Politics: June 2003 Archives

I read something on a Catholic message board the other that chilled my blood. The mother of one of a cognitively challenged brother in Christ had posted my piece "Special Love for Special Children" to the board, letting others know about the work of the Order of Alhambra does among God's special children. Nothing unusual about that.

Nevertheless, one of the homosexual activists (at least it appears that way) on the list replied: "If I had Down's Syndrome, I would hope that my parents would have the good sense to abort me because I could not lead a productive life." This made me sick. Not only can we not reduce God's creation to mere utility, but we Alhambrans know from our service to God's special children that there would be much less Christ-like love in the world if we aborted all our special brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet such is the way of the culture of death.

That being said, John Pacheco a good friend of mine (and future Godfather to the daughter Sonya and I are expecting in November) in Ottawa is trying to organize a Eucharist Procession on Parliament Hill in order to assert the Culture of Life against the continuous on-slaught from the culture of death. Of course, John is hoping our American brethren will support us as well. He's got a number of local priests backing him, but still needs signatures to bring the Archbishop when he asks for permission. You can check out the petition here:

http://www.catholic-legate.com/main.html

And you can sign the petition by emailing him at: john@catholic-legate.com

Please give John your name, the name of your spouse and/or family members who support this effort as well, the name of the parish you attend, your city and state/province. Please pass this on to others whom you know would be interested as well. If this gets off the ground, we would love for you to come out if you can make it, and pray for the success of this event if you cannot.

The constitutional-penumbral "right of privacy" just got bigger, thanks to the Supreme Court. We can look forward to lawsuits, probably soon, that attempt to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act and state marriage laws. The slide continues.

Well folks, this just isn't a Canadian problem anymore.... American homosexuals are now crossing into Canada to marry...

UPDATE: In response to this threat, John Pacheco has founded the Canadian Catholic Action League

I don't yet know if they will publish it or not, since I just finished it, but here's a sneak peak of the latest piece I just submitted to the Wanderer:

O Canada!
Our Homosexualist Land?

Pete Vere, JCL

As a Canadian living in the United States, a number of things make me homesick for the Great White North. Off the top of my head, I can think of St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, French-Canadian culture in Quebec and moose-meat in Northern Ontario. There are also my buddies among the Catholic apologetics scene in Ottawa, where I first cut my teeth as a Catholic writer while studying canon law.

So while surfing the internet the other day, I dropped by Catholic-Legate.com to check in on the gang back home. Rather than make me feel homesick, however, what I read at the website simply made me feel sick. I now live in America and the majority of The Wanderer’s readership is American. Under the present circumstances, this is a good thing since it affords me the protection of the First Amendment. Yet as one of Canada’s most popular websites of Catholic apologetics, Catholic-Legate enjoys no such protection. For if Canada’s political institutions get their way, Catholic-Legate could soon become one of many religious websites targeted under new hate crime legislation being railroaded through the Canadian legislature. How I long for the religious sensibility and moral self-restraint of the Clinton administration in comparison to those who have hijacked the Canadian political system!

Let me explain a little. This is the same political regime that recently ordered the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists. Their crime? Publishing an advertisement quoting verses from Holy Scripture. According to LifeSiteNews.com: “The purpose of the ad was to indicate that the Bible says no to homosexual behaviour. The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 [...]”

Svend Robinson, a member of the Canadian parliament, is now following up on this ruling that criminalizes the Natural Law. He has introduced Bill C-250 before the Canadian legislature, which potentially makes speaking out against “sexual orientation” a hate crime. Mr. Robinson, for our American audience, is Canada’s first openly homosexual member of parliament. Not surprisingly, he also belongs to Canada’s openly socialist party. Even Monica Lewinsky would blush in modest embarrassment with some of Mr. Robinson’s past reported shenanigans.

Perhaps this is why the Canadian federal government will not be appealing a recent judicial decision of Ontario’s highest court – a decision legalizing so-called marriage for homosexual couples. "The existing common law definition of marriage violates the couple's equality rights on the basis of sexual orientation under [the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms]," this ruling stated.

And what about the proposed definition of “sexual orientation”? According to Catholic-Legate, “It was reported that Beth Phinney, Liberal MP for Hamilton Mountain, was in a meeting with a constituent concerning the implications of C-250. Ms. Phinney was asked if the term ‘sexual orientation’ included heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, trisexual, bestiality, pedophilia, incest, polygamy, sadomasochism, etc? The constituent was quite disturbed when this Liberal MP confirmed that ‘all of these sexual behaviours would be included under the category of sexual orientation’.” Within the context of the Natural Law this strikes me more as a practical definition of sexual disorientation.

