Depression and Suicide: Teens suffering with depression need to be assessed for their risk of suicide. Pay particular attention to these risk factors.

Response to a Teen Struggling with Suicidal Thoughts

Response to Teen who Has a Friend Struggling with Suicidal Thoughts

Teens in Crisis: Why Parents Matter

Life in Spite of Me

When Your Teen is Struggling

Boston Globe celebrates sex-changes for children by major hospital on front page of Sunday edition. (Article too disturbing to read!)

Is this America's future?

[From an e-mail of December 12, 2011 from MassResistance]

The ultra-radical nature of the cultural revolution is coming into full view. With the Massachusetts "transgender rights" bill passed, the next frontier is public acceptance of sex-changes for children. Is this America's future?

Front page of this Sunday's Boston Globe.

Caption under headline:

"The twin boys were identical in every way but one. Wyatt was a girl to the core and now lives as one, with the help of a brave, loving family and a path-breaking doctor's care."

This past Sunday the Boston Globe published a celebratory front-page article about a 14-year-old boy (one of identical twins) who has "become" a girl. For the past three years his parents have had him undergo powerful puberty-blocking drug treatments. As a result, the boy is now five inches shorter than his brother and has some female-like features. This will be followed by series of female hormone injections and ultimately operations to remove male body parts and "create" female-imitating body parts. The effects of the opposite-sex hormone treatments are irreversible and will leave the boy sterile as an adult male (should he choose not to go the whole way).

This article is so incredibly disturbing that even we had trouble reading through it. For most of their lives the twins looked exactly alike. The one twin, Jonas, who is normal, is 5'6" tall and weighs 115 pounds. But Wyatt (who is now called "Nicole") is only 5'1" and weighs 100 pounds. For several years he has been dressing as a girl, using a girl's name, and going to school as a girl. But he is and always will be biologically and genetically a male.

And the Boston Globe portrays all this as not only normal, but a as ground-breaking, progressive, positive event which only ignorant, hateful, and backwards people would dare to criticize.

Sex-change treatments for kids . . . in Boston Children's Hospital!

Shockingly, the parents didn't have to go to some far-away European country do this. These ghastly "procedures" are being done to children by the elite medical establishment right in Boston.

As MassResistance has reported over the last few years, the world-renowned Children's Hospital in Boston is at the forefront of this bizarre medical practice. The hospital has set up a "Gender Management Services Clinic" for pre-adolescent children to be given hormones and drugs to delay puberty (with side effects that include infertility) in order to facilitate eventual body-mutilating "gender re-assignment surgery" to change their sex. It is run by Dr. Norman Spack, who is personally working with young Wyatt and his family.

As the article describes the upcoming stage for Wyatt:

"It is the next big step — taking sex hormones of the opposite gender — that creates permanent changes such as breasts and broadened hips that cannot be hormonally reversed."

Wyatt apparently had developed gender identity confusion in his early hears. The parents have made the decision that their son's problems are not psychological but medical: he's in the "wrong" body. As the article describes, Dr. Spack's diagnosis was to "change" his sex through treatments and eventually operations.

Safety of treatments not established -- still experimental

Boston Children's Hospital is nearly alone in America in this regard. These kinds procedures with children are considered to be on the fringe throughout the medical community.

. . . .

Surgical Sex

Paul McHugh [writing in First Things, November, 2004]

. . . .

I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex-reassignment. The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes. Their parents usually lived with guilt over their decisions—second-guessing themselves and somewhat ashamed of the fabrication, both surgical and social, they had imposed on their sons. As for the adults who came to us claiming to have discovered their “true” sexual identity and to have heard about sex-change operations, we psychiatrists have been distracted from studying the causes and natures of their mental misdirections by preparing them for surgery and for a life in the other sex. We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it.

Paul McHugh is University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University.

[Read the whole of the above article in First Things online.]

Parents’ rights organization asks: ‘Why won’t Education Ministry answer mail?’

VANCOUVER, Nov. 4, 2011 (TBOS) — A consortium of groups concerned about parents’ and students’ rights wants to know why the Minister of Education won’t communicate with them. With the recent revelation that the teachers’ guide Out in Schools includes links to gay pornography as a “resource” to be recommended to students, the Ministry’s refusal to listen to parents has become critical, says Take Back Our Schools (TBOS).
“More than a year has passed since www.TakeBackOurSchools.org first wrote to Education Minister Margaret McDiarmid by means of a registered letter,” says TBOS spokesman Ron Gray. “Since then we have sent e-mails to ask if our letter has been read or considered. We haven’t yet received a response or even an acknowledgement from the Minister’s office.”

