield.

"Our belief is that the APSA should choose its sites carefully, with particular regard for questions of freedom of speech and conscience," Mr. Watson told the National Post by e-mail. "We therefore believe Canada to be a problematic destination."

Ezra Levant brings Rob Breakenridge up to date

Ezra has a link here where you can listen to his excellent recap of the status of the battle to restore real human rights in Canada on Rob Breakenridge's radio program.

What an embarrassment

This press release by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, celebrating its success in getting an ISP provider to shut down a lone nut's anti-Jewish website, is an embarrassment.

But they apparently want Canada's draconian human rights commissions to be a model for worldwide control of the World Wide Web, according to their release:

Nevertheless, Canadian legislation and its provision for dealing with Internet offenders is a model for international governance.

Comments Leo Adler, director of National Affairs, FSWC, "Our Canadian system strikes the perfect balance between two intrinsically Canadian ideals, namely, freedom of speech and abhorrence for hate and intolerance."

FSWC is calling for the formation of an international accord and subsequent monitoring to effectively and proactively deal with the growing viral phenomenon of global Internet hate.

FSWC monitors online extremism, researching, monitoring, reporting and eliminating hate and terrorism online. FSWC has positioned itself as an invaluable source of information and knowledge of Internet extremism. Now in its eleventh year, the Digital Terrorism & Hate 2.0, an FSWC initiative, is the world's most comprehensive report on extremist elements operating online.

They deserve this ridicule from Kathy Shaidle, who writes:

Now I'm really curious, so I type in RealJewNews.com and, as indicated in the Weisenthal press release, the site has simply moved to a new ISP.

Meet Milton Kapner, aka "Brother Nathaniel": [She has video of this clown dancing around, dressed in monk's garb, waving a crucifix around....it's ridiculous]

I don't know about you, but I am shaking at the thought of this old street preacher murdering Jews left and right through the unstoppable power of his online craziness.

Ezra Levant chimes in here and here:

He's cuckoo. His website is nutty like a Snickers bar. It's moon-bat time over there.

Which is precisely why Leo Adler and the Simon Wiesenthal Center took it on. That raving lunatic is no threat to them -- politically, legally, or in any other way.

Binks weighs in on first principles---what science can and cannot tell us

Thank God for the Binksmeister. Not only is he funny, he is thoughtful. And he provides many great links for our further edification. Be sure to check out his latest essay that puts the scientific materialists in their place. Here's an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

Science cannot ‘prove’ metaphysical first principles like God; nor can science itself scientifically justify materialism or atheism/ agnosticism. First principles (logic, God’s existence, how we know anything) are not subjects for scientific debate– the “heavens declare the Glory of God “to someone who already knows and loves God, and the evidences of faith are not the evidences of science. Equally, materialism is actually an unscientific philosophical position, as are agnosticism and atheism: you cannot prove a negative (God does not exist), nor can you do it through theory, experiment, or scientific evidence. There is no test for ‘god-ness’.

Modern materialist science forgets there is are prior philosophical foundations for science, reason, logic. Those who claim that materialism is ’scientific’ are simply wrong. There are no experiments for that, either. It’s a presupposition, however much in the background or forgotten. Science presumes creation, intelligibility, some coherence and consistency in the way things are– these are metaphysical first principles.. or as Aristotle put it , the ‘meta ta physica‘ or Metaphysics, literally ‘the things prior to the sciences’. We may think we can jump off our metaphysical shadows, but just because we take them for granted, or as non-existent, doesn’t mean they are (or aren’t).

The ID debate appears very much to be a post-enlightenment fight-back against materialism; it’s much like the fundamentalist/ liberal debate over the ‘historicity’ of the Bible. If we grant that science can determine our metaphysics (or lack of them), we’ve battled on the wrong ground, abusing the proper character of the ‘proofs’ and ‘evidences’ of faith.

The materialists have also claimed too much, that science is the true and only form of knowledge of things; as Christians, we need really good scientists to do objective (non-materialist) science; and to have their metaphysics on straight: God exists and he created all things visible and invisible, and that he makes each thing or creature make itself according to its own proper life and purpose (cf. Aquinas: Grace perfects, it does not destroy nature). However, there is no scientific test for any of that: faith, like a set of glasses, corrects our vision about the true nature of things as created, but again, you can’t ‘prove’ that in the way scientific materialism demands, because they’re mistaken in their first principles, and in their demands for scientific proof of spiritual things.

Obama leaves me shaking my head

The blogosphere has the evidence that Obama did support a bill that would allow infanticide of babies born alive after botched abortions:

UPDATE: RedState has more from Obama in his own words about "it":

As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child - however way you want to describe it - is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved.

No wonder he wants to hide this.
His words are creepy and appalling.

The blogosphere is also exploring Obama's connections to unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers, who would like to use his Marxist educational ideas to foment a Venezualan-style revolution in Chicago and elsewhere. Stanley Kurtz writes:

The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.”

And now this about China's fascist Olympic architecture from Hugh Hewitt (h/t FFoF):

Obama, earlier today:

Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics , Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a coporation deciding where to do business you're starting to think, "Beijing looks like a pretty good option."

I suppose so. Provided you don't mind de minimus pollution controls, employing people under Chinese labor conditions, and you don't mind construction standards in the countryside that allow the collapse of thousands of buildings including schools when the earthquake hits, killing tens of thousands.

Obama has said a lot of stupid things recently, but the idea that totalitarian eye-candy engineering proves Beijing is the better than America is near the top of the list.

Sorry, but as much as I'd like a black president of the United States, Obama is not the one.

Another young CBC "star" auditions for Al Jazeera?

"Our aggressive military activities in Afghanistan are foolish and wrong," said Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau, 34.

"The Pashtun [people] have extremely different values than ours, values we may not agree with in any case, but it's not our business to try and teach them lessons with weapons," Mr. Trudeau told Canwest News Service.

"Because, in fact, they'll be the ones teaching us lessons.

"We're going to have to leave the place or there'll be nothing left of us or of whatever we've done, except the blood we've lost there after we leave. So it's better we leave now."

Mr. Trudeau was speaking from Beijing, where he has been filing cultural reports on China as part of the CBC's Olympic broadcast team.

I hope he leaves soon. But alas, I am sure there are many more moral relativist useful idiots remaining at the Corpse to take his place. It is so fashionable these days to be a vacuous moral relativist, sitting astride a moralistic high horse over and above anyone who thinks there is such a thing as good and evil. All Pashtuns are not Taliban supporters. The president of Afghanistan is Pashtun. Most Afghanis would like to be able to fly kites, listen to music and not worry that some mullah is going to execute their kid for kicking a soccer ball around.

But one good thing about Al Jazeera. It is a source of some great videos. Avi Lewis invited John Bolton onto his program. Heh heh heh heh. It's good that some shattering truths are spoken by the likes of Bolton to the worldwide audience of this network. And great entertainment to boot.

Remember Al Jazeera also brought us that memorable video by Wafa Sultan. She is one courageous woman.

Though it was CBC that brought us Ayan Hirsi Ali's memorable smackdown of Avi Lewis.

Denyse O'Leary comments on the EZ's latest "hate " complaint

Some Canadians enjoy persecuting people, and some Christians think that the persecution of other Christians is a romantic "Left Behind" drama. "See, it's all happening to them just like that pastor with the gift of prophecy promised!" they fatuously inform us, before driving off in their late-model cars to their comfortable suburban homes. I wonder how many of them work for the government?

Believe me, no gift of prophecy is required to predict that those who do not defend their civil liberties lose them. But worse - they often do not care until it happens to them personally, instead of to someone else.

Thankfully, I write for newspapers that do pay a living wage and do cover these issues.

The hubris of Rob Wells in taking on the EZ

Edmonton gay activist Rob Wells has decided perhaps that Catholic Insight Magazine is too small a fry for his efforts to make Canada over in his image.


Now he has decided to take on Ezra Levant.

Don't mess with the EZ! Prepare to become a laughingstock during your 15-minutes of worldwide fame. People are already laughing across North America.

Ezra has dubbed him the Fred Phelps of Canada!

Ezra writes:

Wells is pretty much the same, but without the noble past. And he switches Phelps’s routine around a little: he protests outside churches, for months on end, slandering Catholics. He actually dresses his vehicle with anti-Christian hate messages, equating Catholics with Nazis, and drives around looking for people to offend. I wouldn't be surprised if he does funerals, like Phelps does.

Come to think of it, Wells could use the same posters as Phelps, with just a little re-arranging: “Fags hate God”. But that’s probably not vile enough for Wells, the garbage-mouthed fool who thought the bumper sticker “F*CK HARPER” was the height of political eloquence.

The Fred Phelps of Canada? Heh heh heh. Glad I had finished my coffee by the time I read Ezra's post, or I would have splattered my key board with a full snort.

But no matter how funny Ezra can make this, what Rob Wells is doing is dangerous to freedom. Ezra writes:

Wells is a favourite of the CHRC. He has used the CHRC to harass the Christian Heritage Party. And he was the complainant against Fr. Alphonse de Valk and Catholic Insight magazine, that drained them of $20,000 in legal fees. That complaint was dismissed by the CHRC when they started getting political heat over it, but Wells is now appealing that dismissal.

Between making little Catholic children cry at church and filing nuisance suits, where does the man find the time?

His complaint against me is rooted in my recent republication of Rev. Stephen Boissoin’s editorial column in the Red Deer Advocate several years ago. That was the column in which Rev. Boissoin expressed his Christian opposition to gay rights – and it resulted in a complaint filed against him at the Alberta HRC. After five grueling years of bureaucratic bullying, Rev. Boissoin was sentenced to a $7,000 fine, a lifetime ban against giving any public sermons that were “disparaging” to gay rights (he was also banned from sending private e-mails about the subject) and he was actually ordered to publicly renounce his religious beliefs on the subject. Seriously – read the sentence here for yourself if you can't believe it

Even though the gay rights group EGALE disagreed vehemently with Boissoin's letter, they defended his freedom to write it. Rob Wells' actions have probably generated more hatred towards gay activists than Boisson's letter ever did. In fact, many Christians shrank from Boisson's strong and perhaps intemperate language. But Rob Wells actions may make many Canadians wonder if there's more than a grain of truth in what Boissoin is saying. That's Rob Wells fault. Not Boissoin's. If Wells hadn't filed all his complaints, the letter would have caused a flurry of debate in Red Deer, Alberta and nothing more.

Thankfully, Wells is not representative of the freedom-of-speech-respecting gay activists I have met in Ottawa, just as Elmo's sock puppets are not representative of freedom-of-speech-respecting Muslims. But because of human rights commissions, he has far more power than he deserves.

Ezra writes:

I’m disgusted with Rob Wells – he’s just as despicable as Fred Phelps. But he’s just an individual bigot, and he's got the freedom to utter his filthy speech. What’s truly appalling, though, is how he’s turned the CHRC into his personal anti-Christian inquisition – going after the Christian Heritage Party, Rev. Boissoin and Fr. de Valk. Without the CHRC’s aid and comfort, Wells would still be driving around Edmonton in his hatemobile, a pitiful, angry, junior Fred Phelps. But, thanks to Jennifer Lynch and the rest of the team at the CHRC, the taxpayers of Canada and the laws of Canada have been hijacked, yet again.

Ezra has republished Stephen Boissoin's letter in full.

As an act of civil disobedience based on principles of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press (derived from our Judeo-Christian Western civilization that many complainants seem to hate), and in protest against the abuses of illiberal human rights commissions who are being used by anti-Christian complainants like Rob Wells, I join Ezra and other bloggers in republishing Stephen Boissoin's letter today. I believe in a Canada where Rob Wells is free to express his anti-Christian hatred but not in a Canada where he is free to use the power of the state to crush people who disagree with him.