Fortunately, I now live in America. The First Amendment protects my religious freedom to express my opinion in the media – even from the long wrist of Svend Robinson. North of the boarder, however, my friend Chris Beneteau may not find himself so lucky in the future.

“Whether or not homosexuality is a choice is irrelevant,” Chris writes in one particularly pointed Catholic-Legate commentary. “Homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can both choose to avoid sexual behaviours (such as sodomy) which the weight of scientific evidence suggest are dangerous and potentially fatal. [...] It is one thing for people to do whatever they want behind closed doors, yet it is another thing to force the rest of society to embrace the behaviours. While I agree that the government does not belong in the bedrooms of the nation, I also do not think that they should open the doors and force us to peek in.”

I fear even more for John Pacheco, both the founder of Catholic-Legate and the Godfather to my daughter Angela. “Over the past few years,” John writes, “religious freedom in this country has come under increasing attack by a wicked and perverse judiciary with an anti-life, anti-religious political agenda. All people of Faith need to band together, and fight this menace head on [...] To our Protestant, Muslim, and Jewish counterparts, please help us protect the sanctity of the human family and the dignity of marriage!

“Bill C-250 would add ‘sexual orientation’ to the list of protected classes in the hate propaganda sections of the Criminal Code which could criminalize any criticisms of homosexuality or homosexual activity. This could be used to threaten with prosecution [...] any church that holds homosexual activities to be disordered and immoral; or any citizen who simply philosophically disagrees with the legal, financial or employment ‘rights’ being sought by gay lobbying group (e.g. adoption, spousal benefits, marriage status, etc.). It could lead to parts of the Bible being labeled ‘hate literature’ and references made to them in church statements or homilies as propagating hate.

“As a Roman Catholic Apologist, I consider this legislation to be a direct assault on my freedom of speech and my Constitutional right to practice my religion. The persons who are propagating such insidious legislation are engaging in religious persecution. What is the government going to do? Ban the Bible from the country? How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church? Is the government going to start arresting Catholic priests who cite the Catechism in rejecting the homosexual lifestyle?”

Love the sinner, but hate the sin. As Catholics, Christ calls us to love our homosexual neighbor and seek the salvation of his soul. We accomplish this task in exhorting those affected by this disorder to live chastely within the boundaries of the Natural Law. Unfortunately, this new piece of proposed Canadian legislation fails to take this distinction into account. Which is not surprising when, in the process of accommodating an ivory-basement judiciary that dissents from our traditional Judeo-Christian morality, our Canadian politicians confuse the boundaries between decriminalization, legalization, and the criminalization of the Natural Law.

The ice cream man has been circling my neighborhood for the last hour. If I hear the medley cranked out by the speakers on his van one more time I will have a conniption. I’m not sure if he’s hoping all the families in the neighborhood will finish dinner and buy his wares for dessert. Or he could be one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse waiting for War, Famine, and Death to drive over in their ice cream trucks. Hey, harbingers of doom have to make a living somehow, right?

"What the heck are you talking about, Sal?" You say out loud to no one in particular.

I was just reading some articles and news stories on the net and I got increasingly agitated, partly from the subject matter and partly from something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Finally it crossed the threshold of my awareness – it sounded like a bell choir playing Marty Haugen from a great distance. I listened more closely. “Three blind mice.” Then “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Then “It’s Raining Men.” Haha – that’s just a joke. It wasn’t “It’s Raining Men” it was the happy sound of Hillary Clinton laughing all the way to the bank with her “memoir” unfittingly named “Living History.”
“Bending History” is more like it. Two hundred thousand copies of the book have been sold since its release last week. Bling-bling. The publisher has ordered more copies. Hillary goes on the campaign trail book tour because a bunch of us just can’t wait to see what she has to say about her husband’s philandering. The everyman goes on a daytime talk show to proudly air his dirty laundry. Hillary, the liberal ubergal, gets eight million bones to tell a story most of us are so sick of we’d rather wax Saddam Hussein’s mustache than hear it again. Some of us wouldn’t stop with the mustache if it would make Hillary put a cork in it. I think Fr. Rob Johansen could be one of those people.

I’d be delighted if someone wrote a book about the Clinton Years focusing on the downright dastardly things Bubba and his cronies did called “Enemy of the People.” The public has no appetite for that kind of historical work, however. The Oprah Nation wants to read the book cooked by Hillary’s ghostwriters about how she got the proverbial short end of the stick.

Fr. Rob is dead on about the democrats. The big tent has become a big brothel; a party that has sold its soul and sold out on its core constituents. The party platform boils down to this - leave no child behind except the unwanted unborn child. So, between elections Hillary is hawking her book. Harbingers of doom have to make a living somehow, you know.