This morning's Catholic Exchange carries a story about the recent Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) decision against Stephen Boissoin, an evangelical youth minister who during Canada's debate over same-sex marriage wrote a strongly-worded letter to the editor denouncing homosexuality.
For this he was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine to the complainant, never again speak about the subject, and apologize. This last requirement is chilling when one considers that not even Canada's most notorious serial murderer-rapists, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, were ordered to apologize to the families of their teenage victims. You can read the whole story here.
I would not be surprised if this case will be used as a precedent in the Fr. de Valk case, which is still being investigated. You can read more about Father's case here and here.
Additionally, today's Washington Times reports on last week's provincial human rights tribunal hearing against Maclean's magazine for having published an excerpt from Mark Steyn's America Alone. You can read that story here and here.
Only in Canada would a internationally-renown political writer like Mark Steyn be investigated for alleged hate speech because of a third-party posting on what appears to be the Catholic Answers web forum:
The debate over denial of Communion to pro-choice Roman Catholic politicians was rekindled last month when Bishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., told Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to refrain from partaking in the sacrament.
Similar actions by Catholic bishops in the past have led to strong debate among canon lawyers - those who function within the church's internal legal system.
As Bishop Naumann joins the chorus of American bishops refusing Communion to wayward politicians, a new consensus is emerging among canon lawyers on the topic, which reached a boiling point four years ago surrounding Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Mrs. Sebelius, a Democrat, has been the subject of much speculation as a potential vice-presidential pick for Sen. Barack Obama.
"Eight or 10 years ago, when people first started advocating on this, they were voices crying in the wilderness," says the Rev. Francis G. Morrisey, a retired professor of canon law at St. Paul University and one of the most respected canon lawyers in North America. "What we're seeing is a consensus emerge; it's more of a discussion now than a debate."
Father Morrisey, who long had been among the most vocal opponents of denying Communion to politicians, admits that his thinking on the subject has shifted substantially, although he still does not think Communion should be denied in every case.
"It is very rare that truth is in the extremes," he says. "We have to look at the individual conscience of each politician, and just when a person has overstepped the line."
While I hope you will continue to consider me your uncle, I note you have broken up with my incompetent nephew Wormwood. Our family never understood what you saw with the lazy oaf; we always knew you were capable of much worse. And worse you have!
Your cunning has sharpened since leaving the isle for its scion between the seas. The breakup and the change in scenery have obviously renewed your vigor as a temptress. Particularly noteworthy are the new commissions and tribunals you have concocted as head of The Republican Underworld Defense’s Experimental Action Unit. These experimental commissions and tribunals function with more subtlety than those on the old continent during Screwtape’s era, or the Slavic revolutionary commissions inspired by my own generation.
Of course, you have chosen the best patients to oversee the experiment. Weak of soul and devoid of the talents needed to succeed on their own, they cling to officious titles and nebulous causes in order to bolster their sense of self-importance among their peers. Yes, these shaved apes zealously embrace tolerance, however, it is a tolerance devoid of charity. Charity is the Enemy’s chief weapon against us. How many souls have escaped into the Enemy’s clutches because of this horrid virtue?
There is no greater way to undermine charity than through the facade of tolerance. Few patients succumb to evil for evil’s sake. More often than not, the temptation comes as a lesser good. Tolerance is among the most effective and versatile of lesser goods. Yes, it requires some patience on the tempter’s part. Tolerance must be introduced to the patient in small doses - enough to cause the patient some discomfort, but not enough to inflame the level of moral outrage that rouses a patient into action. Thus tolerance is best prescribed as a moral painkiller, to suppress the pangs of conscience used by the Enemy to tether the patient to Himself.
The shaved apes occasionally catch on to our practices. The most perceptive among them coin expressions that force us to react quickly. ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions’ is one such example, while ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing’ is another. We have now dulled these aphorisms into cliche, but at one time their prick awakened many a patient from moral slumber. And just because these cliches have lost their bite does not make them any less true.
In fact, good intentions and moral sloth have become the most effective tools of your temptress toolbox in carrying out your experiment. It was not long ago that shaved apes from your part of the planet were easily tempted into war, rape, racial and ethnic suspicions, and the repudiation of order within society. However, we grew too bold with the 20th Century wars we inspired in the old continent. Our patients have grown jaded and become suspicious of armed conflict between nations. So they choose tolerance to avoid civil unrest.
Don’t get me wrong: they still love their violence. They just prefer violence in smaller doses such as street gangs, abortion, soccer riots and anti-American protests. Anyway, that’s enough rambling from this old tempter.