I am a free Canadian, free not because the state says I am, but because I am made in the image and likeness of God and my rights are inherent in my God-given human dignity. My rights come from God and not the state. I respect the rights and freedoms of gays and everyone else who disagree with me. But none of us will have any freedoms if we do not take a stand and rid ourselves of these illiberal, anti-Western, Marx-inspired commissions. Let's take Canada back for freedom.

Here's Boissoin's letter.

Homosexual Agenda Wicked

The following is not intended for those who are suffering from an unwanted sexual identity crisis. For you, I have understanding, care, compassion and tolerance. I sympathize with you and offer you my love and fellowship. I prayerfully beseech you to seek help, and I assure you that your present enslavement to homosexuality can be remedied. Many outspoken, former homosexuals are free today.

Instead, this is aimed precisely at every individual that in any way supports the homosexual machine that has been mercilessly gaining ground in our society since the 1960s. I cannot pity you any longer and remain inactive. You have caused far too much damage.

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume. With me stand the greatest weapons that you have encountered to date - God and the "Moral Majority." Know this, we will defeat you, then heal the damage that you have caused. Modern society has become dispassionate to the cause of righteousness. Many people are so apathetic and desensitized today that they cannot even accurately define the term "morality."

The masses have dug in and continue to excuse their failure to stand against horrendous atrocities such as the aggressive propagation of homo- and bisexuality. Inexcusable justifications such as, "I'm just not sure where the truth lies," or "If they don't affect me then I don't care what they do," abound from the lips of the quantifiable majority.

Face the facts, it is affecting you. Like it or not, every professing heterosexual is have their future aggressively chopped at the roots.

Edmund Burke's observation that, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," has been confirmed time and time again. From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Our children are being victimized by repugnant and premeditated strategies, aimed at desensitizing and eventually recruiting our young into their camps. Think about it, children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.

Your children are being warped into believing that same-sex families are acceptable; that men kissing men is appropriate.

Your teenagers are being instructed on how to perform so-called safe same gender oral and anal sex and at the same time being told that it is normal, natural and even productive. Will your child be the next victim that tests homosexuality positive?

Come on people, wake up! It's time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

Don't allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centered and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

If you are reading this and think that this is alarmist, then I simply ask you this: how bad do things have to become before you will get involved? It's time to start taking back what the enemy has taken from you. The safety and future of our children is at stake.

Rev. Stephen Boissoin

He's baaack

Ezra Levant is back:

I've been gone a week during the sleepiest days of summer, but I remain impressed with the amount of news that human rights commissions continue to generate because of their bad behaviour.

Shouldn't he at least be guilty of treason?

I am nearly apoplectic after reading this story.

OTTAWA - Momin Khawaja may have wanted to wage violent jihad in Afghanistan, but he had no knowledge that the detonator he is accused of building was to be used in the foiled London fertilizer bomb plot, defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon said as Mr. Khawaja's terrorism trial resumed Tuesday.

On that basis, Mr. Khawaja does not fit the criminal definition of a terrorist, Mr. Greenspon said.

"There is more than sufficient evidence of Momin Khawaja's intention to fight, to be a soldier," he said. "The fact that he didn't get to fight in Afghanistan doesn't really matter."

The trial of Mr. Khawaja, an Orléans computer programmer formerly under contract to Foreign Affairs, resumed with Mr. Greenspon asking for all seven terrorism charges to be quashed.

The Crown already argued that Mr. Khawaja built a remote detonator, dubbed the "hifidigimonster," for a British terror cell that wanted to blow up a number of potential targets, including a night club in central London, the largest shopping centre in Europe or the country's utilities grids.

Okay....so the guy should get off on the "terrorism" charges because the former FOREIGN AFFAIRS contract employee wanted to fight against Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Terrorism? Treason?

You tell me.

If there is not a law against treason, there should be one. If there is a law and it's not been used, it is time to dust it off.

David Warren on doctors' conscience rights

Dalton McGuinty’s government has recently committed many millions to a huge expansion of the Ontario kangaroo-court system, opening new star chamber facilities across the province, and providing a fresh supply of publicly-funded lawyers and activists to assist the enemies of freedom in making their prosecutions. The argument behind all such “public investments” is the same: that complainants need a “resolution process” that is less “formal” than the one in our legitimate court system. In other words, they need kangaroo courts in which their victims are stripped of due process.

But a much more significant advance has now been proposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, to bring the tyranny of “political correction” to bear on its own membership. As usual, the process was being advanced in the dark, away from the possibility of public discussion -- and was only pried open in the course of the last week when a large number of physicians, surgeons, and even politicians found out about it.

As I’ve written before, the “human rights” revolution that has been sweeping through Canada’s law schools and legal establishment, depends on an Orwellian inversion of the term, “human rights.” For human rights were traditionally conceived as the individual’s legal and moral resort against the arbitrary power of unaccountable organizations. In the new, inverted definition, “human rights” become a device by which unaccountable organizations may crush that individual. “Human rights” have been ideologized, and collectivized. They now belong to groups, exclusively, and include principally the right not to be “offended” by the existence of an individual with a mind of his own.

In the case of the CPSO, the targets are doctors who refuse to perform abortions on healthy women, or refer them to abortionists, prescribe morning-after pills, help same-sex couples conceive children, and so forth. The idea is to strip a doctor of his licence, should he or she allow moral conscience to stand in the way of delivering any state-sanctioned “medical” “services.”

The Catholic Civil Rights League on doctors' conscience rights

The Catholic Civil Rights League has joined the fight to protect the religious freedom and conscience rights of doctors in Ontario.

“Canada has an established custom of accommodating sincerely held religious and conscientious convictions as much as possible. The expectation that physicians must set aside their beliefs with regard to treatments or referrals that violate their conscience is unreasonable, and at odds with the CMA’s Joint Statement on Preventing and Resolving Ethical Conflicts Involving Health Care Providers and Persons Receiving Care (1998).

“With two private member’s bills favouring euthanasia put before Parliament in the past five years, it’s certainly not inconceivable that Canada will have a liberalized law at some future date, which could raise ethical dilemmas even more acute than those we have today. I hope that the review process is extended, and allows the profession to formulate guidelines that offer the best possible protection for freedom of religion and freedom of conscience for all concerned.

Canadian Jewish News on HRCs--and Ezra Levant

The Western Standard/Levant case highlights an ongoing controversy that has ebbed and flowed in Canada for years, if not decades. On the one side are those advocating a liberal interpretation of freedom of speech, in which the media should not be subject to administrative review by the likes of human rights commissions. Proponents of that view include Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who was one of the earliest advocates of human rights legislation. He has said that the laws were intended to combat discrimination in lodging and services, not to police expression.

On the other side are those who argue there is no unlimited right to free speech in Canada and that federal human rights commissions and similar provincial bodies should regulate hate speech to protect vulnerable minorities. Mainstream Jewish organizations share that view.

Levant suggested that the only reason the commission dropped the case was because of the bad publicity it had spawned. “I could afford lawyers and take it to the Supreme Court and beat up on the Human Rights Commission. That’s why I was let go. They were worried about the daily PR beating they were taking.”

Had the case gone forward, Levant said he would have argued that it’s “unconstitutional for a government bureaucrat to look through my magazine and say what I can or cannot publish.”

What's happening in Ontario is scary indeed

Here's Joseph Brean's latest story on the candidates for the expanded Ontario Human Rights Tribunal:

A candidate for one of the top jobs at the new Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario told a government committee yesterday he thinks print journalism should be subject to racial discrimination complaints.

Alan Whyte, a veteran employer-side labour lawyer, told an all-party panel vetting the two dozen government nominees that he supports the media's broad freedom to report stories "as they see fit."

"Having said that, if there is some sort of discrimination that comes out in the reporting that is arguably contrary to the code, then I would also feel that it would be open to a complainant to challenge the reporting as being discriminatory on the grounds of race," said the candidate for vice-chair.

Remember: truth is no defense; fair comment is no defense; intent is no defense before this parallel system. The Code is so open-ended that anything can be arguably contrary to it.

Ontario---the province that will soon have---to borrow Lorne Gunter's words--Doctor's Without Consciences---is on the move to take away fundamental freedoms of speech, of religion and of conscience.

Thank God for MPP Lisa MacLeod:

Lisa MacLeod, who led the Tory questioning, said in an interview she has been inspired by the recent failed human rights case against Ezra Levant and the Western Standard for publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons.

"I'm of the opinion that even if I don't like what you have to say, I have to accept it. There's lots of times I don't like what I read, but I'm not the judge of that," she said. "I'm having a real philosophical problem with Barbara Hall recognizing freedom of expression and at the same time telling the media what their responsibility is."

"I wanted to call every single one of [the nominees] in, because if we're going to have a human rights system in Ontario, I think we deserve as Ontarians to know what the individual philosophies are of these tribunal members," she said. Procedural restrictions dictated she could not.

Alas, we will have to find out other ways to expose the illiberal, materialistic, often-Marxist-inspired, anti-Western ideologies that animate the so-called "human rights" industry. Thank God for the blogosphere.

More on chronic unintentional dehydration

Basically, the major pains of the body, such as, heartburn, rheumatoid joint pain, back pain, colitis pain, migraine headaches, fibromyalgic pain, even angina pain are signs of dehydration in the human body. Where you have pain, it’s showing that that area is dehydrated.

O'Leary on the Christian (lack of) response to HRC oppression

Read the whole article on page 24 in this pdf of the magazine Seven, a magazine for Christian men. Great looking magazine, by the way.

One outcome of the commissions targeting media has been limited information from traditional sources about their activities. Critical information is now disseminated through the blogosphere and on YouTube. Most of the “Freespeechers,” who lead the fight for restoring traditional law to media, are blogger journalists. Ezra Levant videotaped his interrogation and posted it on YouTube. Hundreds of thousands of people have already watched it. The commissions have responded by dropping some of the most egregious charges.

[ ... ]

Most seasoned observers do not consider these developments simply positive. The commissions are free to resume their activities against anonymous citizens once the furor around high-profile accuseds dies. The single biggest challenge is one that astonishes American observers—the apparent indifference of most Canadian Christians to the individuals who are targeted, even though so many of them are Christians.

Denyse adds some additional commentary at her Post-Darwinist blog:

Remember, Canada no longer has a normal Western world system of justice. So anyone, anywhere can decide that their rights have been violated. And for all practical purposes, defendants can be charged again and again indefinitely for the same offense. Even if the defendant who allegedly violated someone's rights manages to get cleared, with loss of life savings, the nightmare can start all over tomorrow.

Meanwhile, various state functionaries live very well indeed. And those who would get on in the world will doubtless join their numbers speedily.

Shaidle on religious freedom in China

Amid the medal-bedecked pageantry of the Beijing Olympics, it’s easy to forget that China holds another, less savory distinction: It maintains one of the more repressive regimes of religious persecution. As the recent travails of one missionary group demonstrate, even with the world watching, the host country remains as intolerant of religious freedom as ever.

The Cry on August 23--Be there

TheCRY CANADA (Ottawa)

August 23rd, 2008
Jacques Cartier Park & Parliament of Canada
9:30am – Till It Ends (Evening)

Click here to read about how YOU can be a part of preparing the way for TheCRY Canada.

THE REASON

40 years ago, in the late 60’s, a generation arose in Canada with resolve and ushered in movements that changed the moral landscape of our nation. These years saw the dawn of the sexual revolution, the new age movement, secular humanism, a movement of rebellion to authority and the women’s movement which has transformed into the modern day pro-choice movement. 40 years later we see how these movements have sunk their ideological claws into a generation and have produced a mass of social wreckage and a trail of shattered lives.