Executive members of the following six organizations, comprising hundreds of members, signed the letter: ARPA Canada (Association for Reformed Political Action); BCPTL (BC Parents and teachers for Life); Canada Family Action; CASJAFA (The Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association); Parents for Democracy in Education; and REAL Women of BC.

“TBOS is concerned about the way the Corren Settlement Agreement was arrived at,” Gray said today. “It was a secret agreement, entered into by the Minister of Education and Attorney-General of the day, but never ratified by the BC Legislature. It gives rights over education policy and curriculum to two homosexual activists—one now dead—authority such as no other unelected citizens have ever had.

“Today, with the connivance of the BC Teachers’ Federation, that agreement is being used to indoctrinate students into accepting homosexuality as ‘praiseworthy’; this was recently revealed by a Culture Guard news release and video showing how a program called Out in Schools recommended links to gay pornography sites as a ‘classroom resource’. Such indoctrination is in the open violation of both government and BCTF policies, which say clearly that classrooms must not be abused in that way.

“But the Ministry of Education has rejected all appeals from parents to be given similar oversight into what their children are taught, and now refuses even to answer its mail. If this stonewalling persists, it will surely become an issue at the next provincial election,” he said.

=30=

Contact: Ron Gray

Phone: (604) 534-3319

e-mail: info@takebackourschools.org

Redford open to revisit rights issue in schools

[--Open to denying parents the right to know what is being taught? The reaction of some indicates that is what radical homosexual activists want. On the positive side, the premier-designate is going to look at the Alberta Human Rights Act, which has been criticized for curbing feedom of speech. --BCPTL Ed.]

Bill 44 lets kids 'opt-out' of classrooms

By Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald October 6, 2011

Alberta's next premier delved into the thorny issue of human rights law on Wednesday, with Alison Redford saying she will review a provision that requires parents to be notified when sex or religion is discussed in school classrooms, and a section that has been criticized for censoring free speech.

The issue came up during a Herald live online chat with Redford, when a reader asked about Bill 44, saying a parental notification requirement has put a chill on addressing issues of "sexual orientation" in the classroom.

Bill 44 changed Alberta's Human Rights Act to require schools to notify parents when topics such as sexual orientation, religion or human sexuality are taught in class. Parents can then make the decision for their child to opt-out.

"Given the high rates of gay teen suicide and our recognition for the need to tell them 'It Gets Better' through a social media campaign, would you support scrapping that section of the Human Rights Act?" reader Nancy asked the premier designate. . . . .

The other provision, Section 3 of Alberta Human Rights Act, speaks against the publication of any material that is "likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt." While campaigning for the Tory party leadership, Redford said "freedom of expression must be shielded and Section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights Act should be repealed."

Redford said she would be taking another look at that provision, along with Section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights Act. . . . .

[Read more of this article in the Calgary Herald online site.]

Teacher watchdog resigns following Star investigation

Kevin Donovan

Oct 5 2011

The teacher in charge of disciplining wayward educators in Ontario has quit his post.

Ontario College of Teachers discipline chair Jacques Tremblay submitted his resignation Wednesday afternoon following a Toronto Star story detailing how he wrote a soft-porn book for teens that featured inappropriate sexual conduct between teachers, students and a senior administrator.

Tremblay has resigned both from the College's Discipline Committee and the elected Council that oversees the College.

“He made this choice out of concern that the public perception of matters raised today in the media could lead to an erosion of the public’s confidence in the College and its work,” said College Council Chair Liz Papadopoulos, who said she accepted the resignation.

“The College makes every effort to maintain public confidence in the teaching profession’s self-regulatory processes,” Papadopoulos said in a statement.

Tremblay, the longtime chair of discipline at the Ontario College of Teachers, is the co-author of a soft porn book for teens that chronicles the sexy adventures of Grade 9 girls and boys at a mythical Toronto high school. .

. . .

[Read the whole story on The Star online site.]

Infanticide conviction nets Alberta woman suspended sentence

CBC News

Posted: Sep 9, 2011

The Wetaskiwin, Alta., woman convicted of infanticide for killing her newborn son, was given a three-year suspended sentence Friday by an Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench judge.