Tolerance is why your commissions and tribunals have devastated the Enemy’s forces. In the name of tolerance, you have lulled your patients - that is, acclimate them through a series of self-compromises - into intolerance toward the Enemy and His doctrine. What thirty years ago the shaved apes denounced as unthinkable and a perverse inversion of nature is today the law of the land. This is no small victory you have wrestled from the Enemy - especially in the realm of marriage, which as the foundation of the family determines how the next generation is raised. (Or whether there will be a next generation.) Moreover, those who still defend the Enemy’s ways are ostracized from polite society and declared criminals.
Yes, a minority still cling to the Enemy’s doctrines. This is where your commissions and tribunals have proven versatile for the lowerarchy - in the name of tolerance no less! The majority who still believe in the Enemy’s will not speak up, less they themselves appear intolerant and unfashionable among their neighbors. (Or should that be neighbours?) You have correctly deduced that the greatest fear to most shaved apes is not the loss of their freedom, but of their temporal comforts. Thus your experiment has silenced their dissent, not through physical violence and torture, but through the fear of inconvenience. This is why you must continue to involve yourself directly in your experiments’ processes. Let them become even greater bastions of inconvenience.
Tolerance is also an efficient tool with which to browbeat the few who speak up for the Enemy’s ways. Let those who cling too tenaciously to the Enemy be ostracized and browbeaten into silence. Tolerance is not intended for them, however, physical violence would turn them into martyrs. This in turn would cause others to sympathize with the Enemy. Which brings us to the real genius of your commissions and tribunals: the violence they inflict upon the Enemy’s followers is not physical - but social, political and moral.
And so I commend you my impish niece. You have taught this old devil many new tricks, and others as well. Your experiment with the commissions and tribunals has surpassed even our most optimistic projections, decimating the Enemy’s ranks while providing us with countless new souls to feast upon..
Some of you may have come across the following from LifeSiteNews.com:
***
CHRC Spokesman Will Not Say if Christian Teaching on Sexuality is “Hate�
Calgary Bishop Henry says "we're into a new form of censorship and thought control, and the commissions are being used as thought police.�
By Hilary White
OTTAWA, May 30, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A spokesman for the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) has refused to say whether Christian moral opposition to homosexual activity constitutes a “hate crime�.
Pete Vere, a Catholic writer who has been working on the clashes between the Human Rights Commissions and Christians, asked Mark van Dusen, a media spokesman for the CHRC, “If one, because of one’s sincerely held moral beliefs, whether it be Jew, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, opposes the idea of same-sex marriage in Canada, is that considered ‘hate’?�
van Dusen replied, “We investigate complaints, Mr. Vere, we don’t set public policy or moral standards. We investigate complaints based on the circumstances and the details outlined in the complaint. And ...if...upon investigation, deem that there is sufficient evidence, then we may forward the complaint to the tribunal, but the hate is defined in the Human Rights Act under section 13-1.�
“Our job is to look at it, compare it to the act, to accumulated case law, tribunal and court decisions that have reflected on hate and decide whether to advance the complaint, dismiss it or whether there is room for a settlement between parties.�
Currently, two Christian organisations have Human Rights Commission complaints leveled at them for their outspoken defence, one in the political realm and the other in print, of the meaning of natural marriage and Christian sexual morality.
Homosexual activist Rob Wells, a member of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Pride Center of Edmonton, filed a nine-point complaint last February with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in which he accuses the magazine of promoting "extreme hatred and contempt" against homosexuals. The commission is investigating a similar case initiated by Wells against the Christian Heritage Party, a political party co-founded by pro-life Catholics and Protestants. The party holds that marriage can only exist between one man and one woman.
Vere quoted Father Alphonse de Valk, the founder and editor of Catholic Insight, in an article on Zenit Catholic news agency. Fr. de Valk said that Catholic Insight "bases itself on the Church's teaching and applies it to various circumstances in our time." He noted that some of the statements that allegedly promoted hatred and contempt against homosexuals were taken from recent Vatican pronouncements.
The issue before the CHRC, therefore, is whether Christian and Catholic teaching itself is considered under Canadian law to be “hate speech�.
Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary said the issue is whether Christians can continue to maintain their freedom of religious expression. Bishop Henry has also been through an Alberta HRC complaint by homosexual activists in 2005 after publishing a pastoral letter defending the traditional definition of marriage earlier that same year.
“I really feel that we are into a crisis situation here where we are experiencing a trumping of religious freedom,� said Bishop Henry.
