Civil rights war in Canada.

Recent complaints brought by homosexual activists to Human Rights Commissions either in the provinces or in Ottawa are threatening the freedom of speech and freedom of religion of Christian institutions and individuals in Canada. In order to understand what is transpiring, we need an analysis of some recent events.

The following quote is from the cover page of the March/April 2007 edition of Reality, a bi-monthly publication of REAL women of Canada 

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"There is a monumental struggle shaping up in Canada between organized religion and the State. We are now only at the periphery of this struggle, and hear only faint rumbles of thunder in the far distance. However, within a few short years, the thunder will be directly overhead as the storm breaks around us. Much is at stake in this deadly struggle.

"This battle will begin officially when the government insists that churches, in their practices and pronouncements, must follow the secular values of the state over the church's own values. If the churches refuse to obey this, they will be punished--not just by lawsuits and fines, but also, one can safely predict, by being denied a tax exempt status that is so necessary for the churches to carry out their many works--not just spiritual, but temporal, such as caring for the sick, the poor and abandoned.

"The foundation for this struggle has already been laid over the past few years by homosexual activists who insist that the churches conform to the 'equality' rights of homosexuals, as determined by the courts and legislation, and stop allegedly 'discriminating' against them because of religious belief. Adoptions, social services, such as nursing homes, religious-based schools, marriages, employment conduct, etc., carried out by religious organizations will be held to secular standards, not religious ones."

Perhaps, we should add here: the new secular standards. Because that is the point of this story. We are facing a new situation, new standards, new demands hitherto unheard of.

How realistic is this prophecy?

Here are two examples. The first one is the demand by the Quebec government of Jean Charest that all schools in the province, public and private, must teach a government--designed religion course through all grades as of September 2008. This course is an amalgam of six or seven religions all presented as equally valid, Christianity among them. This relativistic potpourri can never be acceptable to Catholics or, for that matter, to Orthodox Jews (See C.I., December 2007 editorial on page 3, and News in Brief on page 34)

The second example illustrates how homosexual activists today consider all disagreements and all opposition to their lifestyle as discriminatory, even as hatred.

In an article entitled, "Halifax archbishop headed for Ottawa," the Halifax Daily News online section of the paper requested comments (May 15, 2007). The following three were available to anyone who decided to check. Keep in mind that a few months earlier, Halifax Archbishop Terrence Prendergast had prohibited two Catholic men from receiving Holy Communion after they decided to get "married" under the new 2005 same-sex "marriage" federal legislation. Thereupon they abandoned the Catholic Church and joined a local United Church.

1. Nat Smith from Halifax, Nova Scotia writes: I am very glad to see Prendergast going. I hope they replace him with someone who is more moderate and willing to be open and accepting of the various types of people with the Roman Catholic community.

As a gay man who grew up in the Catholic Church I have witnessed Prendergast preach hatred towards homosexuals from the pulpit, rather than what the Church really teaches which is love and acceptance. It will be interesting to see who replaces him and how he assumes this role, and deals with subjects such as this.

2. Alex Jones from Dartmouth, NS, writes: I was confirmed by Archbishop Prendergast three years ago. He came off very nice and caring during the service, but after following some of his writings and sermons, it became clear he's a very angry man.

Even as a straight man, I have to agree with the above comment. I've felt very awkward sitting in a mass with Prendergast with young people, being nieces or nephews as he spouted his hatred of minorities from the pulpit.

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3. Kevin from Dartmouth, NS writes: This is great news that he is leaving. Archbishop Terrence Prendergast's preachings have made me feel unwelcome in my own church. I was taught that God loves and accepts everyone, but this was not what he preached so I stopped going to church. He preached hatred and discrimination.

Here are three men who boldly and publicly accuse an archbishop of preaching hatred and discrimination, both activities now forbidden under Canadian law. Clearly, they use these terms deliberately.

As for their Catholic faith, they are blind to a true understanding of God, who is not only a God of love but also a "consuming fire." They pay no attention to St. John who tells us that the only true lover of God is he who keeps His commandments. Their notion of a perfect church is one which lets everyone go on his or her way, without correction.

