The Charter and the judicial assault on the family.

Last month (April 17, to be precise) was the 25th anniversary of Canada s Charter of Rights and there as much celebration around Canada s Universities, at the CBC, and in what passes for our 'mainstream' media. The conferences were attended by Charter sycophants, all expenses paid. The few academic

critics of the Charter in this country were not invited. The CBC provides the model in such cases with its idea of a 'balanced' panel--one far leftie, an NDPer, and a Liberal.

Meanwhile the judicial assault on the family continued unabated, the latest salvo fired by the Ontario Court of Appeal. The same Court which five years ago rendered the definition of "marriage" meaningless, this time wreaked havoc on the word "parent."

See if you can follow this logic: Five year old D.--in our brave new world parlance--has "two mums." He has three "parents": B., his biological father; C., his birth mother; and A., his mother's lesbian partner. Two parents are enough for most of us, sometimes more than enough; but thanks to Canadian judges, D. now has three parents.

Actually this was not a Charter of Rights decision. But it is a postponement only, not a reprieve. The judgment makes clear that in future the Charter will have "broad implications beyond the facts of this case." In other words, you don't need the Charter to get to two mums and three parents; the Charter can be held in reserve, presumably for even bolder ventures, like parenting by committee.

To those earnest e-mailers who ask "What's next?" I reply: "Your question is 25 years late." Once you have a Charter that empowers Courts to drain words like "marriage," "mother," "father," etc. of any natural meaning, once words have come to mean whatever postmodern judges say they mean, then anything is next.

The formula is in place and it's a pretty simple formula: shout discrimination loudly enough; play the media convincingly enough; line up those rent-a-crowd supporters assiduously enough; then put your case before sympathetic judges. Forget about elected MPs. They don't matter. They don't have real power; the Charter saw to that.

Hillary Clinton fatuously claimed that "it takes a village" to raise a child; in Canada it takes a Court to tell us who the child's parents are.

The trial Judge, Judge David Aston, hinted at future possibilities: "If a child can have three parents," he said "then why not four or six or a dozen?"

Given the postmodern mindset, given that nothing is any longer true or false, right or wrong, lawful or unlawful--why not indeed? Everything is negotiable, everything's on the table. Toss "marriage" out the window, say anyone can be a "parent," mix in the new reproductive technologies, and then hand the whole mess over to Judges.

The losers in the three-parents case have announced they will appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Well, lots of luck. Supreme Court Judges are no less--the common term is 'liberal' but I should say contemptuous of history, of natural law and tradition--than their cousins on Courts of Appeal.

It is futile to speculate what the Courts will give us next, but it does make sense to think about how to respond.

Broadly-speaking, I think there are two responses. Some people will applaud the decision. Others will consider it perverse, or repugnant to common sense, but will soon learn to live with it. Before long the right to multiple parents will be considered part of those 'Canadian values' that we send our troops to waste places like Afghanistan to fight and die for.

But there remains a minority, a remnant is perhaps the better word, for whom the decision will raise afresh the question: "How shall we then live?"

These are the people who are not prepared to order their lives according to judicial fiat, but rather according to the precepts of the Judeo-Christian civilization of which they can faintly recall once being a part.

If such people are to hold on, and hold out, they will have to find a sanctuary, a Church that has not bowed the knee to modernity, one that is the unashamed repository of teachings and traditions that date back to another King, one Jesus.

Speaking for myself, I believe and pray that is the Catholic Church.

Ian Hunter is a Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Law at Western University in London, Ontario.