Undermining Catholic resistance.

SPECIAL REPORT - 3

SECTION 1:

Miscellanea

For an introduction to this section, see editorial on page 3.

Catholic AIDS program

The July-October issue of The Orator, an Ottawa publication, contains a thorough and devastating analysis of the new AIDS program for Ontario Catholic schools, AIDS: A Catholic Educational Approach to HIV. Editor Sylvia MacEachern divides her presentation into a nine-page medical section entitled AIDS: A few important facts, and an eleven-page historical section headed Sanctified Sodomy, a closer look at "Catholic" AIDS education. The first section brings medical evidence from Europe and North America; the second section traces the work of AIDS activists and their Catholic lobbies in the U.S. and Canada.

Here are some of the headings under which the program is scrutinized in the first section:

* Being non-judgmental and compassionate

This is called a dead give-away. There is no indication in this program of the Church's position that there is such a thing as legitimate discrimination against homosexuals, nor that homosexual acts are intrinsically depraved. Children will be told to be non-judgmental; they will not be told never to engage in sodomy.

* Supposed mode of transmission

The program says: "the most common ways to spread the AIDS virus are by sharing illegal needles and by promiscuous sexual behaviour . . . ." But the most common way to spread the virus is through sodomy. This ought to be stated, and isn't.

* The program also states: "Because the AIDS virus is not spread through casual contact, it is considered safe in most cases for children who have HIV disease to attend school or other classes." The program is wrong. In answer The Orator lists twelve medically documented cases of spreading AIDS in "casual" ways over the years 1985 - 1997. It also demonstrates that many other statements about kissing, infected staff, etc., are incorrect.

* Sexual intercourse 

The Orator prints cumulative figures from the Canadian Department of Health showing that up to September 20, 1996, 78.6% of reported Canadian AIDS cases came about through men having sex with men, not through sexual intercourse.

A Hamilton Spectator investigative article in 1991 said, "Federal Centres for AIDS officials admit they have no data to prove that AIDS in Canada has spread from women to men - the only transmission method that would allow AIDS to spread through the general population." Yet the Catholic program states: "Because sexual intercourse is the most common way that people become infected with HIV . . ." The Orator asks, "Since when did the Catholic Church call sodomy sexual intercourse?"

* The Orator's conclusion: the whole tendency of this program is to sentimentalize homosexual behaviour, ignore its sinfulness and minimize both the medical and psychological dangers.

[The Orator, P.O. Box 71022, Ottawa, ON., K2P 2L9, annual subscription: $15.00.]

More on the curriculum

In the October 8 issue of the Ottawa Citizen, Dr. M.J. Ferrari corrects a number of inaccuracies which the AIDS curriculum teachers' manual reinforces:

* AIDS is not a homosexual disease.

"This is more accurately said of measles and mumps. It is generally accepted that AIDS was introduced into the pool of homosexuals, and the homosexual community is still a reservoir of the disease.")

* homosexuality is something that one is born with, a genetic defect. A gene for homosexuality has never been discovered . . . . Homosexuality is deviant behaviour that is learned. . . ."

* condoms are an adequate safeguard against AIDS.

"According to Dr. T. McIlnerny, president of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas - and many, many others - condoms do not prevent AIDS nor any other sexually transmitted disease."

* AIDS is the single most significant disease in the world.

"In many countries more deaths among young people are caused by car accidents than by AIDS, and in other parts of the world tuberculosis, or malaria, kills more people than AIDS and all other infectious diseases put together." (Editor: In Canada heart disease alone kills 80,000 people a year; AIDS kills fewer than 600.)

Dr. Ferrari believes, as these points indicate, that the AIDS manual contains information which is factually inaccurate and misleading. Moreover, she contends that it is imbued with a secular psychology which contradicts Christianity.

Soft-pedalling homosexuality

From "Stones for bread," describing a Catholic teachers' training course in Toronto (C.I., Jan-Feb, '98, page 17):

"The question of homosexuality was raised. Ralph informed the class that, while homosexual activity was not permitted by the Church, nevertheless, homosexual orientation was not sinful, and homophobia was certainly a disorder. (`Homophobia,' if it means anything genuine, means the normal and natural disgust that a normal person has for sodomy, and that is certainly not a disorder.)"

"Ralph's assertion prompted this from one student: `Well, if it's okay to be a homosexual, why can the homosexual not act on his feelings?' Ralph shrugged as if to say, "You've got me there!' He did not see fit to mention that the homosexual `orientation' is itself a disorder. . . ."