Teaching of the Church

The teaching of the Catholic Church about homosexual acts (as distinct from her teaching about homosexual tendencies) is that they are sinful:

".... Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." (Catholic Catechism, No. 2357).

Homosexual activists call this teaching "hateful" and "discriminatory."

July 2005: Cardinal Ouellet

In July 2005, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, speaking at a Senate hearing on the then-proposed "Same-Sex Marriage" legislation, forecast that if this were enacted as law, opponents of same-sex "marriage" would be "considered bigots, anti-gay and homophobes and then risk prosecution." The Globe and Mail immediately ran a report on it with "legal experts" declaring this view "to be unfounded." One unnamed expert called it "rhetorical hysteria" (July 15, 2005).

The newspaper itself ran an editorial on the same day entitled, "Cardinal Ouellet's unfounded concerns." It stated that in Canada, such prosecutions could not possibly take place. But then it let the cat out of the bag by adding "except, of course, if what they say is hateful, bigoted or homophobic. If they paint homosexuals as sinners ..."

Well, there we have it, directly from the horse's mouth. The Catholic Church distinguishes between homosexuals and homosexual activity, but the Globe and Mail does not. It considers the person and the act as one and the same. Therefore, in its view Catholic teaching is hateful and discriminatory. In trying to disprove what the Cardinal said, it affirmed the accuracy of his observation.

Earlier articles

Catholic Insight has published a number of articles touching upon this and related topics. An extensive sixteen-page historical survey of the development of these questionable rights in Canada over a 40-year period may be found in our July/August 2006 edition. The same is available on our website. Here I will simply mention the single most important Court ruling:

In 1995 Justice Peter Copy of the Supreme Court of Canada (Egan v. Canada) ruled that "sexual orientation" is analogous to sex, race or colour, and must, therefore, be included in Section 15 of the Charter. Now this ruling could only be correct if a person is born a homosexual. But there is no scientific evidence for this. Moreover, the Supreme Court provided no evidence whatever for this ruling--scientific or otherwise.

To summarize

First, the Supreme Court arrogated powers to itself to re-interpret the laws of Canada. Not only did it presume to read into the Charter of Rights the concept of sexual orientation, but it did so even though the term is undefined, and no one knows just exactly what behaviour fails under it. The Court then went on to turn this concept into a human right, in direct defiance of the framers of the Charter, as well in defiance of science, reason, and the natural moral law. Former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer did not think the opinions of the framers of the Constitution were worth much consideration.

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Secondly, through these actions, the Supreme Court has distorted an already one-sided Charter of Rights even further, by propounding the lifestyle of a tiny minority (1-2%) of Canadians (1.4% according to the 2001 Canadian census) into a universal right. This new "right" is now being interpreted as at least equal, if not higher, than the right of free speech of those who disagree.

Thirdly, the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin saw fit to enlarge the Hate Crimes Act by adding sexual orientation (2003). This reinforced the homosexualist denial of the Christian principle, "hate the sin, but love the sinner," a principle also rejected, for example, by the Ontario Press Council, the Globe & Mail and other media. In the eyes of "gay" activists, all opposition came to be seen as unlawful "hatred," or "a hate crime," as "bigotry" and "discrimination."

Earlier, the year 2002 had marked a watershed in the collapse of the legislative and judicial understanding of the role of law, the institution of marriage, and the needs of society and the common good. In January the Law (Reform) Commission of Canada--consisting mostly of feminist lawyers--published a report claiming that marriage is now outdated, that law evolves, and that all relationships should now be treated equally. (See C.I., Sept. 2006, Stanley Kurtz, "The conspiracy to abolish marriage. Martha Bailey and the Law (Reform) Commission," pp.15-17). The report apparently was well received in Liberal legal circles.