Katrina Effert was 19 on April 13, 2005, when she secretly gave birth in her parents' home, strangled the baby boy with her underwear and threw the body over a fence into a neighbour's yard.

She silently wept as Justice Joanne Veit outlined the reasons for the suspended sentence. Effert will have to abide by conditions for the next three years but she won't spend time behind bars for strangling her newborn son.

In her judgment, the judge rejected arguments from the Crown that the single father and the grandparent also face "the same stresses of the mind" as a mother who kills her own baby.

The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that "while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childrbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support," she writes.

The judge noted that infanticide laws and sentencing guidelines were not altered when the government made many changes to the Criminal Code in 2005, which she says shows that Canadians view the law as a "fair compromise of all the interests involved."

"Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother. . . .

[Read the whole article on CBC online]

Alberta ProLife comments on this case:

Many pro-lifers have predicted this day would come. We knew that if it was made legal to abort your child on your due date, then it wouldn't be long until you could strangle your child once delivered. Tragically, the lack of abortion laws in Canada gives room to justify the killing of a human being at any stage of life. When will this end?

The Bayne Children are being Returned to Their Parents

The Bayne children are being returned to their parents, Paul and Zabeth. The following is taken from the August 2, 2011, posting on Facebook by "The Bayne Campaign for Justice."

"[The Baynes'] . . . counsel was able to disclose to them the content of Dr. Conrad Bowden's thorough Parental Capacity Assessment. In brief he found that neither Paul nor Zabeth fit a profile for a child abusive parent. He found them capable of caring for their children and having the stamina, energy, knowledge, skills and commitment to effectively care for their children. Dr. Bowden's report then advised on the appropriate process whereby the reintegration of the children to the Bayne household could be affected [sic] . . . .

There was a clear sense conveyed in an apologetic manner by the Ministry lawyer on this occasion that MCFD understood how difficult this ordeal has been for the Baynes. They were also informed that there were no further requirements of the Baynes upon which the return of all four children was contingent. They took the time to discuss the plan and process by which the return would happen. From that meeting there was no further supervision required for visits with the children and Paul and Zabeth could take the children anywhere and visit anyone whom they chose. They have been able to choose the school for the autumn term which the children will attend. The boys have been measured for school uniforms and believe it or not, they were quite excited about this. Josiah has stayed overnight as have the three older children. All of these are stems to acclimatize the family to what will be taking place.

According to the two month schedule, today, Josiah will be returned permanently to the Baynes.
On August 3rd on Bethany's birthday, the three older children will join the party for three hours.
August 4th is the date upon which Josiah's custody will be legally transferred to the Baynes.
From August 6-9 the three older children will be staying with Paul and Zabeth.
Then again from August 11-15th, these three older children stay overnight.
Another phase of reintegration occurs August 18-22 as the three oldest stay overnight once more.
Finally on August 25th, 2011 all four children will be effectively and permanently returned to Paul and Zabeth and it will be filed in court that day."

School board to spend $21,500 on homophobia policy

Comox Valley Echo

Published: Friday, April 29, 2011

A policy tackling homophobia and bullying received a big cash injection from the school district, last week.

The Comox Valley School District is investing $21,500 to roll out its new anti-homophobia policy, which encourages schools to create gay-straight alliance clubs and provides extra training for school counselors.

. . . . They'll create a library of resources for students to tap into around sexual orientation and they'll recommend training for staff in the district. Other cash will go towards creating a committee, organizing training programs and supporting Options for Sexual Health programs for high school students.

. . . .

The school district is one of 12 in B.C. with a sexual orientation policy.

[Click here to read the whole article.]

[From Xtra, "Canada's Gay and Lesbian News":]

Liberal Hedy Fry vows to sponsor trans bill in next Parliament

. . .

Dale Smith / National / Friday, April 15, 2011

Long-time Liberal incumbent Hedy Fry announced her intention to bring a trans rights bill back under her name in the next Parliament.

“It’ll have to get back on the table, and someone has to do it, so I had told them that I would,” Fry says.

The NDP platform has an explicit commitment to moving forward with the aims of C-389, which would have added gender identity and gender expression to both the Human Rights Act and the hate crimes provisions of the Criminal Code. Retiring NDP MP Bill Siksay introduced the bill three times before announcing his retirement earlier this year.

