About "gay marriage"

The Canadian government is, without a doubt, the most corrupt and dishonest of all current governments in major industrial countries: and bear in mind that when you are competing against Bush, Berlusconi, Chirac, and Blair, that is one Hell of a title to have. But as an Italian citizen in my forties, I thought I had seen the height of corruption and dishonesty in the Craxi age - and Paul Martin's bunch of bandits have the late Mr.Craxi totally whomped. For one thing, there is the purchase of representatives. I had heard of such things going on in the Pakistani Parliament - till they passed a law forbidding members of Parliament from changing parties - but it had never even occurred to me that it might happen in a non-banana-republic state, and certainly no Italian politician had ever offered another money or inducements to switch parties. But Paul Martin's bandits have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, doing precisely that, at least once, and the evidence is overwhelming that they did it at least another time. Compared to this, which makes a mockery of elected government, even their notorious financial scandals become a comparatively minor matter.

Paul Martin and his party of gangsters should have been in jail long ago. Instead, they govern a major Western country - something they have in common with Chirac and Berlusconi, who both rose to the highest office of State as an alternative to going to jail. They are supported by a corrupt Press and by an utterly degraded CBC - a corporation that makes the BBC look like a model of objectivity and openness. And it is from this lofty moral perch that they have imposed "gay marriage" upon the country.

Canada is so very liberal. Or rather, Liberal.

An account of recent events in Canada, from CATHOLIC INSIGHT magazine:

New York—On March 4, 2005, Dr. Chris Kempling of Quesnel, B.C., was given the opportunity to address various UN representatives and NGOs on the topic of limitations on religious freedom in Canada. His talk, sponsored by Focus on the Family Canada, took place in the UN building in New York and was attended by, among others, the just-retired U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Chris Kempling is a secondary-school teacher, employed as a counsellor since 1990, who was denounced by the B.C. Teachers Federation for supposedly discriminating against “gays.” He was suspended from his duties for writing letters to the editor of his local newspaper opposing homosexual practices. (For background, see C.I., March 2004, p. 32 and April 2004, p. 9.) He appealed his case and, in an April 4, 2005 decision, Quesnel School District Superintendent Ed Napier suspended him for three months without pay. Commented Dr. Kempling: “It is a sad day for freedom of speech. It is truly unfortunate that the Quesnel School Board believes that only those who support same-sex marriage are able to comment publicly on a matter of national importance.”

Kempling’s speech at the UN zeroed in on the Canadian experience—where, as Bishop Fred Henry pointed out in the Calgary Sun, “Our Charter of Rights includes a theoretical guarantee of religious freedom which is turning to dust in practice (“Religious freedom falls under threat,” Feb. 27, 2005).

One should understand that all this bullying and harassing is initiated by homosexual activists.


Human Rights Committee

Kempling gave examples of cases dealt with by provincial Human Rights Commissions (HRCs). There is Bill Whatcott, recently fined $20,000 by his provincial Nurses Association in Saskatchewan for speaking out against homosexuality. Also in Saskatchewan, Hugh Owen was convicted and fined in 2001 by the Saskatchewan HRC for placing a newspaper ad with Biblical references (not even the actual verses) condemning sodomy. Thus the Bible became “hate-literature.”

In Ontario, printer Scott Brockie was convicted and heavily fined in 1996 by the Ontario HRC for refusing to print materials for the Gay and Lesbian Archives. It cost him $15,000 in legal fees. In PEI, a couple who refused to rent a room in their Bed and Breakfast to homosexuals eventually had to close down their business. An Alberta Protestant pastor, currently under HRC investigation for a newspaper letter, had a fundraising dinner disrupted by an invasion of “gay” activists.

Some of the most egregious of HRC interventions have been the prosecution and fining of mayors of half a dozen cities for refusing to proclaim Gay Pride Days. Many have surrendered to the bullying; others have avoided the issue by no longer proclaiming any “days”.


Teachers’ unions

The complicity of teachers’ unions and others of the educational establishment in the homosexual cause is also working to curtail Canadians’ religious freedoms. In 2001, the private Christian Trinity Western University in Langham, B.C., spent $1.5 million on legal fees in an effort to have their teachers’ certification recognized. It had been originally denied because the university prohibits immoral sexual conduct by their students. Their principal adversary in the case was the B.C. College of Teachers, the same body which today continues with its persecution of Kempling.