In July, in Halpern v. Canada, Ontario Superior Court Judges Heather Smith, Robert Blair and Harpy Laforme ruled that prohibiting homosexual couples from "marrying" violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They ordered the Ontario government to extend "marriage" rights to same-sex couples within two years. Because the Ontario government refused to appeal their ruling, it acted as a goad to the federal government to seek a new definition of marriage. In December 2002, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin in Chamberlain v. Surrey informed the Surrey B.C. parents and School Board that from here on in, homosexual "families" were to be "valid family models" and that they should learn to accept this.

The violent language employed by homosexualists

Hitherto I have only spoken of the word "discrimination" as the term used by homosexual activists to lay charges against individuals, businesses or organizations. But alongside "discrimination," a much more violent language has developed.

There are two words that have acquired international recognition: homophobia and heterosexism.

As Professor Daniel Cere of McGill University has pointed out, the word homophobia was first used by a Mr. Weinberg in the publication Homosexuality in 1969. Today, he observes, homophobia stigmatizes religious communities and seeks to destroy the credibility of religious thought which has been, and remains, a fundamental source for the guidance and government of society. All Christian, all Catholic teaching with respect to homosexuals is said to be homophobic.

Heterosexism is a word only used in relation to homosexuality. Homosexual activists object to anything associated with family or traditional marriage, which they classify as heterosexism.

These words are used to push an agenda and cloud analysis. The agenda is a new war on religion. In other words, the homosexual fundamentalists have no place left for respecting those with whom they disagree. They refuse the distinction between the person and the act. They demand acceptance without any distinctions. In brief, they are now intolerant of all opposition (Cere, Centre for Cultural Renewal, paper, Oct. 22, 2004).

Some current examples from outside Canada

Italy--Verbal hostility and even death have heightened tensions in the clash over same-sex couples in Italy. Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa received an envelope containing a bullet and a message with the star-shaped symbol of an Italian terrorist group (ANSA news agency, April 30).

The ensuing hostilities have extended to the Pope. In its April 30 report, ANSA noted that posters appeared in Genoa's city centre showing Benedict XVI shaking hands with Hitler or standing in front of a firing squad.

Cardinal Scola noted, "There is no homophobia in the Catholic Church and it is time that all this ended. Referring to the European Parliament, he said: "There needs to be more respect for the orientation of our people. There is no need to tell lies."

France--In June 2005, two women in wedding dresses walked up the aisle of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris while an activist dressed as a priest conducted a mock ceremony. The women exchanged rings and kissed while tourists looked on in bewilderment. During the mock ceremony, other activists from Act Up Paris handed out leaflets denouncing the Catholic Church as "homophobic." Other Act Up members chanted, "Pope Benedict XVI, homophobe, AIDS accomplice." On April 2007 a court fined them a token one Euro (Can $1.42).

Three months earlier, a member of France's ruling party, Christian Vanneste, was fined almost $4,000 for comments opposing homosexuality, under the country's hate speech law. He was also charged an additional $2,000 in court fees. The case stemmed from comments Vanneste made in 2004, when the mayor of a small town performed a homosexual "marriage," later declared illegal. Vanneste had said that homosexuality was "inferior" to heterosexuality and that the practice would be "dangerous for humanity if it was pushed to the limit" (LifeSiteNews.com, January 26, 2007).

Hatred of the Catholic Church at the United Nations

Rome--International journalist Vittorio Messori has observed that top international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), corporations, and lobby groups at the United Nations are entrenched in anti-Catholicism. He specifically mentioned the World Health Organization, homosexual NGO's, pharmaceutical corporations, and environmental organizations, calling them "anti-Catholic lobbies" (LifeSiteNews, Feb. 23, 2007).

Messori stated that radical environmental groups "promote an ideology closely linked to paganism and hostile to Catholic morality." He accused the pharmaceutical industry of receiving massive revenues from the sale of contraceptive pills, condoms and other drugs, which they use to oppose the Church's moral teaching. He believes, as has been said by the Pope recently, that the Church's greatest enemies come from within, from so-called Catholics who accept only those teachings of the Church they find convenient.