Here are just a few statistics that highlight our battle:

1. MARRIAGE: marriage rates have fallen 20% since 1968 while divorce rates have risen 222% and 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce
2. SUICIDE: the number of suicides per year has been steadily increasing since 1952: 900 suicides in 1952, 1900 suicides in 1972, 2900 suicides in 1992, 5900 suicides in 2007
3. IMMORALITY: the average age Canadians get married is 33, the average age a Canadian loses their virginity is 16
4. PORNOGRAPHY: in 2006 more than a third of 13-year-old boys from Alberta said they had watched pornography on the internet "too many times to count." ; Montreal is the third leading producer of pornography in the world after Los Angeles and Amsterdam ; Canada has a one billion dollar porn industry
5. SEXUAL ASSAULT: 60% of males in Canadian colleges said they would commit sexual assault if they were certain they would not get caught ; 4 out of 5 females in Canadian colleges have been victims of violence in a dating relationship
6. DRUGS: a recent Statistics Canada survey of teenagers showed that among those who answered questions about drug use 34 per cent had tried marijuana, 4 per cent had used ecstasy, 3 per cent had used crack cocaine, 2 per cent had used crystal meth, 1 per cent had used heroin ; marijuana use has doubled since 1990
7. EATING DISORDERS: the fear of being fat is so overwhelming that young girls have indicated in surveys that they are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of cancer, nuclear war or losing their parents ; in Canadian females aged 15-24, 12 out of 13 deaths are because of anorexia
8. ABORTION: a survey of parents found that one in 10 would abort a child if they knew it had a genetic tendency to be fat ;Canada has no laws or restrictions on abortion ; 90% of unborn children with Down Syndrome are aborted ; at least a third of the generation under the age of 40 never made it out of the womb
9. DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY: in the decade between the 1990s and 2000s Christianity in all forms rose 142% where Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism combined rose 385%
10. QUEBEC: Quebec currently has the same percentage of Christians as India and French Canadians are the most unreached people group in the western world
    
    Watch and download a powerful video of these stats at this You Tube link: [click here].
    
    

The good news is this: THE TIDE IS TURNING. We believe we are in the midst of the greatest comeback this nation has ever seen

Should we make all professionals cyphers?

If the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) changes its policy, the result would be that doctors' freedom of religion and freedom of conscience would be nullified. They would become cyphers, non-entities, going obediently about their public functions with their private beliefs and moralities a total mystery, because their private conscience could never govern their public behavior if their beliefs contradicted public policy as laid down by the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Is this the kind of society we're looking for?

They would all be public Barbara Halls. Here's a story of a dilemma a counselor faced in the United States. I am sure this has already happened many times in Canada, but not to an Ezra or Mark Steyn with the wherewithal to publicize the insanity.

So this lesbian goes walking into a counselor’s office to get help with her same-sexed relationship. Actually, it sounds like the start of a really bad joke but it isn’t. The counselor’s name is Marcia Walden. In addition to being a counselor she is a devout Christian who believes it is immoral to engage in same-sex relationships. So she faced a tough decision when Jane, her prospective client, sought help resolving problems in her lesbian relationship.

Rather than misleading her, Marcia decided to tell Jane about her religious conflict, indicating that it would be unfair for her (Jane) if she were to serve as her counselor. But she remained helpful and offered to refer Jane to another counselor named Ken Cook.

Jane met with Mr. Cook just ten minutes later and even acknowledged that her counseling experience was “exemplary.” Mr. Cook told Marcia she had done the “right thing” by making the referral. For awhile everyone seemed happy, if not gay.

But later in the day Jane was feeling angry. So she called Ms. Walden’s supervisor Mr. Hughes and complained that she refused to counsel her due to “homophobia.” Hughes contacted Ms. Walden to tell her of the complaint about which he was “very concerned.”

Later, Ms. Walden was subjected to an interrogation about her religious beliefs. There were several supervisors there including Mr. Hughes who told her that if she ever found herself in a similar situation she should simply make up an excuse (read: lie) instead of telling the truth about her religious beliefs. Of course, Ms. Walden also stated that lying was against her religious beliefs.

Read the whole thing. What if a devout Christian seeking help with his or her marriage went into an atheist Lesbian's counseling office? Do you think it might be better for that counselor to make a referral or to disclose off the top that she thinks the Christian beliefs are delusional?

Or should the government mandate that it's okay for only one set of beliefs---i.e. the atheistic ones--to be supported by constitutional rights?

Ask yourself. Do you want liars and obedient conformists to government policies, no matter how draconian, as your doctors? or as your public servants? or as your journalists?

Here's more evidence why we need two medical systems

The Canadian Medical Association seems to have bought Mills "harm principle" lock, stock and barrel, and I imagine with that a utilitarian approach to ethics in general. I shudder. It's a pretty flimsy foundation for moral behavior. So I was pleased to read how Health Minister Tony Clement blasted the CMA's support of safe injection sites in today's National Post. Good job, Tony!

"I find the ethical considerations of supervised injections to be profoundly disturbing," Mr. Clement said in a speech, given at the CMA's annual meeting in Montreal, that drew angry reaction from doctors.

"Is it ethical," he asked rhetorically, "for health-care professionals to support the distribution of drugs that are of unknown substance, or purity, or potency -- drugs that cannot otherwise be legally prescribed? If this were done in a doctor's office the provincial college [of physicians] would rightly be investigating."

Mr. Clement added that "the supervised injection site undercuts the ethic of medical practice and sets a debilitating example for all physicians and nurses, both present and future in Canada, who might begin to question whether it's all right to allow someone to overdose under their care."

Recent statements by the CMA endorsing Insite were "dangerously misleading" and promoted the idea that there were safe ways to use illegal drugs, he said.

We need to have Canadian Pro-life Medical Association that would not sacrifice human dignity for expediency. We need to have a two-tier government policy: not public and private necessarily, but Hippocratic and whatever utilitarian/hrc-worshipping claptrap the others want to opt for.

Because ultimately, when you don't recognize that human dignity comes from our being made in the image of God, and that dignity is inherent, whether we are sick, or old, or a tiny fetus, the greatest harm could come to the greatest number, despite our utilitarian calculations.

Binks has a great essay on doctors without consciences

Read the whole thing:

The conscience of a trained professional steeped in the methods and wisdom of past generations, with the cautions and restraint– that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I want my doctor to choose life; to do their best for me and my loved ones; and not to worry that at some point the executioner switch goes on and granny gets bumped off to save health care resources; the baby gets offed.

We’ve been warned. Freedom and lives stand in the balance. Canada is taking on features of the death-cult of Nazism, except behind hospital walls and with a smile. Strong-arming doctors and nurses and hospitals does not make it right: it makes it worse. Shame on Ontario’s College of Physicians for this anti-Christian inhuman fascism.

The unanimity idea did not come out of nowhere

Last week, 42 organizations launched a complaint against Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, seeking her removal from the Supreme Court of Canada for the role she played as chair of the Advisory Committee that recommended abortionist Henry Morgentaler for an Order of Canada.

In the seven-point complaint, the groups (which includes the Catholic Civil Rights League, Real Women of Canada, Life Canada, LifeSiteNews.com and 4MyCanada and was written by Canadian Family Action Coalition's Brian Rushfeldt,) the groups claim that the vote departed from the usual practice of unanimity.

Well...the Chief Justice told journalists this weekend that this is not true, that they have no practice of unanimity. The Toronto Star reports:

QUEBEC CITY–Faced with an official complaint she be removed from office for revealing "bias" and a "political agenda," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin yesterday defended – and clarified – her role as head of a committee that recommended Dr. Henry Morgentaler receive the Order of Canada.

McLachlin said she doesn't normally take part in the committee's voting process – except to break a tie – and, "contrary to what has been reported," doesn't drive the closed-door debates over which nominees should be accorded the honour.

"Some idea was put out by – I don't know who, some rumour or some source – that somehow the chair leads the discussion," she told reporters at a news conference after a speech to the Canadian Bar Association's governing council. "That's just not the case."

"I'm there to make sure the meeting runs well and fairly and that the vote is taken fairly – and not to weigh in for, or against, any particular candidate," McLachlin said in her first public comments since the recent controversy over her role erupted. A coalition of 42 Christian and right-to-life organizations claiming to represent "one million plus" Canadians sent a letter to the Canadian Judicial Council on Aug. 12, urging McLachlin be removed from office and complaining her performance as committee chair raises broader concerns about public trust in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Interesting.

Someone pointed me to this Q&A with a Canadian expert on the Order of Canada, Christopher McCreery, in the Globe and Mail shortly after the controversial award was announced.

McCreery said:

We have heard that the Committee had to take a vote on Dr. Morgentaler's appointment to the Order and that two members of the Committee did not support the appointment. It should be realized that since 1967 all previous Advisory Councils had worked on a consensus/unanimity model, whereby every member had to agree with ever appointment, and this worked successfully for more than 5,400 appointments over the past 41 years. This further demonstrates how divisive the issue is and the reason why the Order of Canada has historically been willing to appoint other controversial figures in less potent debates, but steered clear of the abortion debate for the past four decades.

Read the whole thing. Well, when she became chair, what, about ten years ago? she could have abandoned the unanimity thing then.

The Catholic Register picks up the Catholic Insight story

TORONTO - The saga of Catholic Insight's trouble with the Canadian Human Rights Commission is not over. After having a complaint against the small magazine dismissed in early July, it has now learned that it faces a judicial appeal of that decision. Edmonton gay activist Rob Wells had complained to the commission that Catholic Insight was inciting hatred against homosexuals through its ongoing opposition to same-sex marriage and what it calls the homosexual agenda. But the commission decided not to hear the complaint, though not before Catholic Insight had spent some $20,000 preparing its defence.

Now Wells has exercised his right to appeal the commission decision to the Federal Court of Canada. Catholic Insight received official word of this on Aug. 12. There is no information available yet on when, or whether, the appeal will be heard.

“We believe all concerned persons in Canada and elsewhere should be awakened to the challenges to free speech as well as the gross inequity of the financial burden between complainants and defendants in these 'human rights' cases as presently set up under Canadian law,” the magazine said in a statement released Aug. 13.

The magazine was referring to the standard practice of human rights commissions in Canada — whether at the federal or provincial level — to make defendants pay all their legal costs but not require the same of complainants.

On Nation of Bastards

Richard Bastien takes a look at Douglas Farrow's Nation of Bastards over at Mercator.net.

As Farrow explains, “it is not by accident that Bill C-38 [the Canadian legislation on same-sex marriage], and its consequential amendments, dismantles the language of ‘natural parent’, ‘blood relationship’ and the like – language that acknowledges implicitly the priority of the family to the state – in favor of terms such as ‘legal parent’ and ‘legal parent-child relationship’.”

Thus, same-sex marriage reduces not only marriage, but the complete web of family relations, to a legal construct. Marriage and family must now be viewed as creatures of the state rather than as natural institutions whose existence is acknowledged by it and that limit its jurisdiction over individual lives. In Farrow’s words, same-sex marriage “has effectively made every man, woman, and child a chattel of the state, by turning their most fundamental human connections into mere legal constructs at the state’s disposal”.

To highlight the revolutionary nature of such a change, Farrow points out that our traditional understanding of marriage, far from being what postmodernist academics would consider a mere Judeo-Christian artifact, is rooted in the natural law. In countries with a common-law tradition, the definition of marriage as “a voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others” follows that of Roman jurisprudence as formulated by Modestinus in the third century: “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, a consortium for the whole of life involving the communication of divine and human rights”.

But marriage and family are not the only casualties of same-sex marriage. More generally, it is the core ethos of a society that is at stake. In this respect, Farrow notes that the Supreme Court of Canada has developed a distinction between civil and religious marriage that follows the French model, ie, one that deals with “civil marriage and religious marriage as if they referred to two different things, rather than to two different ways of enacting the same thing”, thus suggesting that there is no need to be concerned about the relationship between religion and politics.

Wonderful homily via the Anchoress

The Anchoress links to a wonderful homily that she said gave her goosebumps. I can see why:

This week, in the Boston Globe, I read the story of an elderly couple named Sol and Rita Rogers. They’ve been married 61 years. They’ve raised a family and lived a long and happy life together. A few years ago, that began to change. Rita developed Alzheimer’s. And she is slipping deeper and deeper into dementia.

