Tag Archives: Gay Rights

News

Should this ad opposing gay activism in Ontario schools be censored?

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Here’s the ad, from the Institute for Canadian Values.

Brian Lilley, a journalist with Sun News, explains why he opposes censorship of the ad.

Excerpt:

Michael Erickson, a high school teacher in Toronto and a candidate for the New Democrats in the last federal election has petitioned the board of directors of our parent company Quebecor, the Canadian Broadcaster Standards Council and the Advertising Standards Council over our decision to air an ad that he doesn’t like.

The ad, from the Institute for Canadian Values, is against the introduction of the McGuinty government’s graphic sex-ed curriculum.

[…]Erickson’s complaint and his online petition, claim that “This ad promotes intolerance against people who might stand out from traditional male or female gender roles.”

I’d disagree with that and I have several times. The ad highlights what was in McGuinty’s proposed curriculum and what has been found in existing guides for teachers at the elementary school level.

Is teaching about transgendered issues, gender identity and gender fluidity in grade three a good idea?

Dalton McGuinty thinks that it is a good idea. He is the Liberal premier, and most people in Ontario supported him in the last election, because he loves to spend money buying votes with social programs.

Here’s more about the proposed curriculum of the the Liberal party of Ontario.

Excerpt:

The new curriculum, replacing a previous version from 1998, aligns with the Ministry’s campaign to p romote “equity and inclusive education” in Ontario’s schools, which includes the advancement of homosexualism and transgenderism. A notable aspect of the curriculum’s revision is the attempt to instil a sense that homosexuality and transgenderism are normal.

Under the curriculum, students begin to explore “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in grade 3, as part of an expectation to appreciate “invisible differences” in others. In grade 5, a student is expected to recognize that “things I cannot control include … personal characteristics such as … my gender identity [and] sexual orientation.”

In addition to learning about masturbation in grade 6, the curriculum suggest that students can better understand “sexual orientation” by “reading books that describe various types of families and relationships,” including those involving two “mothers” or “fathers.” In grades 7 and 8, “preventing pregnancy and disease,”“gender identity,” and “sexual orientation” become “key topics.”

Grade 7s are expected to be taught about “using condoms consistently if and when a person becomes sexually active.” In grade 8, the use of contraception is a key component of the curriculum, and students are expected to “demonstrate an understanding of gender identity (e.g., male, female, two-spirited, transgendered, transsexual, intersex) and sexual orientation (e.g., heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual).”

More:

In February, homosexual Liberal MPP Glen Murray, who serves as Minister of Research and Innovation, praised the new revision of the curriculum and said it will be coming soon.

Dubbing opponents of the graphic sex ed program “rightwing reactionary homophobes,” he told Xtra that the main issues that offended parents are already being covered under the current version of the curriculum from 1998.

“I have to tell you, many of the things that offended people are already in the curriculum. We talk about all kinds of families and human sexuality in our elementary schools,” he said.

I am not sure why Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal premier of Ontario, wants to force the gay agenda onto young, impressionable children. But that’s what liberals and leftists believe. Recall that the Liberal party is the socialist party of Canada, and the NDP are the communist party. Is it really surprising that political parties on the secular left are anti-family values? When you vote for left-wing parties, this is what you get.

UPDATE: More here from Brian Lilley. (H/T Blazing Cat Fur)

The video above was posted by SDAMatt and he notes that the Erickson person is gay. What a surprise!

News

Should people of faith have a right to disagree with homosexuality?

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From Ari, a post pleading for people of faith to defend their right to civil disagreement with others on moral questions.

Excerpt:

In Canada, citizens have been much more successful in getting the government to correct the thoughts of political heretics.  Moslem extremists and gay activists seem to be particularly keen in the use of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals to cleanse Canada from impious speech, thought and action.

Ezra Levant, for instance, is one of my main inspirations for Bias Incident: The World’s Most Politically Incorrect Novel.  He was hauled before the tribunal for, among other things, republishing the now infamous Danish mohommad cartoons.  Pastor Stephen Boisson was fined and forbidden from preaching about the topic of homosexuality by the commission because his views on the subject offended gay activists. (Is my mind playing tricks on me, or am I beginning to notice a pattern here?)

Although homosexual conduct is forbidden by my faith, just as it is forbidden for Christians, I have never heard a rabbi mention the topic in all my years as a congregant.  I’m glad of this, because the unequivocal nature of the authentic Jewish teaching about this subject would make for a boring sermon.  Better to hear from the pulpit words of inspiration or discussion of issues that are made more interesting by there being some sort of gray area.

There are people who are offended by my opinion.  They are offended by my right and the right of my religious teachers to express that opinion, even if they almost always decline that right.  They are offended even though homosexual conduct is one of many, many acts that are forbidden by my religion and even though homosexual conduct occupies no special place among the things forbidden by my beloved faith.

I have little doubt that the persecution of Stephen Boisson has had a chilling effect on the speech of Canadian clergy.  This has to change.  Religious people must act if they are not to lose their rights one piece at a time.  They must defy the “enlightened” and “tolerant” forces that would oppose them.