"In an end-of-the-year discussion, a young woman expressed her belief that homosexuality was something good and beautiful and deserving our respect. She quoted a poem to that effect. One brave member of the group responded, `Doesn't what you are saying go against Church teaching?' At that everyone stared at the questioner as though her comment were in need of defending. The student promoter of homosexuality informed her questioner, `Homosexuality is out there.' The coordinator's response? Complete and utter silence!"

Catholic Worker fans flames

"Gay teacher's `wedding' costs him job," said the headline above Rosie Di Manno's column in the October 10, 1997 Toronto Star. The column set forth the case of a former seminarian (from Rochester, N.Y.), Joseph Stellpflug, religion teacher and chaplain at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School, in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill. In 1996 he boldly went through a semi-public "commitment ceremony" to same-sex mate David Martin, also a former seminarian. After being reported to Church authorities, Stellpflug reluctantly resigned as chaplain and as religion teacher, still thinking he could continue as a mathematics teacher. But when he refused to state the full extent of his relationship, the board fired him in June 1997. Did Stellpflug know the teaching of the Church? Yes. Despite his conduct he assured Di Manno that he was "a very good Catholic."

His union, OECTA (Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association), is helping Stellpflug to pursue a "grievance" against the board. Stated OECTA lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo: "It is our view that this is discrimination against homosexuals."

In late November 1997 eight outsiders came to the school to promote support for Stellpflug and the "gay" cause, encouraging teachers and students coming off the buses to wear pink ribbons and hand out pamphlets. Spokesman James Loney, of Zaccheus Catholic Worker house in Parkdale, Toronto, said the purpose was to raise awareness about this issue, adding that he saw no difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals.

One of the pamphlets urged a halt to "homophobia" and a change in Church teaching. "The Church," it said "had been wrong before," citing Galileo, witches, Jews, slavery and the Crusades as examples.

"Why was Mr. Stellpflug fired?" the pamphlet asked. He "was fired for making a vow of love to another man. He made that vow because he was in love, and he was in love with a man because he was gay. Firing Mr. Stellpflug for making his vow is the same as firing him for being gay. They cannot be separated."

This reasoning runs somewhat along the same line as the 1996 ruling of the Ontario Press Council that the Catholic Church, by opposing homosexual sex, in fact teaches hatred for homosexuals.

The small 13-member Toronto Catholic Worker group has little in common with the illustrious Dorothy Day of New York, who founded the Catholic Worker movement. She was completely orthodox in faith and morals. The Toronto group, on the other hand, attacks Catholic moral teachings.

In 1994 they denounced Toronto's Archbishop Ambrozic for opposing the same-sex marriage legislation of Bob Rae's NDP. In the spring of 1997 the group's publication Mustard Seed (4 times a year, circulation 3000) was turfed out of Catholic schools for attacking Catholic teaching on family morality.

Catholic magazine accepts Dignity

The Toronto magazine Spiritan Missionary News (February, 1998) contains an article entitled "A Spiritan Presence on the Island of Manhattan," by Father Dan McCarthy, CSSp. "One of my two Manhattan worlds is the lesbian and gay community," he writes, "where I work as a priest and also as a psychotherapist; the other is Harlem hospital, where I work as the Catholic chaplain."

He explains that he tries to bring to his practice respect for the unique working of Jesus in each person, and "that I collaborate in the slow, painstaking process of mapping out their deepest feelings, beliefs, and expectations." All this is very commendable. But does he bring to his work a Catholic understanding of why homosexuality is intrinsically disordered?

He says that his presence in the gay community, "usually in connection with the Roman Catholic organization Dignity, has at times included advocacy and even moments of public confrontation." On one occasion, he held up a large banner which read, "Dignity for Gay Catholics."

In the Vatican's official letter of 1986, which re-stated that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered, the Church declared that any group supporting homosexuality should not receive Church assistance. In 1989, Dignity, the organization Father McCarthy supports, adopted a manifesto on sexual ethics which celebrated gay sexuality as being in harmony with Christ's teaching. Refusing to accept the Church's view that their sexual identity is an objective disorder, Dignity members declared that their sexuality and its expression were "a holy gift from God. . . . We reclaim our sexuality," they said, "and its genital expression as intrinscially good."