How did we get to this situation?

Here I am asking a metaphysical question, not a question of chronology of events. Pope John Paul II asked the very same question in his 1995 Encyclical The Gospel of Life (Evangelium vitae). In section 4 he noted (speaking about abortion):

"Unfortunately, this disturbing state of affairs (of new threats to life) far from decreasing, is expanding: with the new prospects opened up by scientific and technological progress there arise new forms of attacks on the dignity of the human being."

This is a reference to a quantitative increase. But the Pope points out there is also a qualitative change:

"At the same time a new cultural climate is developing and taking hold, which gives crimes against life a new and--if possible--even more sinister character (emphasis in original), giving rise to further grave concerns: broad sectors of public opinion justify certain crimes against life in the name of the rights of individual freedom, and on this basis they claim not only exemption from punishment but even authorization by the State, so that these things can be done with total freedom and indeed with the free assistance of healthcare systems."

In other words, there has taken place a fundamental corruption: good comes to be called evil, and evil good. Vice becomes virtue, and virtue vice. That is precisely what the Pope concludes:

"The end result of this is tragic: not only is the fact of the destruction of so many human lives still to be born or in their final stage extremely grave and disturbing, but no less grave and disturbing is the fact that conscience (my emphasis) itself, darkened as it were by such widespread conditioning, is Ending it increasingly difficult to distinguish between good and evil in what concerns the basic value of human life" (Section 4).

This, needless to say, is not only true for abortion, but also for contraception, IVF, euthanasia and, of course, for homosexual activity.

Pope John Paul II goes on to speak of a new structure of sin. Not only is it a matter of fighting the shortcomings, failure and sins of individuals; sin is now officially protected. It is built into the system.

Almost as an aside, the Pope also notes another phenomenon. The value of human life is under attack precisely at a time when

"the various declarations of human rights and the many initiatives inspired by these declarations show that at the global level there is a growing moral sensitivity, more alert to acknowledging the value and dignity of every individual as a human being, without any distinction of race, nationality, religion, political opinion or social class" (Section 18).

What the Holy Father published in 1995 was already familiar to Canadians. Beginning with the legalizing of contraception in 1967, of divorce in 1968, and of abortion and homosexuality in 1969, the subsequent attacks on the family have all been justified as necessary, even commendatory steps, to serve an "evolving morality." Yet all of them have proven to create major social problems.

The Church's opposition: hesitant and incomplete

The Catholic Church is--and has been over the last 40 years--the one great opponent of the above-mentioned developments. Again, today, in the face of the drive for acceptance by the homosexual activists, it is the Catholic Church worldwide, which stands out as a rock and refuses to accept their spurious arguments, or fall for the false-hoods proposed in law, politics and the social sciences. The Church, established by Jesus Christ, upholds Truth itself, the very source of the dignity of human life and the dignity of marriage.

Still, I like to point to three factors which--in Canada and elsewhere--have made it more difficult to fight back: (1) the erosion of marriage; (2) dissent among Catholic theologians; and (3) an inappropriate strategy.

1: Marriage has eroded over the last 40 years, beginning with the legalization of contraceptives, divorce and abortion followed by the legal and economic acceptance of common-law unions, sterilizations, IVF, and other developments. In many of these cases, episcopal resistance in Canada has been minimal. As for the wider Church, just recently, Pope Benedict XVI told the Church's highest court (Roman Rota) that relativism is eroding the concept of marriage, even among Catholics. In his address at the opening of the judicial year on January 24, 2007, he warned against a view that annulments are a canonical way of regulating the breakup of authentic marriages.

2: Dissent among theologians: Two major examples in Canada were the reception of the 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor regarding certain fundamental questions of the Church's moral teaching, and the 1994, rejection of the ordination of women. In the province of Quebec, for example, 60 members of Faculties of Theology at provincial universities publicly rejected the encyclical (See C.I., April 2006, p.15).