Despite assurance from politicians that Canadian faith communities would not be affected when the government legalized same-sex marriage, the number of complaints against Christians have significantly increased since 2005.
Bishop Henry feels that Canada's human rights tribunals are censoring the expression of traditional Christian teaching: “The social climate right now is that we're into a new form of censorship and thought control, and the commissions are being used as thought police.�
***
This comes as several Catholics and evangelical protestants are being hauled before Canada's human rights tribunals for holding to the traditional definition of marriage. Here's the audio from the interview:
In case you haven't already picked it up from Kathy Shaidle, a number of Canadian bloggers are worried over the following, which appears in today's Washington Times on-line:
*******************
Activist's remarks about Islam and sex probed
By Pete Vere
July 24, 2007
SAULT STE. MARIE, Ontario — Organizers of a conservative online forum in Canada say their free-speech rights are under attack after they received a letter saying a complaint has been filed with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
The complaint, filed by a private citizen and accepted for further investigation by the commission, protested a critical posting on the forum's Web site regarding Islam and homosexuality.
The remarks were posted on FreeDominion.ca, a sister site to the conservative U.S. forum FreeRepublic, by FreeDominion member Bill Whatcott, a former homosexual prostitute turned outspoken Christian activist.
“I can't figure out why the homosexuals I ran into are on the side of the Muslims,� Mr. Whatcott wrote on the Web site. “After all, Muslims who practice Sharia law tend to advocate beheading homosexuals.�
Here's the introduction of a rather large essay John Pacheco and I have written for Challenge Magazine - an orthodox Catholic Canadian monthly - in which we demonstrate the historical and theological link between contraception and witchcraft:
Protestant fundamentalists often refer to their beliefs as That Ol’Time Religion. This is somewhat amusing from a Catholic perspective. After all, protestant fundamentalism is a relatively recent phenomena when compared to the age of the Catholic Church.
Nevertheless, one should never confuse That Ol’Time Religion with The Old Religion. The latter is an expression used by practitioners of wicca, paganism and witchcraft to refer to their particular belief system. Practitioners of That Ol’Time Religion and practitioners of The Old Religion would have one believe that their two religions oppose one another.
This holds true until one comes to the practice of contraception. Protestant fundamentalists who defend the use of contraception among married couples include such notables as Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tim LaHaye who co-authored the Left Behind series. Not surprisingly, Dobson also sees the practice of masturbation among teenagers as harmless while LaHaye reportedly sees no biblical injunction against oral sex.
This is no coincidence; like contraceptive sex, both masturbation and oral sex are sterile sex acts. They separate the physical pleasure of sexual intimacy from the natural consequences of the act. They deny the married couple’s blessing of becoming co-creators with God. Their highest goal is the immediate physical gratification of those who practice them.
Sexual Gratification and the Occult
This philosophy is no different than that of Raymond Buckland, the author of several books on witchcraft and a disciple of Gerald Gardiner (the father of modern witchcraft). In Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft, the author’s best-selling introduction to the practices of modern witchcraft, Buckland provides a rather substantial entry describing what modern occultists call “Sex Magick�.
“This is one of the most potent forms of magick,� Buckland writes, “for here were are dealing very much with the life forces. Dr. Jonn Mumford, in Sexual Occultism, states the most important psycho-physiological event, in the life of a human, is the orgasm. Sex Magick is the art of using the orgasm - indeed, the whole sexual experience - for magickal purposes.�
For Buckland, sexual intercourse is about pleasure and power rather than procreation. “The sex act is obviously the best possible, and most natural way of generating the power we need for magick,� Buckland writes. Quoting Mumford, he then adds: “The firming modality, be it masturbation, homosexuality, or heterosexuality, is irrelevent. Only the end result (orgasm) is important and any form of sexual behavior is but a means to an end.�
Buckland mocks Catholic teaching on human sexuality as “early Christian propaganda,� then lists several alternatives to natural intercourse. “One alternative is mutual masturbation,� Buckland writes. “Another is oral sex. [...] Oral sex can be especially suitable, of course, when all chances of pregnancy must be eliminated.� Buckland recommends masturbation “for the solitary witch�. In other words, once marriage is neutralized within the equation, witches and fundamentalist protestants are not as far apart in their sexual theology as one would first imagine.