Several weeks ago, she was taken to a health care center, where she now has to live. The first few days, she screamed and talked incoherently. She could barely form words with her mouth. Most tragically, she could no longer recognize her husband. She had no idea who he was. This was agony for him. He would go home from visiting her, trembling with grief, overwhelmed by sadness.

One morning, he went into her room, and saw her lying there and had an idea – an idea, he said, that could only have come from God. Sol climbed into his wife’s tiny twin bed, and put his arms around her. And he just held her. He hugged her. He whispered to her. That’s all. But something happened. As he put it, “I got into bed with her and loved her and it lifted my depression.” And Rita was transformed, too. She responded to his touch. And she began to talk.

He now does it every day. Rita’s doctor says that her “old memory” recalls being in his arms, remembers how he used to hold her, and part of her is able to come back.

Now Sol spends a couple of hours of every day, just holding Rita, telling her he loves her, and she tells him she loves him. Just as they have for 61 years.

I can’t think of a more beautiful example of what married love is all about – for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. The venerable Matt Talbot said that it is constancy that God wants. Persistence. Perseverance. Sol Rogers had that – and more.

And so did the Canaanite woman in today’s gospel.

It comes down to never giving up for someone you love.

Victor Davis Hanson on Obama's Saddleback interview

Me? I like McCain better after watching him last night. I thought Obama did well, too, in that he probably did not alienate anyone who was already going to vote for him.

Hanson writes:

One is struck by Obama’s postmodern worldview. There are no absolutes, just nuances and contexts that preclude certainty. Evil for Obama: “A lot of evil’s been perpetuated based on the claim that we were fighting evil.” Could he be specific where we have perpetrated “a lot of evil?”

Again, the gut instinct for Obama—whether talking about our “tragic history”, or the need for more “oppression studies” or evoking our sins in front of the Germans—is always to start out with the premise of a flawed America, rather than appreciation of the vast difference between us and the alternative. Never a word here about evil abroad, or bin Laden or Dr. Zawahiri. No, instead, we need humility about that “lot of evil” perpetrated by you know whom.

Somehow he is pro-choice, but anti-abortion, for man/woman marriage, but not in the legal sense, not for merit pay, but for rewarding good teachers—all this is in the manner he was against the Russians and for them while for and against the Georgians. His mushy responses were emblematic of the therapeutic style—empathy with everyone, judgment on no-one. We may soon be back to Jimmy Carter, paralyzed how to divvy up the White House Tennis Courts among feuding subordinates. He can’t say much pro or con on abortion, other than there is an ethical and moral element to the issue. And any of you who deny that, well are just darn wrong.

David Virtue interviews Archbishop John Hepworth

For anyone looking for some clarifications on the Traditional Anglican Communion's formal request for communion with the Holy See, David Virtue at Virtue On Line has an interview with TAC Primate Archbishop John Hepworth.

VOL: It has been reported that at the gathering of all TAC bishops in England last October at which the TAC formally petitioned Rome for union, that all the bishops signed a copy of the Roman Catholic Catechism on the altar as an expression of their complete acceptance of Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine. Others have reported that this was not the case, that they signed the petition to Rome but not the Catechism. Did the bishops all sign the Catechism, and is there complete acceptance by the TAC of Roman Catholic dogma and doctrine?

HEPWORTH: First. We not only signed the catechism, we also signed the compendium which is the Q & A section of the catechism on the altar and a video of the signing was made for the Holy See and we state in the letter that it is the faith we aspire to hold and teach. We all signed it on that altar in the middle of a mass for Christian unity.

VOL: To what extent is the TAC reaching out to other "continuing churches" to try to achieve unity among the largest possible number of continuing Anglicans prior to union with Rome?

HEPWORTH: We have made public the fact of our engagement with Rome and our desire for unity for just on 18 years since our first official visit to the Vatican. This fact has been more a matter of contest among the other continuing churches than of a growing together. We stated in our last meeting in the Vatican that we wish to place no lines in the sand. We sought their advice on what we need to do to achieve unity rather than setting out an agenda for doctrinal debate. My own belief is that this separates us at the moment from other continuing churches. Our decision has been to pursue unity with Rome in the first instance and to gather those Anglican groups inside and outside the process as it continues.

VOL: To what extent has the TAC found support among local Roman Catholic bishops and to what extent has the TAC found itself rebuffed or put off by Roman Catholic bishops? Can you cite examples?

HEPWORTH: Initially, we found less enthusiasm than we would have expected and the question frequently asked is, why don't we do this as individuals? We have patiently explained the failure of recent large scale individual movements to Rome such as in England and Australia in the 1990's when many priests went to Rome and then returned to Anglicanism. They were disillusioned at the local level. We believe in a corporate engagement with mutual support that would be the most successful pathway forward. Increasingly, we have found significant support from Roman Catholic bishops. For instance, the president of the Australian Bishops Conference has indicated support. Several cardinals have indicated their support. A number of local Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S., such as the Archbishop of Colorado, have publically indicated support.

Denyse O'Leary takes Rob Breakenridge to task

Rob Breakenridge has been one of the key figures on the forefront of the battle for free speech.
So has Denyse O'Leary. But while they both might agree about "human rights" commissions, they don't agree about intelligent design.

Breakenridge apparently has the misfortune of having written a column in defense of Darwinism.
Denyse, who is an expert on the various theories of evolution and intelligent design and a top-flight science journalist, had to respond. She wrote in a Calgary Herald op ed:

Re “What is it about evolution theory that Albertans don't get?” (August 12, 2008), Rob Breakenridge has cobbled together key talking points of the American Darwin lobby. The resulting column is an excellent illustration of why one should not write about big topics without basic research.

The 2005 Judge Jones decision in Pennsylvania, to which Breakenridge devotes much of his column, has not crimped the worldwide growth of interest in intelligent design. That is no surprise. A judge is not a scientist, and Jones cannot plug gaping holes in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution is—contrary to its (largely) publicly funded zealots— in deep trouble, for a number of reasons.

The history of life has not been the long, slow “survival of the fittest” transition that classical evolution theory requires. Life got started on Earth soon after the planet cooled. All the basic divisions of animal life took shape rather suddenly in the Cambrian seas, about 550 million years ago. Later, there was, for example, the "Big Bang" of flowers and the Big Bang of birds, where many life forms appear quite suddenly.

Denyse is the EZ of intelligent design, i.e. she is well-informed, rational, and will eat you for breakfast if you don't have a logical, well-presented, well-researched factual argument.

I found the new Batman movie kinda boring

This review is quite apt. (Spoiler alert---don't read if you want to see the movie). I didn't hate the movie. I just found it long and boring. Some of the philosophical stuff is interesting to speculate about, as this review proves. And if I read more along these lines, maybe I will end up hating the film, too.

Batman is weak and indecisive throughout, letting people die on his watch regularly, agonizing over every decision, even trying to steal a woman he loves from her fiance while claiming to admire said fiance. Harvey Dent, after being shown to be such a beacon of strength, immediately becomes a psychotic mass murderer and attempted child killer after his fiancee dies and he gets burned. The whole movie is dedicated to proving the Joker right about everyone else and showing that only he had anything resembling a consistent moral code. But wait! There are two boats that don’t blow each other up (barely). So obviously people are not so bad, right? Oh, and Batman doesn’t kill. So that makes Batman morally superior to the Joker and also proves the Joker wrong again. Yay. Except Batman kills Two-Face about five minutes later with no problem!! What’s the point of putting so much value into the fact that Batman won’t kill, presenting his inability to kill the Joker (and even going so far as to save him) as a moral victory over the Joker ONLY TO HAVE HIM KILL ANOTHER CHARACTER FIVE MINUTES LATER. And if killing is okay after all, then why does the Joker not deserve it more than Harvey?

John McCain and religious freedom

Another example of John McCain's having actually stood up for what he believes despite the consequences:

In a Vietnamese War Camp, he fought for the right to worship God.

"We wanted to actually just have a chance to do what we felt was a fundamental human right ... and we got spiritual comfort from being able to worship together," McCain said. "We thought, look, if we're going to be together, then we're going to stand up. ... They'd done so many bad things that we weren't nearly as afraid of them as maybe we would have been if a lot of us hadn't gone through what we'd gone through."

-snip

McCain also recalls a Christmas service he orchestrated. A week before the holiday, McCain's guards let him out of his cell and gave him a pencil, a piece of paper and a King James Bible. He copied sections of Matthew, Mark and John describing the birth of Christ so he could read them aloud while other POWs sang "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" and "Silent Night."

"I recall it as if it happened an hour ago," said McCain, sitting in a chair in a suite overlooking the Susquehanna River near the end of a day. "It was cold, the guards were looking through the windows at us, the room was dimly lit because of the light bulbs [that] were in each corner. These guys had beautiful voices, I'm telling you. One was a bass, one was a tenor. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I ever had."

The men became tearful. "It wasn't because they were sad," McCain added. "It was because they were so happy to be able to celebrate Christmas with fellow Americans."

(H/t Crunchy Con)

Getting religion out of medicine?

The National Post's Charles Lewis has a front page story today on moves to strip Ontario doctors of their conscience and religious freedom rights.

What's ridiculous is the premise that the state can "strip" faith from the public square. What will happen is only non-religious faith--the secular humanism of say Henry Morgentaler--or the virulent atheism of Richard Dawkins--will be left, abetted by state-empowered Inquisitors like Barbara Hall. Do you want a health system dominated by doctors who don't believe in God? Who think humans evolved from the primordial slime and there is no objective good or evil to which we are accountable, even when no one is looking? Who think right or wrong is merely a matter of subjective feelings? Who sacrifice their conscience for a pay check?

By the same token, we don't want to have doctors who think infidels should get inferior treatment to believers, or that women should not get treated as well as men, or the disabled should be sacrificed on the altar of expediency.

We need to revive the old-fashioned but time-tested principles of Western civilization, and moral reasoning based on natural law so that an informed conscience is no longer just some subjective idea, but is based on common sense and something all people of good will, religious or non, can embrace.

It will not be a secular fundamentalist multicultural relativist conscience that treats good as evil and evil as good.



Lewis writes:

Ontario physicians could be stripped of their right to exercise religious or moral conscience if a new set of guidelines is accepted by their regulating body next month, critics say.

Doctors across Canada are now allowed to opt out of such things as prescribing birth control or morning-after pills or doing abortions when it goes against their conscience. Physicians are also allowed to refuse to do referrals in such cases.

But a new draft proposal from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario could change that for doctors in the province.

"I'm really concerned with the new principle that the college is promulgating and that is that doctors do not have the right to be guided in the conduct of the practice by their conscience," said Joseph Ben-Ami, president of the Centre for Policy Studies, an Ottawa-based think tank. "That's a sweeping broad principle to establish -- and once you've established it the field is wide open for further changes."

Maybe it's time for two medical systems to be formed. One will have only doctors who uphold the Hippocratic Oath--Do No Harm. This medical system will include doctors who are pro-life from conception to natural death.

The other medical system will include the Morgentalers and the doctors who see no problem with euthanizing the terminally-ill, or the disabled.

If these systems were allowed to compete, and got funded according to how many patients each one attracted, which system do you think would win?

Tell me the truth---if you are sick---do you want a pro-life doctor to treat you? Or would you just as soon go to one who might decide your time is up, that you are using too many scarce health care dollars and your quality of life makes your life worthless?

I want a doctor with a conscience, thank you.

Give this guy enough rope and he'll hang himself

What a cringe-inducing answer. It really makes me sorry for him that his hatred of Christianity has destroyed any vestige of objectivity.

Another freedom of speech fight to keep track of

REGINA (SNN) -- A Canadian advocacy group with a stated mission of protecting constitutional freedom has been allowed to intervene in an appeal launched by a former Regina man over his anti-gay literature.