For Fry, this remains the unfinished portion of her commitment to queer issues that she first ran on in 1993. . . .

April 5, 2011

Nuclear Families Healthiest for Children

by Chad Hills

Traditional or nuclear families – consisting of two married adults, who are the biological or adoptive parents of all children in the family – are the healthiest family structures for children, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report: Family structure and children’s health in the United States: Findings from the National Health Interview Survey, 2001–2007 .

As noted in the CDC report, this information is based on seven years of national health survey data that contain numerous child health and access to health care measures for a sample of nearly 84,000 children. Very few nationally representative data sources contain such reliable measures of both family structure and child health.

[Read the whole of the above article on CitizenLink.]

An Apple a day keeps ex-gays away

March 30, 2011
WorldNetDaily

By Christopher Doyle
© 2011

. . .Turns out some are still threatened by the fact that people can change from gay to straight. So, rather than debate, reason and perform the necessary research to prove their point, perpetrators of viewpoint discrimination use another strategy: defame, intimidate and remove all others' views except their own.

Take, for example, last week's decision by computer-giant Apple to remove a prominent Christian ex-gay ministry's application from their market. After less than a month on the market, Exodus International's app was downloaded by over 16,000 individuals. However, activists pressured the company to remove the app, claiming it was offensive to gays and lesbians because it offered a so-called "gay cure," which is nowhere found in the product. Apple caved, in spite of initially giving the app a 4+ rating, meaning it contains no objectionable content.

Apple's decision to discriminate against ex-gays using their own standards is questionable, especially since their policy also states: "Applications that place the targeted individual or group in harm's way will be rejected." One of these dangerous apps is called "Grindr (Gay, bi, & curious guy finder of the same sex)," which uses GPS to locate casual sex partners for men who have sex with men (MSM). According to the Centers for Disease, Control, and Prevention, over 70 percent of new HIV infections in the United States occur among MSM. …..

[See original article.]

From the "GPS" blog :

JUDGE RULES - NOT GOOD NEWS / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

They are NOT coming home. The three children, Kent (6), Baden (5) and Bethany (3) who have been in foster care for the past three years and four months and visiting with their parents for a few hours each week are not coming home to stay - to live. At least not for the foreseeable future.

In a 40 page judgement, Judge Thomas Crabtree has concluded by granting a Continuing Custody Order for a period of 6 (six) months.

[Immediately below is Ron Unruh's summary of events preceding this ruling.]

NEW TO THE BAYNE STORY?

An online campaign of solidarity for Paul and Zabeth Bayne. Their infant girl was injured by what they claimed was an accident in the home, a sibling falling on the infant. Attendant paediatrician made a diagnosis of shaken baby. RCMP investigation concluded insufficient evidence for charges. Director believed SBS diagnosis rather than the parents' explanation. MCFD has authority to act on suspicion. Their three small children were removed by B.C.'s Ministry of Children in October 2007. Paul and Zabeth have maintained their innocence from the start. They have lost home and possessions to cover legal costs. MCFD applied for a CCO to legally keep the children forever. The Baynes obtained medical opinions that disputed shaken baby. Judge's ruling will be delivered February 28, 2011. During the year long trial Zabeth became pregnant. Their fourth child, Josiah, was born Feb 10^th, 2011. MCFD took custody of him four hours after birth

[Further comment on the decision released March 2nd may be expected on the "GPS" blog in the near future.]

National Post editorial board: Stop the anti-Christian witchhunt on campus

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) — which describes itself as Canada’s “national voice for academic staff” — says it has investigated four small Christian colleges and universities in the past 18 months because it wants parents to know what kind of institutions their sons and daughters might attend. In other words, we are told, there is nothing nefarious in the 65,000-member union’s action. It is merely performing a valuable public service.

This is disingenuous nonsense. The CAUT is on a thinly disguised anti-Christian witch hunt. There is no other way to describe it.

The investigations were instigated entirely by CAUT executive and staff. The staff at the four universities aren’t even members of the association, so do not come under its mandate. No authorization was sought from the association’s members. There was no resolution passed at any annual meeting encouraging senior staff to scrutinize the schools’ hiring practices. No complaints were received from members — or anyone else — about the faith-based hiring and teaching at the schools: Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Crandall University in New Brunswick, Winnipeg’s Canadian Mennonite University and Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont.