In his editorial in Spiritan Missionary News, Father Patrick Fitzpatrick implicitly defends McCarthy's article by saying that "Missionaries cross boundaries," that "Christ was found among the displaced," and more of the same. Readers will wonder how support for Dignity, which has declared war on the Church, can possibly be reconcilable with the Spiritan tradition.

Jerry Bartram (and St. Joe's)

In 1996 and again in 1997 the Globe and Mail published long articles by Jerry Bartram, attacking the Church's teaching on homosexuality. Both articles were signed "former editor of The B.C. Catholic," as if the Globe wanted to legitimize the author's dissenting opinions as authoritatively Catholic.

Last September the parish newspaper for St. Joseph's Parish, Ottawa, carried an article entitled "A gay Catholic at St. Joe's" by the same Jerry Bartram. He began by saying, "I am a gay Catholic man, and I feel welcome at St. Joe's. That's why I come to Sunday Mass here. That's why I have joined the parish, and offer some modest service to the parish community, as a lector."

After this forthright declaration of his being an active homosexual Bartram praised St. Joe's for welcoming people like him and thereby challenging the Church as a whole: "It's a brave and noble thing to do, and the contemporary church badly needs such a challenge."

He, and others like him, still feel different and isolated from the culture around them, but for the moment, "St. Joe's is a wonderful place for a gay Catholic: a non-judgmental, warm and friendly place, where we are respected, as we are, in our diversity."

Elsewhere, he went on to say, homosexual activity between two men "is regarded as profoundly wrong. In the language of the old-style-church - language we don't like to use at St. Joe's - these, are by definition, sins worthy of hell."

Comment

One question is, "Why is St. Joseph's Catholic parish allowed to promote the homosexual agenda in this way?" Another question: "Why is Bartram allowed to get away with the statement that the St. Joseph's congregation does not regard homosexual activity as a serious sin? Is unrepented sodomy not still a sin worthy of hell in Ottawa?"

SECTION 2:

THE PROPAGANDA WAR

1. The Globe and the Star

Files of clippings on the pro-homosexual propaganda war in Canada are bulging. Take the Globe and Mail of Saturday, March 14, 1998. That day it carried three feature articles on the subject: one on Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie's remarks about gays, with accompanying letters to the editor; another on so-called medical research on the origins of lesbianism; and another on "gay theatre scoring big," illustrated with a photo of three naked men wearing nothing but hockey helmets. In addition, the Globe's TV guide of the day carried a cover story on "gay-themed" TV shows on each of the nation's three networks: CBC, CTV, and Global. The remainder of that week saw five more feature articles of a similar nature.

The Toronto Star of March 14 also published three articles: one on Binnie, and two on the religion page, one entitled "Church (UC) affirms `queer' rights." Three more feature articles on some aspect of the homosexual condition and several letters to the editor appeared over the next five days. On Saturday March 21 there were three more articles on same-sex related issues.

On April 3, the day after the Supreme Court ruled that Alberta must include "sexual orientation" its human rights legislation the Globe, under its homosexual editor-in-chief William Thorsell, devoted a third of its front page, almost two full pages on the inside, and an editorial to this latest victory for sodomy in Canada.

2. Vision TV

Reality, the bi-monthly news report of REAL Women, has criticized Vision TV, the multi-faith channel supported by the Catholic bishops, for wanting to add "balance" to any condemnation of homosexuality. It thereby condemns faiths which do not accept the homosexual agenda (Sept-Oct. '97).

In its Skylight Series, the network presented the story of a young homosexual who alleges he was treated cruelly by the Seventh Day Adventists, because they refused to accept his homosexual activity and his same-sex partner.

Vision also presented Brent Hawkes, self-appointed "minister" of the homosexual Metropolitan Community Church in Toronto, who holds that nowhere does the Bible condemn "a loving homosexual relationship." Technically, Hawkes is correct because nowhere does the Bible describe homosexual activity as "loving."

[Reality, bi-monthly, Box 8813, Station T, Ottawa, ON., K1G 3J1. Tel. [phone], $20.00].

3. Whose bigotry?

The same issue of Reality mentioned above, notes that when Dr. Grant Hill, a Reform MP, stated in the House of Commons that the homosexual lifestyle is unhealthy and could lead to paedophilia, three physicians on staff at Wellesley Hospital in Toronto accused him of promoting bigotry and bringing shame on the medical profession.