In May of 1994, Pope John Paul II ended the 30-year-old debate begun at the end of the Second Vatican Council with the definitive apostolic letter On reserving priestly ordination to men alone (Ordinatio sacerdotalis). On June 29, 725 Quebec religious education teachers, catechists, seemingly everyone belonging to the middle management in the Quebec chanceries--among them 23 theologians who had signed the 1993 letter of protest--published another "Open Letter" to the Quebec bishops in Le Devoir rejecting the Pope's solemn ruling.

Sympathy with the idea of women priests and ordained deaconesses was widespread as well in the rest of Canada. Needless to say, the world's daily press ordained from on high that the debate was not over. In the Toronto Star, Michael Higgins of St. Jerome's College, Waterloo, ON, declared that, "Somehow, the Pope doesn't get it" (June 25, 1994). The Canadian Religious Conference (CRC) expressed "dismay" ("Major superiors upset over 'closed attitude" on issue of women's ordination," Catholic Register, June 18, 1994). And the June 27 headline in Le Devoir read: "Enraged women threaten Church with a boycott of the Mass."

The whole cabal ended abruptly when a small Montreal magazine Jesus, Marie et Notre Temps collected 8,000 signatures in a matter of two weeks in support of the Pope.

3: The third factor in the weakness of Canadian Catholics opposing the idea of an "evolving immorality," was an inadequate strategy. This was brought up recently with respect to other countries as well by the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, under the title Three Catholic Weaknesses.

During the last decades, he said, Catholics have shown the following weak points:

a) Promoting the notion that "secularism" is neutral, thus disguising its true identity;

b) Inability to understand that the issues of life and bioethics are also social and political issues; and

c) Failure to promote the Church's social doctrine in a systematic and comprehensive manner (See C.I., March '07, p.31).

"We will not be able to make a valid contribution to the common good," he said, "unless we expand the culture of life, from bioethics and beyond bioethics, and succeed in making it a true social and political culture" (Zenit, Jan. 29, 2007). What did he mean?

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Well, for example, after the furor over the 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, the Canadian bishops created the international aid organization Development and Peace as the Church's main public agency in Canada. For the next 30 years, until about the year 2000, this organization placed its entire emphasis on economic and political justice. At the same time the CCCB, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, maintained an almost total silence about contraception, while abortion and other issues of marital and family sexuality were not recognized as belonging to, or having much to do with "justice." In other words, the social justice network did not grasp that the defence of human life from conception till natural death, its integrity, its dignity, is the first principle of social justice. Without it, there is no social justice.

As for Bishop Crepaldi's first point, the supposed neutrality of secularism, as recently as last April 2007, a well-known Canadian columnist for Catholic weeklies in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and the U.S., Father Ronald Rolheiser, published two articles, arguing that Catholics have nothing to fear from secularism. For a very different point of view, see the two articles by our contributors, Richard Bastien, Catholic Insight, June 2007, and Michael Coren, "The religion of secularism" (C.I., March 2007).

What is to come ?

As time passes new things will be added to "sexual orientation." For example, Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Toronto, wrote a letter in March 2007, entitled: "Human-rights protection urged for transsexuals" (Toronto Star, March , 2007). The NDP Vancouver MP, Bill Siksay, has already introduced a Private Member's Bill for that very purpose.

What is to be done?

The spiritual task is outlined by Pope John Paul in

The Gospel of Life, Chapter IV, "For a new culture of human life." Not too surprisingly, the Pope bases his view on the Gospel.

Here is also a quote from St. Paul's first Letter to the Corinthians:

"The natural man does not accept what is taught by the Spirit of God. For him, that is absurdity. He cannot come to know such teaching because it must be appraised in a spiritual way. The spiritual man, on the other hand, can be appraised by no one. For, 'Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.'"

Well, if the unspiritual man cannot comprehend what the Church is saying, then indeed, we have a steep road ahead of us. Says John Paul 11: "... certainly there is a long and difficult road ahead; bringing about such a renewal will require an enormous effort, especially on account of the number and the gravity of the causes giving rise to and aggravating the situations of injustice present in the world today."