Association leaders seem simply to have gotten it in their heads that where Christian values are part of a school’s hiring standards and curriculum, good, independent scholarship is impossible.
So they launched probes all on their own.

“This is not an attack on religious institutions,” James Turk, executive director of CAUT, insisted. Rather, the association merely wanted to alert the public to “the realities of these institutions”; they wanted parents to know what they children might be getting into before they began attending.

It’s hard to believe that a group of people with as many letters after their names as the CAUT leadership would expect anyone to buy such a flimsy explanation. Among them, the four marked schools have about 6,000 students. The association can’t seriously believe that any of those students’ families was unaware they were sending their offspring to religious institution.

We agree with Paul Allen, an associate professor of theology at Concordia University in Montreal who recently began a petition among CAUT members calling on their association to end its obvious harassment of Christian schools. “What we have here is an academic union ganging up on these smaller Christian universities,” Prof. Allen charges, “and I thought it was high time that people from the public universities take a stand.” . . . .

If the CAUT is so worried about parents and prospective students getting to know the biases of the universities and colleges they are thinking of attending, why isn’t the association also investigating the bias of secular sociology departments, we wonder? Try teaching that men and women are equally guilty of domestic violence at most major Canadian universities and see where that gets you in terms of publications, promotions and tenure. Or how about an investigation of the University of Toronto’s teacher’s college, where post-grad degrees are handed out to essayists who believe Holocaust education is a form of Israeli propaganda, or that opposition to female genital mutilation is a form of quasi-colonial racism.

. . . .

[You can read the whole article on the National Post online.]

MTV’s Every Detail Etched on Children’s Minds

The article’s author, Ellen Livingston, spoke with myriad teachers and students about the network’s massive influence, almost all negative. John Anderson, a teacher at a private Lutheran School, said he’s worried kids are obsessed with it. He cited the fact that creative assignments often include MTV references.

Livingston asked the question: Knowing that the programming gets “its force from sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” do parents mind their children spending the best years of their youth in front of MTV? “The kids say no,” she writes – and Susan Long, 14, says her mom watches it, too.

But Susan Long is no longer 14. She’s 42.

Everything I just told you came from an article in the December 29, 1983 edition of the Miami Herald.

Twenty-eight years later, MTV is still pushing the envelope, farther and more disturbingly than ever before. Their newest hit, “Skins,” is drawing fire from nearly every corner, not just conservative-minded people. At issue is the fact that scenes of the program seem pretty clearly to violate federal child pornography statues.

MTV executives are scrambling, trying desperately to get a handle on a controversy that is growing. The premiere episode garnered 3.3 million viewers. Nielsen reported that 1.2 million people under 18 watched this past week.

. . . .

The tragedy is that scores of young children are having their minds warped and corrupted by images and themes they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. Images and themes that scintillate and nefariously seduce. Images and themes they’re entirely unqualified and unprepared to handle or process.

It is nothing short of technological child abuse.

[The whole of the above article can be read: here.]

. . . School cancels cross-dressing day

By TERRY DAVIDSON, QMI Agency
Jan. 20, 2011

TORONTO - Attention all kindergarten to Grade 8 students: Cross-dressing day is now cancelled.

King City Public pull pulled the plug on the "Opposite Gender Day," when kids as young as six would be allowed to come to school dressed as the opposite sex, following an outcry from parents.

"Opposite Gender Day has been cancelled in the wake of concerns of parents," said Ross Virgo, York Region District School Board spokesman.

"The idea of (kids) experiencing being people of the opposite gender has offended some people in the community, and the school doesn't want to do that."

. . . .

Dr. Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College, believes the school's Opposite Gender Day was part of the Ontario Ministry of Education's "greater agenda" of making gender-identity issues a part of school curriculum.

. . . .

[From an article on CNEWS]

Canadian Supreme Court embryo ruling will lead to more deaths say pro-life groups

Patrick B. Craine

Wed Dec 22

OTTAWA, Ontario, December 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Supreme Court of Canada decision Wednesday morning threatens to result in the destruction of even more embryonic children, say pro-life groups, as the high court decided to give control of the creation, destruction, and manipulation of human embryos to the provinces.

In a 4-4-1 decision, the Supreme Court upheld in part the Quebec government’s constitutional challenge against the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act, ruling that key sections intrude on the provinces’ jurisdiction over health.