On Tuesday, Saskatchewan Court of Appeal Justice Darla Hunter granted the Canadian Constitution Foundation intervener status in Bill Whatcott's appeal. He's hoping to overturn a Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal decision which found he had violated the province's Human Rights Code when he distributed anti-gay flyers in Regina and Saskatoon several years ago.

Last year, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Fred Kovach dismissed an appeal by Whatcott, prompting this latest appeal to the province's top court. The appeal is scheduled to be heard on Sept. 19.

I love The Master's Artist

I am part of a blogging community called The Master's Artist, even though I've been AWOL lately because of the writing I've been doing on Human Rights Commissions etc.

I just visited and caught up on the posts, and gee, the stuff is great. If you are a writer and you are looking for some encouragement, some inspiration or some great advice, make this blog a daily stop.

Today Mark Bertrand has a great piece entitled: Kiss the rules goodbye:

Good riddance, I say. I can read a self-help book as easily as the next guy. I don't need someone to do it for me. And that's where so many of these rules come from. They aren't encountered in the wilds of creative imagination. Instead, they drift from classroom to classroom, growing less and less connected to the vital page.

The problem with the rules, in addition to this, is that they focus on the means rather than the ends. Remember, it's all about the illusion, so why should we quibble with how it's pulled off? You don't berate the magician at the county fair for passing his swords through his barely-clad assistant in the wrong way. So long as it looks convincing and nobody gets killed, he's pulled off the trick. He may do it with more or less style, and there's nothing wrong with making such aesthetic assessments, but to think he can't do it unless he follows a prescribed pattern ... well, it's a bit stupid, isn't it?

Yesterday, Mike Synder wrote about his children and how they provide him with encouragement and inspiration. Beautiful. Here's his conclusion, after he has described each child's gifts.

When I find myself doubting some things and overthinking others, I think of Aubrey.

When my motivation leaks or I’m tempted to give up on a problem, I try and emulate my Jesse boy.

When my muse turns obstinate or gets sleepy, I conjure Lukie’s unfettered drawing hand.

When I hit a wall I picture Isaac scaling it, going around it, knocking it down, or simply ignoring it into submission.

A key ingredient of creativity is loving well. (A pinch of ego helps too, so long as it’s marinated in humility.) My kids are kids. They can be as selfish and knuckleheaded as any others. And they have never once offered to pay rent. But they love life and mommy and daddy and Jesus. Taken together they form the funkiest, vertically challenged, four-headed, Muse-eriffic love machine you’d ever want to meet.

And Donna Shepherd wrote Wednesday about her experiences microblogging with Twitter:

When I brought up my home page, a box at the top of the screen begged me to fill in a short update. “What are you doing?” Good question. What am I doing? Playing my thirteenth game of Solitaire? I can’t write that! Going downstairs to fill up my coffee mug. Who cares? I must DO something that’s worth writing about.

So I did. I updated blogs, and sent links. I got out my textbook and studied (yes, I’m in college). I polished up a devotional for submission. I did some marketing for my new children’s book, Dotty’s Topsy Tale. I answered questions for an interview for a first stop on a blog tour the publisher has organized. I wrote about all of this, and in between the serious updates, for fun, I included observations about life in general. A funny thing happened. Every time I’d check back in, I had more ‘followers’ – Twitter for ‘friends’ – more people to which I now hold myself accountable.

Madison Richards wrote about change and pruning on Tuesday:

God has seen fit to "take away" several of my significant, even longstanding relationships lately, with several more to come before the weather turns to pumpkins and drying leaves. I have yet to find a publisher for my latest novel. My daughter is leaving for college in a few short weeks. I could look at all of these things and try to dissect the reasons why, or I can choose to believe that somehow He is making room in my life for the establishment of new relationships; new opportunities; new adventures and new movement.

If I spend too much time looking longingly at the closed doors in my life, I might miss the breeze that signals the opening of a window. Instead of looking back at what was, I want to look forward to what will be. It is only in letting go that my hands will be free to catch that which is on the wind.

A new front opens in the war to protect fundamental freedoms

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is considering a new policy that would make it virtually impossible for a pro-life doctor to work in the province. But his new "duty to accommodate" could have many further implications for trampling on the conscience rights and religious freedom of doctors.

This new policy would make the needs and beliefs of the patient trump those of the attending physician.

Tell me. Do you want a doctor who has a conscience? Do you want a doctor who has no qualms about violating it?

This is also another way in which the Ontario Human Rights Commission can mount an attack on religious belief---and sideline doctors who won't comply with draconian requirements to violate their conscience with charges of professional misconduct. The secular fundamentalists strike again. This MUST be stopped.

The Protection of Conscience Project issued this release:

Freedom of Conscience and Religion Not a Defence

Ontario physicians are being advised that they are expected to give up freedom of conscience if they wish to practise medicine in the province. The expectation is set out in “Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code,” a draft policy document from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

The document responds to legislative changes, which, according to the Chair of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, will see a twenty-fold increase in hearings before the Tribunal - from 150 to 3,000 cases per year.

According to the College, the Tribunal may take action against a physician who refuses to provide or refer for procedures that he finds morally objectionable. The College strongly suggests that the physician’s freedom of conscience and religion will be ignored because “there is no defence for refusing to provide a service” in such circumstances.

In addition to the possibility of prosecution by the Human Rights Tribunal, the College states that it will consider the Human Rights Code in adjudicating complaints of professional misconduct, even though the College admits that it lacks the expertise and authority in human rights.
The College also plans to force objecting physicians to actively assist patients to obtain morally controversial services. A similar demand - that objectors be forced to refer patients for abortion - generated fierce opposition when it appeared in a 2006 guest editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

The College posted the draft policy for consultation near the end of June, with a response deadline of 15 August. The Project, noting that there was no news release about the draft and that “the mid-summer timing of the consultation is less than satisfactory,” has asked the College to extend the deadline by 90 days.

“Commentators like Rex Murphy, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant have condemned Canadian human rights commissions for suppressing freedom of expression,” noted Sean Murphy, Administrator of the Protection of Conscience Project. “Perhaps we should not be surprised to see them now being used to suppress freedom of conscience and religion among medical professionals.”

-30-

For further information, call Sean Murphy at 604-485-9765or e-mail protection@consciencelaws.org.

Canadian Physicians for Life has issued this response:

August 15, 2008

Proposed policy could severely limit freedom of Ontario physicians to practice according to conscience

(Ottawa) - In a letter today to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the president of Canadian Physicians for Life, Dr. Will Johnston, expressed concern over a draft policy relating to freedom of conscience and the lack of sufficient notice given by CPSO to all interested stakeholders that a consultation process, which officially ends today, has been underway since the end of June.

Canadian Physicians for Life is asking the College for a 90-day extension on the deadline “due to the importance of the issues at stake and the lack of opportunity interested stakeholders were given to comment on the proposal.”

The draft policy, that CPL only learned of late yesterday, would appear to severely limit the freedom of Ontario physicians to practice according to their conscientious/religious beliefs. The College apparently posted the draft policy document, “Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code” on its website at the end of June and had set a deadline of today for input on the proposal.

In his letter, Dr. Johnston expressed surprise that the College would not have been more proactive in soliciting input on a policy that could have profound impact on both individual doctors and on the profession as a whole. CPSO does not appear to have issued a news release on the consultation process, and pro-life physicians have been taken by surprise.

Dr. Johnston wrote, “The College must have been aware that groups such as Canadian Physicians for Life -- which represents doctors from across Canada who respect the dignity of all human life, regardless of age or infirmity -- would have concerns with the College’s view that “decisions to restrict medical services offered….that are based on moral or religious belief may contravene the [Ontario Human Rights] Code, and/or constitute professional misconduct.”

“Refusal on conscientious or religious grounds to refer a woman for an abortion could be deemed professional misconduct under this new policy,” Dr. Johnston said.

A similar requirement (that doctors must make abortion referrals regardless of their conscientious beliefs) was put forward in a July 2006 guest editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. It triggered such a firestorm of controversy, that the Journal was compelled to publish a letter from CMA’s Director of Ethics stating that CMA policy did not require physicians to refer for abortions if it would violate their conscientious or religious beliefs.

Dr. Johnston concluded, “There could be serious problems with what the Ontario College is proposing and we need time to study the implications of this policy in detail. If doctors feel coerced into compromising their deepest convictions as a result of this policy, certainly that’s a problem—not only for the integrity of physicians, but also for the welfare of their patients.”

- 30 -

REAL Women celebrating its 25th anniversary

To mark its 25th anniversary, REAL Women of Canada is holding a one-day conference in Ottawa Saturday Sept. 20. REAL Women has been on the forefront of the battle against the illiberal take-over of Canada's courts and other institutions by secular fundamentalists.

They were in the trenches long before there was even an Internet, never mind the blogosphere.
They were among the first to sound alarms about human rights commissions and to put their money and resources into fighting their abuses of civil rights. They have also supported many interventions before the courts either alone or in a coalition of like-minded groups designed to protect the erosion of our fundamental freedoms and rights, especially religious freedom.

Support this conference. Spread the news.

The roster of speakers is excellent. These are world-class conservatives, folks.

8.30 – 9.15 am. Registration 9.15 – 9.30 am. Welcome Laurie Geschke National President, REAL Women of Canada 9.30 – 10:15 am. Dr. Allan Carlson International Secretary, World Congress of Families The Natural Family & the World Congress of Families, Q & A 10:15 – 11:00 am. Dr. Janice Crouse Senior Fellow, Concerned Women for America Children’s rights, Q & A 11:00 – 11:15 am. Refreshment Break 11:15 – 12:00 pm. Mr. Don Feder Director of Communications, World Congress of Families The Demographic Winter, Q & A 12:00 – 1:30 pm. Luncheon in the Laurier Room, Fairmont Chateau Laurier 1:30 – 2:15 pm. Dr. Colin Mangham Health Specialist Harm Reduction and the Hijacking of Drug Policy, Q & A 2:15 – 3:00 pm. Barbara Kay Columnist The Effect of Feminism on Canadian Society, Q & A 3:00 – 3:30 pm. Refreshment Break 3:30 – 4:15 pm. Dr. Michael Wagner Researcher and Writer The Social Conservative Movement in Canada / Christian Right - “Standing on Guard for Thee”, Q & A 4:15 – 5:00 pm. C. Gwendolyn Landolt Lawyer, National Vice President, REAL Women of Canada REAL Women’s Past, Present and Future

Senator Anne Cools is hosting a reception in the Parliament Buildings, to which REAL Women of Canada conference participants are all invited, from 6:30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m., immediately following our conference.