Now, Edmonton lawyer Ralph Watzke has laid a complaint with the Ontario College and Physicians and Surgeons against these three. They are Dr. Philip Berger, Dr. Bill Seidelman, and Dr. Cornelson. (Editor's note: Wellesley Hospital has now been merged with St. Michael's Hospital.) Watzke's complaint said that their accusation was "highly irresponsible, malicious, politically motivated, untruthful, medically unsound, bigoted, hateful, shameful and disreputable."

Earlier, the Ontario College had been denounced by some Ontario doctors for its own politically correct statement ridiculing Dr. Hill. It, as well as the Alberta College, had to swallow its words. Why? The evidence for the enormous health risks involved iin homosexual activity is overwhelming.

4. Not fighting the AIDS epidemic

The cover story of the Atlantic Monthly for June 1997 was entitled "The AIDS Exception: Privacy vs. Public Health." Introducing the author, Chandler Burr, the editors say that he speaks on college campuses around the U.S.A. on biology, politics, and the law, and that this article touches on all three. They note that he "takes a point of view that runs counter to that of the AIDS establishment."

Burr argues that concerns about privacy have unreasonably been allowed to hamper the fight against a deadly and infectious disease. Some will angrily demur. "We would argue that with lives at stake, scrutinizing orthodoxy from time to time is simple prudence."

We don't routinely test people for AIDS or HIV when they are admitted to hospital, says Burr, and we don't routinely insist that the partners of infected people be sought out and notified. If there were once persuasive reasons for omitting such things, there aren't any now - not if we are serious about bringing the epidemic to an end. He asks, "Does an absence of routine testing, reporting and notification mean that a lot of undiscovered AIDS and HIV cases are festering in the larger society?" And he answers, "Yes."

We now talk about the rights of individuals who have disease-causing viruses, bacteria, and so on. It really means granting rights to the viruses and the bacteria. The virus is our enemy, not the person with the virus, but at the same time, the person harbours the virus, and we need to take steps to prevent it from moving to another person. "In the end," Burr concludes, "AIDS would be unlikely to prove resistant to good basic public-health policies. It may survive if it can circumvent good sense."

Everything that Chandler Burr says about the United States applies to Canada.

5. A word of truth

A word of truth comes from The Sun newspapers' columnist George Jonas. "AIDS," he wrote on August 22, 1997, "isn't a homosexual illness, but it is a homosexual epidemic, at least in our culture. The AIDS virus doesn't care about its host's sexual orientation. It does care about his lifestyle, though, because that's how it gains entry into his system. . . .AIDS the malady is caused by a virus, but AIDS the epidemic is caused by a lifestyle."

Some other notes about the "gay" drive in society

School books

Surrey, B.C.- A new Coalition for Protection of Parental Rights is broadening the appeal to parents of all religious backgrounds who are battling "gay friendly" materials in Kindergarten and Grade 1.

The main campaign is centering on the Surrey School Board, which in 1997 found that three unapproved books depicting same-sex couples as normal families were being used in its schools. After Surrey trustees rejected the books, some gay activists challenged the decision in court. The court case is expected to be heard in June.

The books in question are Asha's Mums; Belinda's Bouquet; and One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads.

B.C. Teachers for Life are circulating a petition in support of the Surrey trustees. (B.C. Catholic, Mar. 9/98)

Liberal party

Ottawa - In March the 2,500 member, bi-annual convention of the federal Liberal Party endorsed resolutions advocating government benefits for same-sex couples, in order to put homosexual unions on a par with marriage. The motions were moved by the Liberal youth wing, many of whom are products of the Catholic school system. They favour "gay rights," they accept abortion, and in general they have a secular, permissive outlook.

Treasury Board President Marcel Masse said cabinet will explore how it can legislate delivering more benefits to gay and lesbian couples (Star, Mar. 23, '98).

Immigration 

Ottawa - The 1997 document on immigration policy, Not just numbers: A Canadian framework for future immigration, contains a number of controversial suggestions such as a head tax and the requirement of English or French language abilities for all immigrants. One suggestion not mentioned in the media is the proposal to change the current definitions of spouse and the family. Recommendations 32, 34 and 161 request redefining "spouse" to include common law, same-sex partners and, indeed, any self-proclaimed relationship.

Catholic Insight has added its protest to that of others. Write the Honourable Lucienne Robillard, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. The pro-gay proposals pose a risk to the health and well-being of Canadians.

"Gay" rights in PEI

Charlottetown - Premier Pat Binns hopes to add "sexual orientation" to the Island's Human Rights Act. Binns, a Catholic, is being pressured by the "gay" activist group EGALE, whose local spokesman is United Church minister Erich Fullerton. Among those supporting the move are the NDP and two Catholic priests, Fathers Leo Trainor and Allan MacDonald, the latter a teacher of sociology (Interim, April 1998).