The Act, passed in 2004, regulates the artificial reproduction industry, and bans such activities as creating animal-human hybrids, human cloning, sex selection prior to implantation, and paying for surrogacy, sperm, and eggs.

Today’s decision left these bans in place, but the provinces will now have jurisdiction over the handling of human “reproductive material” - including licensing for how it is obtained, stored, destroyed, imported, exported, and manipulated.

The provinces are also given control over the issuing of licenses for embryonic research. As well, the court struck down a section governing transgenic manipulation, which is the combining of genomes from humans and non-human animals. This is different from the creation of hybrids.

The Supreme Court was deeply divided, with four justices upholding the Act, four favoring provincial jurisdiction, and one striking a middle way.

“Parliament has a strong interest in ensuring that basic moral standards govern the creation and destruction of life, as well as their impact on persons like donors and mothers,” wrote Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin in her opinion upholding the Act. “The Act seeks to avert serious damage to the fabric of our society by prohibiting practices that tend to devalue human life and degrade participants.”

“While this initiative necessarily touches on provincial jurisdiction over medical research and practice, these fields are the subject of overlapping federal and provincial jurisdiction,” she added.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, who jointly intervened in the case, had argued that regulation of the industry is appropriately a federal matter in order to protect the public’s safety and the dignity of human life.

Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of Canada’s pro-life movement, said the ruling makes an already bad situation worse. The pro-life movement had fought the Assisted Human Reproduction Act for many years, leading up to its passage in 2004, arguing that the bill was flawed by a basic false assumption that a human being is no more than a biological machine, a collection of cells.

“We already opposed this bill because it removes the child’s right to be conceived in the loving union of husband and wife and because IVF causes the death of many thousands of Canadian embryonic children,” said Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition. “But with this ruling the permissions to engage in such procedures will be broadened, leading to even more deaths.”

“While we feel compassion for those couples who are unable to reproduce, the creation of new human life must not become a commodity that is bought and sold to the highest bidder in the province with the most liberal laws,” added Hughes.

While Hughes said that the Quebec challenge does not deal with the parts of the Act that ban the creation of animal-human hybrids and the use of human embryos for experimentation, he asked, “how long would it take for this ‘Pandora’s Box’ of horrors to be opened for each province to explore?”

Faye Sonier, legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, wrote on the Activate CFPL blog that a federal law is needed “to ensure consistency in law and in practice across Canada and to ensure the equal protection of all Canadians.”

“This Act communicates our country’s position on the creation, alteration and destruction of ‘human reproductive material’ as well as human and non-human life,” she wrote. “It will also shape, and perhaps alter, relationships between citizens - parents, children, siblings and spouses.”

Sonier also pointed out that allowing different standards in the provinces could create “competition” where some provinces would “‘push the envelope’ on the use of such technologies, forcing others to follow them or risk being found by the court to have created an inconsistent standard across the nation.”

The Supreme Court decision can be found at:
http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2010/2010scc61/2010scc61.html?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6f7604aca8-LifeSiteNews_com_Canada_Full_Text_12_22_2010&utm_medium=email .

Heather Stilwell, Remembered as a Strong Pro-Life Defender of Children

Heather Stilwell was a founding member of Surrey-Delta Pro-Life in British Columbia and president of both provincial and Canadian pro-life organizations. She became widely known as a school trustee when she, along with others on Surrey School Board, took as stand against designating as teaching materials certain pro-homosexuality books for primary children. Her general interest in education shown by her diligence as a school trustee, along with her staunch defence of the principles she believed in, earned her the widespread respect of those who knew her. Heather passed away after a long bout of illness on December 3rd (2010). She is survived by her husband Bill, eight children, and a number of grandchildren.

In November of this year, Heather was given a standing ovation at the International Pro-Life Conference in Ottawa when she was given the annually-awarded Mother Theresa Award. (See the article from LifeSite News, entitled "Long-Time Canadian Pro-Life Heroine, Heather Stilwell, Honoured in Ottawa.")

December 13, 2010

Transgender Bill C-389 Proceeds to Third Reading and Debate

[an Alert from Real Women of Canada]

The controversial Bill C-389 protecting Gender Identity and Gender Expression in the Canadian Human Rights Act i.e. to protect the transgendered and transsexuals, was fast tracked through the House of Commons. There was only one objection to the bill at second reading on June 10, 2010. The bill was then pushed through the Justice Committee without hearing any witnesses or carrying out the customary clause by clause review (see REAL Women Alerts dated November 9 and November 17, 2010).