Read this Q & A with Benedict XVI

Read the whole thing. Here's an especially beautiful paragraph on Pope John Paul the Great's suffering during his pontificate:

The way he carried the Cross of the Lord before us and realized the word of
the Lord: ‘Follow me, carrying with me, and following me, the Cross!’ I’m
talking about his humility, the patience with which he accepted almost the
destruction of his body, his growing incapacity to use words – he who was always
the master of the word. In this way he visibly demonstrated to us, it seems to
me, the deep truth that the Lord has redeemed us with his Cross, with the
Passion as an extreme act of his love. He showed that suffering is not just a
‘not,’ something negative, the absence of something, but it’s a positive
reality. Suffering accepted in the love of Christ, in the love of God and
others, is a redemptive force, a force of love which is no less powerful than
the great acts he committed in the first part of his pontificate. He taught us a
new love for the suffering, and helped us understand what it means to say ‘we
are saved in the Cross and by the Cross.’We find these two aspects also in the
life of the Lord. In the first part he teaches the joy of the Reign of God and
carries his gifts to humanity. Then, in the second part, comes the immersion in
the Passion up to his last cry upon the Cross. In precisely this way he taught
us who God is, that God is love and that in identifying with our suffering as
human beings he takes us in his hands and immerses us in his love. Only love
offers this bath of redemption, purification and rebirth.For this reason, it
seems to me that all of us – and especially in a world that thrives on activism,
youthfulness, being young, strong, and beautiful, always able to do great things
– we have to learn the truth of a love that expresses itself in suffering, and
thereby redeems the human person and unites us with God who is love.Therefore, I
would like to thank all those who accept suffering, who suffer with the Lord,
and I want to encourage all of us to have an open heart for the suffering, for
the elderly, and to understand that their passion is a wellspring of renewal for
humanity, creating love in us and uniting us with the Lord.In the end, however,
it is always difficult to suffer. I remember when Cardinal Mayer’s sister was
very ill, and he said to her once when she was impatient: ‘But, look, you’re now
with the Lord.’ She replied, ‘That’s easy for you to say, because you’re
healthy, but I’m in the passion.’ It’s true, amid real passion it’s difficult to
really unite oneself to the Lord and to remain in this disposition of union with
the suffering Lord. Let us pray, therefore, for all the suffering and do
whatever we can to help them. Let’s show our gratitude for their suffering and
assist them as much as possible, with great respect for the value of human life,
especially suffering life up to the end.This is a fundamental message of
Christianity, which comes from the theology of the Cross: the love of Christ is
present in suffering, in the passion, and it’s a challenge for us to unite
ourselves with his passion. We have to love the suffering not only with words,
but with all our action and commitment. It seems to me that only in this way are
we really Christians. I wrote in my encyclical ‘Spe Salvi’ that the capacity to
accept suffering, and those who suffer, is the measure of the humanity that we
possess. Where this capacity is missing, the human person is reduced and put on
a lesser scale. Hence let us pray to the Lord for help in our suffering, and
that he may lead us to be close to all those who are suffering in this
word.

The double-standards of government funding

I am not a libertarian. Thus I do not have ideological reasons to oppose some state funding of the arts. I do not think Canada would have a flourishing stable of internationally-renowned literary writers without it.

I'm not even opposed to government funding for the CBC, though I would like to see that funding go for more programs like Ideas on CBC Radio, for classical music on CBC Radio II, and, well, television? CBC television needs a huge overhaul. It was much better when it had a big regional presence.

What I DO oppose though are government funding programs that are blatantly ideological, or that are edgy only for the purposes of undermining what is good and true in Western civilization.

Thus when Blazing Cat Fur exposes the fact that a gay and lesbian film festival is getting government money for promoting films that push the envelope on pedophilia even in their promotional blurbs, but Catholic Insight Magazine is on a Heritage Canada watch list, I am furious. She writes:

I don't know what category of pedophiliac wish dream the following films represent but hey it's your money they're spending so why should Heritage Canada care? Besides it's being done in the sacred name of diversity you Stick-in-the-Mud Haters!

Babysitting Andy:

Synopsis: What do you do if you’re nine and nobody will tell you what ’fellatio’ means? When Andy’s uncle and his boyfriend arrive to babysit, she corners them with a Supersoaker and they can do nothing but comply.

Or how about, No Bikini:

Synopsis: When Robin was seven, she spent her holidays at a swimming camp. She decided to do without her bikini top - and managed to pass for a boy for several glorious weeks.

Of course you could have opted to enjoy - Jerking

Synopsis: Gender tensions are expressed through short bursts of boxing and jerking off.

Now if film isn't your thing you can always curl up with a copy of Fab Magazine, which Heritage Canada supported to the tune of $35,751 in fiscal 2006-2007. Click on the Hot Links tab on the right hand sidebar under "Regular features", I dare ya;) I'm not sure if that section qualifies under "Editorial Content" funding guidelines hmmm.

...

Denigrating content indeed. So there you have it, in Heritage Canada's moral universe, pedophiliac wish dreams and Gay Porn are considered a wise cultural investment, while Father de Valk is threatened with having his funding cut off for daring to support traditional values and communicating church doctrine. Nope, no double standard here.

It is not the existence of the subsidies or grants that makes me angry, it is the fact that Christian and pro-life and conservative viewpoints usually don't receive these grants, and what governments do fund tend to undermine or slag Christian points of view. And in the allegedly neutral postal subsidy, only Catholic Insight gets monitored.


Unlike various bloggers who say various magazine's accepting a postal subsidy means they have to dance with Caesar, or churches that depend on charitable tax breaks should expect the state to meddle in their internal doctrines and affairs, I say that approach is to misunderstand the role of religion in society.

Churches are not supposed to be taxed to prevent state meddling in religion---separation of church and states, folks. (What would stop a hostile government from unfairly taxing religions out of existence?) Tax breaks and charitable status also recognize the role religions have on the common good.

I also think that a postal subsidy---to ensure that Canada has a magazine and periodicals industry and is not drowned out by much larger U.S. publications that have bigger advertising bases--is not the same thing as a direct grant to make a movie or write a book. Would you like to see only Time Magazine in Canada? Or do you like having Maclean's Magazine? Under Ken Whyte its a great read every week. Could it survive without a postal subsidy? I'm inclined to doubt it. Especially not if it has to fight human rights commissions. I also bet writers of the caliber of Mark Steyn don't come cheap. Don't you want him to continue writing about Canadian matters for Canadians?

The postal subsidy is supposed to be across the board, to everyone, because it supports an industry. It must be for everyone or no 0ne. Because the periodicals I write for depend on it I want it to continue. And that means I cannot complain about the fact that some magazine that espouses ideas I hate gets one too.

Religious people pay taxes, too, and we are entitled to see our money come back to us. If you are going to be truly libertarian, then ALL government subsidies and tax breaks must be obliterated, government shrunk and everyone just has to roll with the consequences. (Now I have to admit, this prospect might smarten up people pretty fast, and make some realize the importance of the old fashioned virtues of prudence, fortitude, moderation and justice, but there would be a transition period where people are literally dying in the streets, begging, with sheer disbelief that their victim-status is no longer government-funded. The rest of us would have to develop our charitable muscles and our wise-discernment on who deserves our assistance and won't be crippled by our help, muscles that have sadly atrophied since we expect government will take care of the sick and the poor.)

But a libertarian-style small government ain't going to happen. You know why? Because most Canadians have become so dependent on government or at least on the idea of the government safety net (it's often not really there when you need it, but I digress) that the thought they might have to live without the possibility of a government agency picking up the pieces after their sexual profligacy, their divorces, their poor lifestyle choices leading to a rickety, unhealthy, poverty-stricken old-age, is too scary to contemplate. Even scarier the thought that they might have to take grandma or grandpa into their own homes instead of relying on a government subsidized nursing home. Why do you think euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide is starting to become fashionable? Because we don't want to be burdened by helping other people. We just don't think the doctor's needle is going to be forced on us.

The thing that many libertarians don't get is that you cannot have smaller government without a virtuous, independent populace. In other words, you can't have smaller government without a socially conservative populace. But so many libertarians disdain social conservatives and their concern for the common good. They want to be able to have their abortions and their recreational drugs and their divorces without concern on what effect that behavior has on poorer or less educated folks who don't have the financial cushions to survive the consequences of family breakdown.


So...while we are living in a society that elevates individual choices and expects government to provide the safety net for the bad ones, I want to see my tax dollars supporting ideas that will help people become moral and virtuous, even though those ideas are unpopular, and unlikely to survive in today's market economy.

Yes then to Catholic Insight's postal subsidy. Heritage Canada....back off!!!!

If Heritage Canada does not back off, then I will want to see all of Heritage Canada's funding removed.

It is either level playing field or no playing field.

More news about Anglicans seeking communion with Rome

From Ron Dreher's Crunchy Con blog:

Do ex-Anglicans make the wrong kind of Catholics? You know, the kind who really believe the Catechism? I ask for two reasons. One, the Dallas Morning News reports today that priests of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth have been inquiring of the city's Roman Catholic bishop about their diocese coming over to Rome en masse, so to speak. No report on how the RC bishop, Kevin Vann, responded to the Episcopal priests' petition, though the Catholic diocese did confirm that the meeting took place.

Collapse of orthodox Christian belief in the U.S.

Most interesting interview with The Atlantic's Ross Douthat (hat tip Crunchy Con):

(2) What is the most important religion story right now that you think the mainstream media just do not get?

It isn’t the sort of story that makes for newspaper headlines, so it’s no surprise they don’t get it, but I think the media’s focus on the culture wars — whether between secularists and believers, or the religious right and the religious left — has led them to underplay the larger theological context in which its occurring: Namely, the collapse of orthodox Christian belief in the United States, and its replacement by a cluster of competing religious narratives that tend to offer variants — some socially-liberal, some socially-conservative — on what Christian Smith has termed “moral therapeutic deism.” I think there’s still a core of orthodox Christian belief (broadly defined to include Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed traditions), but there isn’t enough coverage of the extent to which the “conservative evangelical” who gets her religious teaching from Joel Osteen the Prayer of Jabez and the liberal Protestant who cheers for the consecration of V. Gene Robinson actually share a lot of theological premises, most of which are functionally post-Christian.

He's absolutely right! Great insights. I will check him out regularly. I am so glad I have left that post-Christian stuff behind.

Douglas Farrow in First Things

If you do not know about First Things Magazine, then please acquaint yourself. And get a subscription or send a donation to help this excellent, thought-provoking magazine to stay in business.

Magic Statistics took the time to transcribe some of the final paragraphs in Douglas Farrow's piece about Canada's "human rights" commissions. If you subscribed to First Things, you would have read this excellent essay already.

Farrow writes:

The explanation for that, I think, lies in the myth that the concept of human rights is entirely a modern invention—and an invention that defines the morality of our own secular age. The thought that the very foundations of our morality should prove so flimsy is more than we can bear. Are we not the great generation of rights? The truth is, of course, that authentic human rights discourse belongs to a tradition that the West has now largely discarded, and that what passes for that discourse today is something else.

The threat that this something else poses can scarcely be overestimated. Those in Canada who think that repealing Section 13 will solve the problem are mistaken (although that would be a good first step); likewise those in America who think it will be enough if the creation of HRCs, which some states are considering, is prevented. A society with a bad conscience, we may be sure, will always find ways to police speech and pursue thought crimes.

And we do have a bad conscience. Not merely because we have broken with the past but because we have committed ourselves to the obvious absurdity of claiming that pluralism is our only norm, multiculturalism our only cultural foundation, diversity our only basis for unity, and tolerance our highest virtue.

Tolerance the highest virtue. That goes a long way to account for the spectacle of intolerance that Canada has been offering to the world.

Douglas is right. Getting rid of Section 13(1) and similar provincial legislation is a first step. But we have to reclaim the foundations of our Western tradition to make sure real human rights flourish. One way to start is making sure you have reclaimed these foundational principles in your own thinking. A subscription to First Things magazine is a great investment towards that end.

The Anchoress' online retreat

The Anchoress is luring me into her retreat as I am on vacation this week and long to make good spiritual use of this time. Instead I am reading blogs. But hers reminds me of where I want to focus.

Check it out.

Catholic Insight's ordeal continues

The gay activist who filed human rights complaints against Catholic Insight Magazine has appealed the Canadian Human Rights Commissions' dismissal. That means this small-circulation, orthodox Catholic publication continues to face expensive court battles to defend its religious and press freedoms. I hope the court assesses costs assessed the activist for this harassment. I also hope many gays will denounce this totalitarian action.

Will the Globe and Mail, which has applauded the dismissal of the human rights complaints against Ezra Levant, also come out in defense of Catholic Insight? I am inclined to doubt it, since Catholic teaching on human sexuality is unpopular.

There's more. Periodicals in Canada receive a postal subsidy through Heritage Canada. A gay activist (not sure if it's the same one) filed a complaint with Heritage Canada as well as myriad Access to Information requests that kept Catholic Insight's volunteer editor Father Alphonse de Valk and a staffer busy for months.