"Gays" on campus

Toronto - The University of Toronto Alumni organization is now offering vacation packages exclusively for gays and lesbians. Catholic bishops of the West Indies, however, have recently called gay ocean cruises unacceptable. In January one of these cruises was turned back. Also, bishops of the Bahamas, Belize, Nassau and Trinidad have denounced the "widespread advertising" of the cruises.

The Sexual Diversity Studies (U of T) program opened in March 1998 in great style. Svend Robinson, the gay socialist MP for Vancouver, gave a speech calling for stronger links between gays and academia. Some 200 academics, students and homosexual activists applauded enthusiastically. The new undergraduate program is at University College. UC principal Paul Perron explained that faculty will be drawn from all disciplines for the three core courses plus 20 others. Funding is assured for three years, while efforts are underway for an endowed chair.

Robinson also praised Professor David Raeside, a leading University of Toronto "gay" agitator, for playing a key role in getting the program established.

Making schools safe for "gays"

Saskatoon - A one-day conference on homosexuality in schools was sponsored by the College of Education, University of Saskatchewan. Breaking the silence: Gays and lesbians in our schools, held on March 21, appeared to be intended to strengthen networks among homosexual activists.

Anglican Minister Colin Clay, two gay students and a representative of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) made up the morning panel. The afternoon was devoted to workshops, how to implement the 1993 amendment to the Saskatchewan Human Rights Act forbidding discrimination for "sexual orientation," and how to battle opposition to the homosexual lifestyle (The Sheaf, Mar. 19, '98).

Making the community safe for "gays"

Also in Saskatoon, the provincial Ministry of Health put on The Well-being of Youth: Everyone's Concern, a conference for youth, 10-19 years of age. Organized by the department's Family Planning Committee, all the speakers appeared handpicked to ensure that only the Planned Parenthood ideology would be heard. AIDS education, choosing lifestyles, and gay-lesbian youth, were prominent among the subjects discussed. With representatives from the departments of education, nursing, university libraries, arts, and human rights, etc., such conferences influence key personnel in many disciplines.

Safety for "gays" in British Columbia

Vancouver - The Focus on the Family Newsletter of Feb. 1998 reports that the B.C. Teachers Federation voted overwhelmingly in favour of developing programs and policies to eliminate "homophobia" and "heterosexism" in the school system. While there seems to be unanimous agreement that reducing harassment or hatred of any minority group is a good thing, the Newsletter says advocating the elimination of heterosexism assumes that society is ready to accept homosexuality as healthy, normal, and morally equivalent to heterosexuality. This, the Newsletter indicated, is unacceptable.

Focus on the Family also noted the Health Canada 1996 statistic that "90% of male AIDS cases in Canada are due to homosexual or bisexual activity."

How ridiculous can it get?

In September, 1997, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Issue Section of the British Columbia branch of the Canadian Bar Association requested that B.C. Human Rights Commissioner Mary-Soo Sims consider the following:

"We want to ensure that the protection of `gender identity,' which is proposed, be crafted in such a way that it covers all people who need human rights protection, including transgendered people, two-spirited people, transsexuals (MtF and FtM), cross dressers, drag queens and drag kings, intersexed people, people mistaken for someone of the gender to which they do not belong, etc. . . .

"Logically, the only determinant of what gender a person `is' is the gender she or he says she is at the time. Unless that is the test for membership pro tem in one gender or another, one must establish a test for what a person's `real' gender is . . ." (Focus for the Family, Feb.'98)

How threatening can it get?

Ottawa - A movement is afoot to change Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada, so that people can be prosecuted for promoting hatred against homosexuals. The section, which requires the approval of provincial Attorneys-General before a charge can be laid, deals with hate directed at religious and minority groups, but does not contain any reference to "sexual orientation."

There was a failed attempt to change the law through a Private Member's bill present by Kingston MP Peter Milliken, a homosexual, in 1996. On Feb. 3, 1998, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women, Hedy Fry, has given $15,000 for planning a survey that will gain information about hate crimes against homosexuals. If the funding is provided, the paper said, "the survey will be conducted this summer by the country's biggest gay and lesbian lobby group, Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere (EGALE)." This survey, conducted by a partisan lobby, will then likely be used to change the law so that those who speak out against homosexuals or homosexuality can be brought before the courts.