Why Canadians are forbidden to express their Church's teaching.

In the previous editorial I mentioned that in Canada, "opposing the homosexual lobby is a lonely task. Many Canadians are frightened, hostile, confused, or indifferent." (C.I., March 08. p.3).

One reason for their "fright" is the Human Rights Commissions who have lent their authority to silence opponents of homosexual practice and coerce the noncompliant who simply desire to be left alone. One reason for media "hostility" is the notion that an all-encompassing tolerance is the supreme virtue and that any restriction on it must be seen as intolerance, the supreme vice.

Finally, the reason for "indifference and confusion" is that the Supreme Court has legislated sexual orientation to be a Charter right. This newly coined "right" was "read" into the Charter by Justice Peter Cory in 1995. This right of equality now conflicts with existing (Charter) rights such as freedom of the press and of religion (illustrated by Gwen Landolt in C.I., March 08, pp.17-22).

The last point answers at once the question why it is important, indeed necessary, in Canada to resist: our rights as citizens are at stake. This is true not only for Catholics and Evangelicals, but also for the Greek Orthodox, orthodox Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and anyone who holds to a traditional understanding of marriage in natural law, both as individuals and as supporters of such institutions as school, church, synagogue, mosque and temple. In order to understand why this is so, one must turn to the literature of the homosexual activists.

A good example is an article by Andre P. Grace & Kristopher Wells entitled, "The Marc Hall Prom Predicament: Queer Individual Rights v. Institutional Church Rights in Canadian Public education," Canadian Journal of Education, 28, 3 (2005): 237-270. The article quotes dozens of sources by "queer" (their word) writers. The two authors of the article, therefore, may be said to represent the views of the activist homosexual community at large.

The article's summary introduction reads as follows:

   In 2002 Marc Hall's principal denied him permission to take his
   boyfriend to his Catholic high-school prom. In examining the
   politicization of the ensuing prom predicament, we critique
   Catholicized education and what we perceive to be the Catholic
   Church's efforts to privatize queerness as it segregates being
   religious from being sexual. We situate this privatization as the
   failure of the Catholic Church to treat vulnerable queer Catholic
   youth with dignity and integrity as the church sets untenable
   limits to queer (p. 238, bold mine).

The Church's "institutional efforts to privatize queerness" is explained as--"to keep it hidden, invisible, silent, unannounced--in religion, education, and culture." This is done, the authors note, "without regard for the broader public law," as demanded by the Supreme Court ruling of 1995 which inserted sexual orientation as a Charter right. The Church continues to ignore it.

The Church interprets everything from a "heterosexist" point of view. "In this light, heterosexism is the precursor of homophobia" (240). It has a "pedagogy of negation" with an intention to "demean or dismiss or fail to protect (queer) youth." The Church uses its constitutional denominational school rights (Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867) to block people's rights.

The Church's attempt to "privatize queer" is the equivalent of refusing that person "dignity and integrity" (242). The Vatican's 1986 document, " The pastoral care of homosexuals" is a "Halloween Letter" (244). The Church places itself "above civil law" (245). The school's rejection of Marc Hall's request was "discrimination" (247). Both Bible and Tradition are "cultural technologies of control." The Catholic religion is a "political force seeking power for itself" (249).

Marc Hall was a "victim." His activism was "not planned but provoked." Because Bishop Anthony Meagher did not accept tolerance according to Freire (which culminates in "inclusive education"), therefore he was "anti-democratic," and "discriminatory" (253).

The article concludes that Catholic ideology is oppressive (261) and that, "Institutional churches have no business in the classrooms of the nation" (265).

Finally, the authors provide proof that they fully understand what it is they seek, when they approvingly quote from Britzman's, "Is there a queer pedagogy?" (1995):

"Gay and lesbian demands for civil rights call into question the stability and fundamentalist ground of categories like masculinity, femininity, sexuality, citizenship, nation, culture, literacy, consent, legality [religiosity] and so forth ... (p.2).

In short, the homosexualists desire to remake society, while denying Canadians the right to publicly oppose them.

The public should know what our country is up against.

FATHER ALPHONSE DE VALK, C.S.B.

EDITOR