The defiance doesn’t have to be hateful.  It doesn’t have to be over-the-top.  The simple, defiant declaration to conclude every sermon in the manner of Cato the Elder will suffice.  “Furthermore, I feel it my duty to call your attention to Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13,” should be all that is necessary to stand up for free speech and to defy the bullies who would use the government to correct the thinking of its citizenry.

If enough clergy were to do so, it would be all the harder for Canada to trample on the rights of its citizens.

My secular case against same-sex marriage is here, which shows that you don’t need to be religious in order to oppose same-sex marriage.

Commentary

George Will on the secular left’s opposition to freedom of association

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From the liberal Washington Post.

Excerpt:

Illustrating an intellectual confusion common on campuses, Vanderbilt University says: To ensure “diversity of thought and opinion” we require certain student groups, including five religious ones, to conform to the university’s policy that forbids the groups from protecting their characteristics that contribute to diversity.

Last year, after a Christian fraternity allegedly expelled a gay undergraduate because of his sexual practices, Vanderbilt redoubled its efforts to make the more than 300 student organizations comply with its “long-standing nondiscrimination policy.” That policy, says a university official, does not allow the Christian Legal Society “to preclude someone from a leadership position based on religious belief.” So an organization formed to express religious beliefs, including the belief that homosexual activity is biblically forbidden, is itself effectively forbidden. There is much pertinent history.

[…][I]n 2010 the [Supreme] court held, 5 to 4, that a public law school in California did not abridge First Amendment rights when it denied the privileges associated with official recognition to just one student group — the Christian Legal Society chapter, because it limited voting membership and leadership positions to Christians who disavow “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.” Dissenting, Justice Samuel Alito said the court was embracing the principle that the right of expressive association is unprotected if the association departs from officially sanctioned orthodoxy.

In wiser moments, the court has held that “this freedom to gather in association . . . necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association and to limit the association to those people only.” In 1984, William Brennan, the court’s leading liberal of the last half-century, said:

“There can be no clearer example of an intrusion into the internal structure or affairs of an association than a regulation that forces the group to accept members it does not desire. Such a regulation may impair the ability of the original members to express only those views that brought them together. Freedom of association therefore plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.”

As professor Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School says, “Not everything the government chooses to call discrimination is invidious; some of it is constitutionally protected First Amendment activity.” Whereas it is wrong for government to prefer one religion over another, when private persons and religious groups do so, this is the constitutionally protected free exercise of religion. So, McConnell says, “Preventing private groups from discriminating on the basis of shared beliefs is not only not a compelling governmental interest; it is not even a legitimate governmental interest.”

Here, however, is how progressivism limits freedom by abolishing the public-private distinction: First, a human right — to, say, engage in homosexual practices — is deemed so personal that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Next, this right breeds another right, to the support or approval of others. Finally, those who disapprove of it must be coerced.

Sound familiar? It should. First, abortion should be an individual’s choice. Then, abortion should be subsidized by government. Next, pro-life pharmacists who object to prescribing abortifacients should lose their licenses. Thus do rights shrink to privileges reserved for those with government-approved opinions.

The question, at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, should not be whether a particular viewpoint is right but whether an expressive association has a right to espouse it. Unfortunately, in the name of tolerance, what is tolerable is being defined ever more narrowly.

Although Vanderbilt is a private institution, its policy is congruent with “progressive” public policy, under which society shall be made to progress up from a multiplicity of viewpoints to a government-supervised harmony. Vanderbilt’s policy, formulated in the name of enlarging rights, is another skirmish in the progressives’ struggle to deny more and more social entities the right to deviate from government-promoted homogeneity of belief. Such compulsory conformity is, of course, enforced in the name of diversity.

I’m surprised by George Will. I always thought he was a moderate. But since I started writing this blog, I’ve been happy to see that he is a lot more conservative than people like Charles Krauthammer, Michael Barone, and other well-known moderate conservatives. I don’t require that he agree with me – I just want him to understand my views. And he does.

My Experience

When I’ve spent time talking to secular leftists in my office, they seem to have a horror of disagreements. They are desperate to make sure that everyone believes the same thing on every issue. The conversations typically proceed as follows:

  1. They express their view on some  subject and imply that it is the only intelligent view, since they learned it from their college professors.  (Evolution is a fact)
  2. I produce peer-reviewed experimental data that falsifies their view. (The synthesis of functional proteins by unintelligent forces is impossible)
  3. They try desperately to find some area that we agree on that is unrelated to my evidence. (But you agree that the Earth is older than 6,000 years, right?)

This is what the left means by diversity of opinion. Everyone has to agree, even if no one can prove that what is agreed to is actually true. They believe that rent controls doesn’t result in a shortage of affordable apartments, even though this is not what has been observed. They believe it because it sounds nice, and it makes people think that they are nice people. And they get very confused and flustered if you try to prove them wrong with evidence.