B.C. also had the case of the “gay” kindergarten teacher in Surrey (Chamberlain v. Surrey School District, Dec. 2002). He sued over the rejection for classroom use of books promoting “gay” families. A similar case is the homosexual teacher currently trying to have the provincial Education Ministry change the curriculum to include such items as “queer studies” and “queer role models.”

In Ontario in May 2002 homosexual student Marc Hall, with the help of a “gay” lawyer and a provincial MPP successfully forced his Catholic high-school to allow him to bring his “boyfriend” to the graduation prom. In this case, young Mr. Hall also had the support of the Catholic Teachers’ Union (Hall v. Powers, 2002)! An appeal is still pending.

In Manitoba the Winnipeg School District has forbidden its schools the use of four Christian camps for their students. This move was instigated by yet another HRC case (not yet settled) in which the Mennonite Camp Ames is being sued for “discrimination” on refusing a booking from a “gay” choir.


Same-sex “marriage”

Kempling notes—as have others—the disturbing anomaly of civil marriage commissioners. While Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler claimed, in December 2004, that no one would be forced to officiate at a homosexual marriage, civilian commissioners—many of whom have religious convictions—were being dismissed by the provinces which have jurisdiction over the administration of marriages. Already some have been forced to resign in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland.

Church property does not seem to be immune either, as the Coquitlam B.C. Knights of Columbus found out in December 2004. They are being sued by a pair of lesbians for refusing a hall rental for their “wedding reception.”

With the coming of same-sex “marriage” legislation, the assault on religious and intellectual freedom has widened. Evangelical and Catholic religious leaders in Ottawa revealed, in the spring of 2004, that Churches opposed to same sex “marriage” were called in by the Liberal government to discuss a possible loss of charitable status. Revenue Canada officials warned them not to cite Christian teaching on homosexuality in advice to voters before the June 2004 election. Kempling shares the concern with the Bishop of Calgary that “religious freedom is central to the current debate about the re-invention of marriage.” He notes that where the “rights” of homosexuals and religions collide, the former trumps every time under the present system.


Bishop Henry of Calgary

Just how the threat to religious freedom keeps expanding became clear again when two homosexuals in Alberta secretly denounced Calgary’s Catholic bishop Fred Henry to the provincial HRC for saying in June 2004 the government should use “its coercive powers” to proscribe homosexuality in society’s interest (Globe, Mar. 31, 05). Wrote Edmonton journalist Lorne Gunter in the National Post, “Like everyone else, members of Canada’s political establishment are making a great show of respect for the passing of Pope John Paul II. But even as they are doing so, the forced secularization of Canadian society is continuing apace” (“Chipping away at freedom of religion”, April 4, 2005).

In the spring of 2004 Bishop Henry was called by a Calgary Revenue Canada agent—and ordered to remove the pastoral letter from his website on grounds that an election had been called. The bishop pointed out that his letter was in no way partisan—it named neither persons nor parties—and that he had a right to inform his faithful. He flatly rejected the demand.

Some of these people may be nuisances; I have condemned Bishop Henry's statement myself on this blog (http://www.livejournal.com/users/fpb/58448.html). The point however is freedom of conscience, speech, and belief. These cover even those consciences you disagree with, those speeches you do not want to hear, and those beliefs you find mistaken. Anyone who does not find these Canadian developments sinister does not believe in liberty. At least, s/he does not believe in liberty for his/her opponents.

More glorious music

It was maybe twenty years ago, but certainly a very long time ago, when I heard for the first time - and, until about an hour ago, the last - Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck's account of the old slave song "People get ready". It was on a music channel, I think in a top-of-the-pops program, back when music videos were still a bit of a novelty and very popular. When I saw new videos on that program, I usually expected to see them again and again; but, as with another favourite of mine - the Hollies' version of Mike Batt's Soldier's Song - it never seemed to climb the charts, and never appeared again. But I knew I had been blown away, and that if I ever had the opportunity, I would look for the song again.

Today I finally got it - not only the song, the video too. And the video is a lovely black-and-white photographic essay on rural America that almost makes you wish you were there. But the music! Well, I love the kind of singer Rod Stewart is - expressive, generous and bluesy; but it is Jeff Beck that makes all the difference. This is electric guitar played as God meant it to be played, as I have heard nobody else except perhaps Eric Clapton play it. The wonder of those sustained, slow, lyrical notes has just stayed with me - the power of magisterial simplicity, of a man who could do anything he wants and chooses to make things easy not out of laziness but to give each note and phrase the chance to breathe. Kids, this is as good as popular music gets. I will try and post it.