Blazing Cat Fur reports that Heritage Canada has now put Catholic Insight on a watch list.
Imagine....being Catholic gets a priest and his staff treated like potential enemies of the state. This is unconscionable.

Some will argue that private publications should not be getting this subsidy. But countless publications would go under if they had to pay Canada Post's normal rates.

Either the subsidy should remain for publications across the board---unless they violate the Criminal Code (and the standards for violation must be extremely high--like direct incitement to violence, or child pornography) or the subsidy should be eliminated across the board. Government bureaucrats should not be censoring publications, or choosing which publications are ideologically correct.

The subsidy ensures that there is an indigenous periodical publishing industry in Canada. Therefore I think it should stay, even if some of the stuff that gets published is crap that I find offensive.

Or else....let's just lower Canada's Post's rates for periodicals so the government is not charging us an arm and a leg, then "subsidizing" those excess charges through another agency.

Gay activists should be alert to the dangers their actions put their own publications in. Their publications could also be vulnerable to government censorship as they have been in the past. And I doubt any would survive an across-the-board cut in postal subsidies.

If Catholic Insight and other Christian publications lose their subsidies, then I will become an activist for removing all of them.

Christopher Hitchens on the Iraq War

He's good on foreign policy. Too bad he's still an atheist. At least for an atheist he has a profound moral sense. He writes:

It is in no spirit of revenge that I remind you that, as little as a year ago, the whole of smart liberal opinion believed that the dissolution of Baathism and militarism had been a mistake, that Iraq itself was a bottomless pit of wasted dollars and pointless casualties, and that the only option was to withdraw as fast as possible and let the inevitable civil war burn itself out. To the left of that liberal consensus, people of the caliber and quality of Michael Moore were describing the nihilist "insurgents" as the moral equivalent of the Minutemen, and to the right of the same consensus, people like Pat Buchanan were hinting that we had been cheated into the whole enterprise by a certain minority whose collective name began with the letter J.

Had any of this sinister nonsense been heeded, it wouldn't even be Saddam's goons who were getting their hands on that fantastic wealth in such a strategic country. It would have been the gruesome militias who answer either to fanatical Wahhabism on one wing or to fanatical Shiism on another, and who are the instruments of tyrannical forces in neighboring countries. Hardly a prospect to be viewed with indifference. I still reel when I remember how many supposedly responsible people advocated surrendering Iraq without a fight.

Before 2003, there was, in a way, a socioeconomic basis for fascism in Iraq, in that the lack of oil on Sunni turf supplied an imperative to the Tikrit-based gangsters for the domination of Kurdish and Shiite areas that did possess the needful oilfields. Now, new discoveries of oil and new laws on regional and provincial decentralization provide at least the socioeconomic basis for federalism. Again, a distinct improvement. This element of the substructure, as we Marxists say, does not in itself guarantee the superstructure, any more than the vast new wealth in Iraqi coffers is automatically a promise of prosperity for all. (After all, in spite of a huge improvement in prison conditions in Iraq in general, one has to admit the crimes and coverups of Abu Ghraib.) But does anyone seriously regret that these questions are being addressed in their only feasible context, namely the post-Saddam era that was the necessary if not the sufficient condition?

So, yes, major combat operations appear to be over, and to that extent one can belatedly say, "Mission accomplished."

Humanae Vitae 40 years later

The Catholic Register has a shortened version of my feature on Humanae Vitae as well as commentary from Douglas Farrow and Mae & Bernard Daly.

I wrote:

OTTAWA - Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae shocked Catholics and
non-Catholics alike with its ban against artificial birth control. But on its
40th anniversary, marked July 25, the encyclical is widely seen as prophetic and
worth a second look for its teachings on human love.

“I think people are beginning to realize Paul VI was onto something,” said Ottawa Archbishop
Terrence Prendergast. “I think oftentimes we don’t realize what happens when
changes are proposed.”Using the more example of Canada’s 2005 decision to
legalize same-sex marriage, Prendergast noted supporters say the sky has not
fallen. “It takes time for consequences to work their way through.”

In Humanae Vitae, Paul VI warned artificial contraception would lead to a
breakdown in moral standards and a lowering of respect for women, saying they
would be reduced to instruments for satisfying men’s sexual desires.

Douglas Farrow writes:

No encyclical ever created more controversy than Humanae vitae ― no mean feat
for a document that reaffirmed traditional teaching. Many Catholics, of course,
had hoped that the Pope would wave his staff over that teaching and make it go
away; they were quite excited about the new contraceptive Pill. But in July
1968, one week before Humanae vitae was promulgated, the Vatican’s Secretary of
State wrote to the presidents of the episcopal conferences warning them that
Paul VI could not and would not do that. Contraceptive acts would remain, in the
eyes of the church, what they are: “intrinsically disordered, and hence unworthy
of the human person, even when the intention is to safeguard or promote
individual, family or social well-being.”
"The Holy Father,” the letter
confessed, “knows full well the bitterness that this reply may cause many
married persons who were expecting a different solution for their difficulties.”
Nevertheless, it pleaded with the bishops to back him up. The laity “must be
helped to understand all the spiritual enrichment represented by the effort of
renunciation which is asked of them; they must be shown what a precious element
it is in conjugal and social life, especially in times like ours which are
invaded by hedonism, that great obstacle in the fulfilment of the evangelical
ideal.”

The Daly's piece is also thought-provoking.

Mama in drag? The prototype leader for the Nanny state?

Most interesting analysis of Obama's charisma, the yearning for political healing, shamanism etc. in City Journal. Read the whole thing. Great insights into the kind of leadership suited to the Nanny State. "Mama in drag." My goodness! Here's an excerpt:

Obama’s charisma, by contrast, is closer to what critic Camille Paglia has identified with today’s television talk-show culture, in which admissions of weakness are offered as proof of empathetic qualities. Talk-show culture is occupied with the question of why we feel so bad, when it is our right under the liberal dispensation to feel eternally good. The man who would succeed in such a culture must appear to sympathize with these obscure hurts; he must take pains, Paglia writes in Sexual Personae, to appear an “androgyne, the nurturant male or male mother.”

Obama, in gaming this culture, has figured out a new way to bottle old wine. He knows that experience has taught Americans to suspect the masculine healer-redeemer who bears collectivist gifts; no one wants to revive the caudillos of the thirties. Studiously avoiding the tough-hombre style of earlier charismatic figures, he phrases his vision in the tranquilizing accents of Oprah-land. His charisma is grounded in empathy rather than authority, confessional candor rather than muscular strength, metrosexual mildness rather than masculine testosterone. His power of sympathetic insight is said to be uncanny: “Everybody who’s dealt with him,” columnist David Brooks says, “has a story about a time when they felt Obama profoundly listened to them and understood them.” His two books are written in the empathetic-confessional mode that his most prominent benefactress, Oprah, favors; he is her political healer in roughly the same way that Dr. Phil was once her pop-psychology one. The collectivist dream, Obama instinctively understands, is less scary, more sympathetic, when served up by mama (or by mama in drag).

Paging Denyse O'Leary!

Please read this entire essay by City Journal contributing editor Michael Knox Beran. It is excellent. For example:

Obama has revived a cruel mirage, but the good news is that the country has defenses against his brand of redemptive politics. Some of these defenses are constitutional, others cultural. The very strength of America’s religious ideal of redemption has restrained, though it has not entirely forestalled, the development of alternative secular ideals of redemption. A religiously inspired belief in original sin has made Americans wary of succumbing to the Pelagian notion that a mere mortal, however charismatic, can build the New Jerusalem out of purely secular materials. The country’s constitutional system, itself founded on the theory of original sin, has created a perpetual conflict of factions and interests that so far has prevented any single party from imposing a monolithic unity from above, such as Europe’s collectivists were able to do.

Alas, Canada is MUCH more vulnerable than the United States to this mirage.

Why bother to develop an argument

. . . when you can silence your opponent with your sense of grievance and hurt feelings?
Obama did not invent this though. Canada's political parties, especially the Liberals, have made this an art form.

Amen to what Nicholas Wapshott writes in City Journal:

That he is not as nice as he looks is good news if he is to counter the world’s tyrants. But his campaign has also revealed a less flattering side: a willingness to silence political opponents by airing imaginary grievances. Obama apparently considers false indignation a legitimate weapon in his political arsenal. This cheap tactic is every bit as reprehensible as the ad hominem attacks and negative campaigning that he affects to deplore.

Terrorism using Western leverage

It's no coincidence that Jihadists based in China are using the Olympics to gain leverage for their campaign to bring Shariah to western provinces in China.

Why? Because terrorism really only works against democratic nations that respect human rights and are squeamish about wholesale state-sponsored repression. Totalitarian nations think nothing of shooting the non-violent protester in the head or shipping him or her off to the gulag. In Saddam Hussein's Iraq the shredder awaited dissenters. Not paper shredder, but a tree shredder into which human beings were fed feet first for the amusement of Saddam's sadistic sons.

As the world watches the Olympics, jihadists hope to get western powers to side with them against China, using the Tibetan template to prompt a defense for their freedom of religion and ethnic self-determination. Yet that self-determination has a totalitarian brand of Islamism behind it. It it takes hold, it would be as bad or worse than the Chinese brand.

Fat chance for success if the world weren't watching, though. China may care about saving face on the world stage, but it does not share the qualms of say the United States on treatment of civilians or prisoners of war. The American angst over Abu Ghraib probably looks silly to the Chinese powers that be. Yeah, maybe they could identify with the shame of getting caught, but humiliating prisoners is a long way from what reports say go on in Chinese prisons. Most Americans don't even want their country to do things that are even on the mild end of the torture spectrum.

As Kathy Shaidle points out in her latest piece for Front Page Magazine, problems on China's western frontier go back decades and cannot be blamed on the creation of Israel. But, because of Chinese control over the news media, we have not heard about rebel activity or the repression that has followed. Until now, when thousands of foreign journalists are in China for the Olympics. Kathy writes:

To most Western observers, the very existence of Chinese Muslims comes as a surprise. However, as previously reported in FrontPage, followers of Islam (mostly Sunnis) make up an estimated 1%-2% of China’s population – approximately 30 million people.

The Hui people, numbering around 20 million, practice Islamic dietary laws and other customs, but very rarely engage in jihadist violence. However, the nation’s 8.5 million Uighurs present a challenge to Chinese authorities. Located near the Pakistan and Afghanistan borders, the north-west province of Xinjiang is home to these Turkic Muslims, whose language is closer to Turkish than Chinese, and whose women often wear buhrkas. Many of the area’s tens of thousands of mosques have been financed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Uighurs have never accepted Communist rule. The cycle of sporadic unrest and subsequent crackdowns by Chinese authorities has persisted for decades – long before the establishment of the state of Israel could have prompted the ire of Chinese Muslims.

The Chinese government has used state control and monitoring --just as they do of Christian groups. This state-imposed solution is something I imagine the Canadian "human rights" industry looks at fondly. It is also something that rabid secularists would perhaps like to see in Canada.

Kathy writes:

The province’s mosques have either been closed down or are now heavily monitored, and imams are forced to study “moderate” Islam in a state-controlled seminary. As well, the government’s plan to repopulate Xinjiang with ethnic Han Chinese, who now make up a majority in the province, has merely fueled the native Uighurs’ resentment.

Not surprisingly, Western human rights groups have wasted little time painting the Uighurs as the new Tibetans, all merely innocent dissenters deserving uncritical support. A 2005 report from Human Rights Watch accused China of "opportunistically using the post-11 September environment to make the outrageous claim that individuals disseminating peaceful religious and cultural messages in Xinjiang are terrorists who have simply changed tactics." Expect an increase in such reports, as well as an uptick in pro-Uighur activism among Western liberals, as this “separatist” movement becomes better known during the Olympics.