Catholic Teaching and the Natural Law
In contrast to the sterile teaching of That Ol’Time Religion and The Old Religion, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) reminds us in article 1652: “By its very nature the institution of marriage and married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and it is in them that it finds its crowing glory.�
“Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of the parents themselves,� the CCC continues. “God Himself said: ‘It is not good that man should be alone,’ and ‘from the beginning [He] made them male and female’; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ Hence true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich His family from day to day.�
This Catholic teaching seems rather novel in today’s world, however, at one time it was the common teaching of all Christians. Even the founders of protestantism vigorously condemned contraception and Onan’s spilling of his seed in the Old Testament.
Philosopher David Carlin, often a thoughtful critic, writes a provocative piece suggesting that the clergy should stop performing the civil aspects of weddings, for the reason that this makes them complicit in the state's policy of easy divorce.
"...If either of you would like to end your marriage tomorrow, you have a perfect right to do so. If you would like to remain married until death, you can do that too. It's all up to you. Don't feel constrained by the vows you have just taken." [...] The priest, insofar as he is the performer of a civil marriage, will in effect be adding this to his implicit comments: "You have just entered into a union which is between a man and a woman, or between a man and a man, or between a woman and a woman. The civil institution of marriage that you have just elected to become participants in has neither permanence nor gender specificity. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the traditional Catholic institution of marriage."
Prof. Carlin contends that the officiant of a civil-law marriage is in effect saying all the above nonsense: but that's a very doubtful proposition. The Catholic minister who conducts a wedding ceremony and performs the related civil functions has every intention to communicate to the spouses (one man, one woman) that their commitment is permanent. If the State fails to maintain that permanence in civil law, that implies no "implicit comments" of agreement by the clergyman. Carlin's argument seems to consist of little else than putting words in someone else's mouth, an unworthy rhetorical tactic.
Ed Peters offers a rebuttal with regard to the canonical implications of Carlin's suggestion.
Obviously Prof. Carlin grieves over the divorce mentality among Catholics and he is acutely aware of the state's contribution to this social disaster. But while looking for ways to bring Church teaching on marriage more directly to bear on state policies in this area, we must avoid destroying one of the few areas wherein the state and the Church cooperate correctly in marriage....
Islamofascism is on the march around the world, which gives Islam itself the appearance of strength and power. (No, I do not equate Islam with the ideology of the Islamofascists, though they share many of the same basic errors and malign tendencies.) But the furor over the Pope quoting a Byzantine emperor's undiplomatic comments about jihad reveals the true state of Islam today.
I agree with Mark Shea on this one: Islam is superficially strong, because many of its adherents carry out horrific violence in its name. With Belloc, I observe that Muslims are largely impervious to conversion -- and today, they are seemingly unwilling to carry out anything like a dialogue. But neither of these things are indications of real strength. If they were truly strong, they would have the self-confidence to shrug off comments that they with which they disagreed, or that were blantantly offensive (and the Pope's remarks were not.)
Instead, as if on cue, Muslims explode into intemperate rage when something offends their delicate sensibilities. But why are they so worred about what non-Muslims say about Islam, when so many of their own brethren say much worse? Islamfascists equate Islam with murder, forced conversion, political oppression, and even genocide, and it's business as usual. Maybe Muslims should spend more time and energy refuting them, if they're looking to preserve the good name of Islam and its "prophet."
But how does one have a dialogue when the other party reserves the right to fly off into a self-righteous rage when they hear something the least bit offensive? I don't doubt that there are Muslims in the world who can discuss their faith rationally, but when I've attempted it, I always get the same reaction, which is more or less, "You have to accept Islam before you understand it." Maybe so, but why would I want to accept something that I don't understand? And how can I understand if you won't appeal to my intellect?
Good luck, Holy Father, in your efforts to promote dialogue with the Islamic world. They don't seem the least bit interested, but God can find avenues that are invisible to the naked eye. The alternative -- decades, if not centuries, of conflict and unrest -- makes it worthwhile.
The truly awful thing is that many people will agree with CAIR:
US Muslims bristle at Bush term "Islamic fascists"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Muslim groups criticized President George W. Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a "war with Islamic fascists," saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions....
"We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counter-productive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group.
Don't you think that plotting to murder 2,700 people is a little more likely to "inflame anti-Muslim tensions" than a couple of words uttered by the president?
Besides, "Islamic fascists" is a perfect description of the terrorists' ideology. They plan to form an Islamic superstate from Morocco to Indonesia, governed by their interpretation of sharia law. From there, they will make jihad against non-Muslim lands until the entire world submits to the Word of God as delivered to Muhammad (npfp). This isn't the president's imagination. This is the Islamofascists' stated game plan. It's not a mischaracterization or interpretation.
