Call of conscience: what is not morally acceptable is the legal approval of homosexual activity.

Prime Minister Jean Chretien is about to place a national stamp of approval upon legitimizing deviant behaviour by adding "sexual orientation" to the Human Rights Act of Canada. He hopes to do it before the end of May. (Quebec has just announced--April 1--that it will go ahead with approving same-sex spouses.)

This move--as we have pointed out before--is totally wrong and must be opposed by Christian legislators. The argument that it is merely a matter of protecting homosexuals from physical abuse is false because they--like all Canadian citizens--are protected already under existing law.

The term "sexual orientation" remains undefined. It can, and almost certainly will, come to cover deviances such as transvestism, sadomasochism, bestiality and paedophilia. Today it already covers the newly invented condition called "bisexuality." Other consequences may be foreseen. They include:

* the abolition of marriage and family as defined by Christianity;

* censorship of opponents;

* full "family" benefits on every level, including pensions;

* changes in law to ensure full spousal rights including rights to adoption, inheritance, same-sex marriage, health insurance, pensions;

* rights in education such as teaching in schools, teaching a pro-homosexual curriculum, and courses in schools and universities;

* polygamy (already allowed by Islam and Mormonism).

Canadians are looking at the further falsification of national morality on a large scale. The "same sex" legislation proposed by the Ontario NDP government in would have required amendments to 57 statutes.

We are appealing to the consciences of our legislators to stand fast, resist the howling of the media, and defy the immoral pressure of their political colleagues. We appeal to readers to write MPs. Ours is not private opinion. I hereby attach the following statement:

Legitimizing deviant behaviour leads to decadence

Pope John Paul II 

During Lent of 1994 the Holy Father reflected on what was to be the Year of the Family. He stated:

"The insidious attacks on the family in modern hedonistic civilization, despite all the declarations on human rights, is essentially opposed to its true good, cannot be resisted except by prayer, fasting and mutual love. Certainly, there are many families who pray for themselves and others. In our world, vulnerable to so many moral threats, the family apostolate is providentially growing.

"Unfortunately, precisely in this Year of the Family, one notes initiatives, disseminated by a considerable part of the mass media, that seem to be essentially `antifamily.' They are initiatives which give priority to what causes the break-up of the family, the defeat of the human person--man, woman or children. What is really evil is called good: separation chosen for trivial reasons, marital infidelity not only tolerated but even extolled, divorce and free love sometimes presented as examples to be followed. Who needs this propaganda? Who needs it? What are its sources? `Every good tree,' Jesus says, `bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit' (Mt 7:17). Hence it is a question of a bad tree that humanity bears within itself, cultivating it with the help of vast financial outlays and the support of the powerful mass media.

"Here one's thoughts turn to the recent, well-known resolution approved by the European Parliament. (Editor: This resolution called for sexual orientation to be protected under law.) It does not merely defend people with homosexual tendencies by rejecting unjust discrimination in their regard. The church agrees with that--indeed, she supports and approves it. She does so because every human person is worthy of respect. What is not morally acceptable is the legal approval of homosexual activity. Being understanding towards the sinner who is unable to free himself from this tendency is not the same as lessening the requirement of the moral norm. Christ forgave the woman caught in adultery and saved her from being stoned, but at the same time he said to her: `You may go. But from now on, avoid this sin' (Jn 8:11).

"What I say here I say with deep sadness, for everyone has great respect for the European community and the European Parliament. We know the many merits of this institution, but it must be said that the Parliament's resolution seeks to legitimize a moral disorder. The Parliament has unduly institutionalized deviant kinds of behaviour not in conformity with God's plan; they are weaknesses, as we know, but Parliament has supported these weaknesses. It is not recognized that the true human right is victory over oneself so as to live in conformity with a correct conscience. Without a basic awareness of the moral law, human life and human dignity are subject to decadence and ruin. Forgetting Christ's words, `the truth will set you free' (Jn 8:32), the attempt has been made to tell the inhabitants of this continent that moral evil, deviation, a kind of slavery, is the way to liberation, thus distorting the true meaning of the family.

"The relationship of two men or two women cannot constitute a true family; still less can one grant such a union the right to adopt children who lack a family. These children suffer great danger, grave harm, because in these `substitute families' they do not have a father and mother, but two fathers or two mothers. This is dangerous.

"The only authorities to which we can appeal are conscience, a correct, sound conscience, and nations' sense of responsibility. They cannot allow the family to be destroyed, because the future of us all, of every nation, of all humanity--of all Europe--depends on it."