Two totalitarian ideologies---one religious and one rabidly atheist--are battling it out in China. The Communists who invented the term "useful idiots" used freedom of speech and other Western values against us, even funding the so-called peace groups and other forms of dissent during the Cold War. The jihadis are doing the same thing, leveraging Western principles of freedom of religion, of conscience, of self-determination, in efforts to destroy them. Lots of oil money is being used to fund the radical mosques that are popping up all over the world. The present day useful idiots on the Left are uncritically helping the jihadists, ignoring their abuses against women and gays because they too hate Western civilization. Though multicultural relativists, these Leftists see the West as uniquely bad.

If only we knew what we stood for. If only we knew that true Western principles are Judeo-Christian to the core and it is on that bedrock that all our rights and freedoms depend.
Religious freedom must be respected. So must freedom of conscience. But the rule of law needs to have a moral framework based on natural law so that respect for religious freedom does not become an "anything goes" multicultural relativism that criminalizes Christianity while turning a blind eye to horrific barbaric practices.

Muslim religious freedom must be included in our embrace of pluralism. But we must insist that Muslims respect religious freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.

We don't want to become like the Chinese in using state power to stamp out religious and ethnic differences. But we don't want to be fools, either, in having any totalitarian ideology funded by overseas money, undermining our freedoms and using our institutions to do so.

Obama--the first postmodern presidential candidate?

From Inside Catholic:

UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge describes Obama's comment as an example of "how far left-liberalism has strayed from the rule of law." Bainbridge reiterates the view that impartiality -- not empathetic solidarity -- is what makes a judge what he should be: a neutral arbiter.

For Obama, the "first postmodern candidate" for president, there is no such thing as neutrality before the law. All values, and all judgments based upon those values, are the product of a struggle between groups as defined by race, class, and gender. The decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the ban on partial-birth abortion was wrong, according to Obama, because the justices ignored the perspective of women.

It seems that Obama believes that the law is about taking sides before you decide. As Professor Bainbridge puts it, "Settling upon a preferred outcome, without resort to the law, because it favors one group or another ought to be foreign to the judicial role."

Edwards affair and the media double standard

The Anchoress on the media's double standard:

John Edwards’ betrayal of his wife is a private affair - to a point - once it’s out there, though, it’s “out there.” In refusing to report a story once it was “out there” the press committed a kind of betrayal, too - one that breaks the public trust just as surely as Edwards broke a private one. That, to me (and many others) was always the bigger story. Remember, had it not been for Drudge, Newsweek would have spiked Isikoff’s story on Clinton and Monica, too. Another story I didn’t like, but which told us a lot about the press and how they treat different members of different parties.

She has some good links, too.

The Phelps crew

Why are people even giving Fred Phelps and his small band any publicity at all?

I have long believed Phelps is a left-wing dirty trickster, someone who hopes to have his crazy hateful spew tarnish Christian conservatives. I know lots of Christians and I do not know one who has anything but contempt for his hateful garbage and uncivil, hurtful choice of funerals to get maximum exposure.

He and his followers are vile.

It is also interesting that when his group does their anti-gay schtick, the mainstream news media is all over it and so are lefty blogs. But I saw Phelps' crew protesting against Catholics and the pope during the pope's visit to New York City last April. I don't recall any outrage in the media about the hateful spew against Catholics. I didn't see even a mention. But then, it is popular and politically correct to bash Catholics, no?

Half the time they say they are going to come and they don't show up. When they do show up it's three or four people who shout loudly and hold two signs each, thus making their demonstration look bigger than it really is.

They are vampires and publicity hounds who are best ignored. They thrive off getting a rise out of people. If nobody reported on them that would put a stake through their hearts.

And I thought he was talking about Canada!

Stupid me. I was reading this paragraph excerpted from Fr. Raymond de Souza's National Post column on FreeMarkSteyn.com and I thought Fr. Raymond was talking about Canada!

A gold medal for all those who will argue that a country which criminalizes religious worship, controls the press and Internet, regulates all child-bearing decisions including forced sterilization and abortion and permits neither free association nor freedom of internal movement, is making progress on human rights.

Am I unduly paranoid? Or did anyone else react the same way? Maybe I'm guilty of seeing the future of Canada if human rights commissions continue to criminalize Christian faith and expression. Pastor Stephen Boissoin comes to mind. And given that abortionist par excellence Henry Morgentaler got the Order of Canada, how much longer before abortion becomes a mandatory in Canada, especially for women carrying a child who may be a future burden on the medical system.

A sad but true story

Unfortunately, much of the danger to freedom of speech is coming from voluntary capitulation to potential threats. We saw that in the craven unwillingness of Western news media to show the Danish cartoons when they were the big news story of the day. And that danger is compounded by fifth columnists who purport to speak for minority groups.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Random House has decided against publishing a historical novel about Aisha, one of Mohammed's wives. Note that most of the alarm came from a non-Muslim academic. The same is the case with a lot of inflammatory stories from the United Kingdom about banning depictions of pigs and such. It's not Muslims making the complaints but liberal fascists doing so on their behalf much of the time and stirring up ire against Muslims and giving the fascists "proof" we need more of these hate laws. Note that the author of this piece in the WSJ is Muslim and he's as upset about this as I am.

Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

After consulting security experts and Islam scholars, Mr. Perry said the company decided "to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."

This saga upsets me as a Muslim -- and as a writer who believes that fiction can bring Islamic history to life in a uniquely captivating and humanizing way. "I'm devastated," Ms. Jones told me after the book got spiked, adding, "I wanted to honor Aisha and all the wives of Muhammad by giving voice to them, remarkable women whose crucial roles in the shaping of Islam have so often been ignored -- silenced -- by historians." Last month, Ms. Jones signed a termination agreement with Random House, so her literary agent could shop the book to other publishers.

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn't a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic.

Muslims aren't the problem

I want to add my voice to Denyse O'Leary's post about the proper focus for outrage and political action when it comes to freedom of speech and so-called "human rights" commissions. My dream is to have a coalition of like-minded people that includes Muslims, gays, Jews, Christians, people of other religious faiths and non-religious people who want traditional Western notions of civil liberties respected in Canada.

She writes:

Focus, guys, focus: To restore civil rights, get our laws changed, don't attack individuals

Meanwhile, I really hope that the discussion can be kept on track. That is the key to restoring civil rights.

While I think it is wise to be aware of what jihadists and their non-violent but Islamic supremacistcollaborators are up to, I still think it is tactically and morally wrong to vent anger at individuals or Muslims in general because some people purporting to represent them have used hrcs as a form of lawfare.

Denyse writes:

I have often thought, if I were a Muslim, I would be furious that so many well-meaning salaried ninnies think that crackpots and extremists speak for me. ("They claim to respect me, and yet they think I listen to these goofs ... ?")

As a Christian, I am annoyed when people suppose that any crackpot with a Bible speaks for me. Or the woman who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary in her cheese sandwich, even ...

Muslims were not the first to use this illiberal system and they won't be the last. In fact, some of the biggest users of this system happen to be white males who file claims on behalf of victims groups, whether gay, Jewish or whatever and win awards for their vicarious pain.

There are people with totalitarian mindsets from all ethnic and religious groups who want to impose their vision of a utopian society on the rest of us. I welcome people of all faiths--religious and non-religious--to my genuinely diverse coalition that believes in a robust, Western pluralism that respects as fundamental freedom of speech, religious freedom and freedom of conscience.

Denyse O'Leary on Liberal Fascism

Denyse O'Leary at her Post-Darwinist blog has a great summary of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism here. And she links it to what's happening in Canada vis. a vis. "human rights" commissions.

The government of a free society is a limited government - limited in its objectives and strictly defined in its powers. It is not there to solve existential problems or make us all love and respect each other. In other words, it is the exact opposite of Canada's "human rights" commissions - which are unlimited and undefined, and increasingly out of control.

Best piece on Omar Khadr yet

I have some sympathy for Omar Khadr as a child soldier. But I also don't buy the blanket assumptions that the United States is evil and its military justice system is rotten to the core. Brian Lilley has written the best piece yet on the gray areas surrounding this young man.

Read the whole thing over at Mercator.net:

Omar Khadr’s distant relationship with Canada and the cold feet of Canadian politicians may explain why there is not a groundswell of support for his cause in his home and native land, but that does not excuse the lengthy time it has taken to get to trial. Even by my own standards, as someone who watches courts and has followed complex cases as they slowly wind their way to trial, six years is a long time. If you accept the position that the Americans have obviously messed up and not given Khadr a speedy trial, does that mean he should be freed? No, at least not on those grounds, because he and his fellow prisoners have a part in the long delay.

Beginning with the Hamdan case, which overturned the original process for trying those held at Guantanamo Bay and continuing now with another case brought by former Osama bin Laden driver Salim Hamdan, court rulings and proceedings have set back or derailed the prosecution of the men held on terrorism charges. In 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Military Tribunals did not have “the power to proceed because its structures and procedures violate both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions signed in 1949.” In June 2008, the Boumediene case granted all prisoners at Guantanamo the right to petition for habeas corpus, the decision opening the way for 270 prisoners to seek trial in a US civil court.

Each of these proceedings has affected all of the other cases at Gitmo through delays. With each case won by the prisoners, the Bush administration and Congress has sought to find ways of trying the prisoners while staying within the law, which is what legislators are supposed to do when faced with a Supreme Court decision they don’t like; change the law to match the court ruling. With each change, the prisoners have exercised their right to challenge the proceedings in court. Khadr himself has launched legal challenges in Canada, winning a slight and limited victory over the Canadian government over access to information Canada has obtained on him. Each side is responsible for the delay in getting to trial. To portray any of this as the Bush administration refusing to try prisoners and holding them indefinitely is simply wrong.

All of this may soon become a moot point; both Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and Republican nominee John McCain have talked of closing down the Guantanamo Bay facility. Such a move would either see the detainees moved to American civil prisons and courts, or in the case of people like Omar Khadr, returned to their home countries. Khadr’s supporters in Canada continue to call for his repatriation saying he can face charges under Canada’s legal system. Yet several experts such as John Thompson, a security specialist with the Mackenzie Institute, and law professor Michael Newton at Vanderbilt University, say Khadr likely would not face charges in Canada due to the way Canada’s treason and anti-terrorism legislation are written. Even a University of Ottawa legal opinion that says Khadr should face charges in Canada, concludes that he would likely never be convicted under the Canadian legal system. That leaves the government welcoming home the youngest son of a clan dubbed by Maclean’s magazine as “Canada’s First Family of Terror” and having him released onto the streets.

We're tag teaming it and we're by no means done

I've been taking a bit of a break on the human rights commission beat, but that does not mean my interest has waned. Oh, no. Not a bit.

Binks nails it:

“Surely,” thought the HRCoids, “the bloggers will wind down and cool off by Summer.” Nope. By Fall? Nope. What they’re failing to realize is that not only lefty bureaucrats and ideologues are real Canadians. And unlike the foul-mouthed ad hominem snarly lefty commenters, we FreeSpeecher bloggers are motivated by thoughts, convictions, articulated principles which are the ground and source of our passion. We’re fighting for ourselves, for what’s been handed on to us, and for those who come after us.. heck, we’re even fighting for you HRCers, to be freed from your fascistic utopianism. We fight because now is the time– whatever our various failings and foolishnesses– and we’re the ones who happen to be on deck in this particular storm. Hang in there: we’re slowly and surely changing things for the better. Every little bit of push-back makes a huge difference, and the longer we talk, the more people tune in. ~

Instead we're acting as atag team. Some team members rest while the other teams get out there and keep the posts and the information coming. None of us are down and out.

Keep reading Ezra Levant. He is doing yeoman's duty while Mark Steyn is on hiatus. Binks is keep up with the many developments. Support them all.

A good fisking of Cardinal Kasper's Lambeth speech

Father John Zuhlsdorf comments on Kasper's text here at What Does The Prayer Really Say.