Although this bill was not supposed to come up for a vote until February, NDP MP Bill Siksay who introduced it, traded places with another NDP MP's bill, and as a result, the transgendered bill came forward to the House of Commons on December 8.

Usually at this stage, a bill goes forward with unanimous consent, but the Conservatives instead opted to force a vote. The bill, however, passed 143 to 131 in the House of Commons at this report stage. That is, the only substantial opposition came from the Conservative MP's who voted overwhelmingly against this deliberately vague bill. Only 3 Liberal MP's voted against it – Jim Karygiannis (Scarborough-Agincourt), Dan McTeague (Pickering-Scarborough East) and Alan Tonks (York South-Weston). We are disappointed that 5 Conservative MP's voted in favour of the bill – Lawrence Cannon (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Sylvie Boucher (Beauport-Limoilou), Shelly Glover (Saint Boniface), Gerald Keddy (South Shore-St. Margaret’s) and James Moore (Port Moody, Westwood Port Coquitlam). Notable abstentions were Conservative MP's Dana Cadman (Surrey North), Lisa Raitt (Halton) and Lee Richardson (Calgary Centre), and Liberal MP John MacKay (Scarborough-Guildwood).

The next stage, debate and third reading in the House of Commons, will probably occur in late February or early March of 2011.

Please contact your MP and thank him or her for voting against this bill. If your MP voted in favour, please try to educate him/her to the unforeseen consequences which could result from such poorly drafted legislation – endless litigation over uncertainties about the legislation, special rights for cross dressers and the gender confused, people using washrooms reserved for the opposite sex with impunity, children exposed to gender confusion in schools, (the American College of Pediatricians distributed a warning letter on March 31, 2010, which stated: It’s extremely dangerous for children to be taught that transgendered is equal to heterosexual and normal gender.”) and medical personnel will be pressured to disregard known medical practices in treating gender identity disorders.

Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland at one time was the leading authority on transsexual surgery. It conducted follow-up studies and found that these altered individuals were no happier or well adjusted after all the hormone and surgical treatment. Authorities at Johns Hopkins then concluded that to assist with this surgery and hormone treatment was to fundamentally cooperate with these individuals’ mental illness and has ceased to provide such treatment.

If Bill C-389 is passed into law, it would create a legal “right” to change sex at will and the basis of society, i.e. a man and a woman, will be forever altered to accommodate many other manifestations of mental disorders according to subjective social constructs based not on natural order but on arbitrary acts of interpretation by courts and human rights commissions.

AN UPDATE ON THE BAYNE FAMILY FOR CASJFVA DINNER OCTOBER 24, 2010

These have been three of the longest and most painful years that any parent could possibly live and survive. Three children, with two of whom, the sons Kent and Baden, Paul and Zabeth had already begun a loving parent-child relationship with ideals for their lives, with goals and hoped-for plans of a nurturing family in which their faith in God would play an important role. With the third child, a girl, Bethany, came the exciting prospect of a tiny child in dresses and with long hair and a sweet smile but she was only weeks old and any possibility of relationship had not yet had time to develop. And then with the incident/accident and the hospital diagnosis, and the response by police and the Ministry of Children, any relationship with her was put into jeopardy. Furthermore the two boys were children, for whom no explanation could possibly be adequate to mitigate the sheer terror of being snatched away from their parents. All of that happened three years ago. This past Friday was the third anniversary of their removal.

This case of the Province of BC Ministry of Children against Paul and Zabeth Bayne is waiting for a ruling by Judge Thomas Crabtree. The Baynes were in court since January to contest the application by the Ministry to keep their children forever. It's a Continuing Care Order. It means the children would remain in the care of the Province indefinitely, and that means possibly until the age of majority, age 18, and possibly adoption to another family. The Fraser Valley Region of the Ministry took this position that Paul and Zabeth continue to be a risk and that they should not have their children returned. MCFD holds that position in spite of the fact that Police dropped all charges of abuse and in spite of the fact that there is no actual evidence of danger or risk. The hold that position solely because Paul and Zabeth Bayne have refused to admit to harming their infant daughter whom a medical opinion said was the subject of shaking and trauma. The Ministry took the majority of the court time to prove how unfit Paul and Zabeth are to be parents. It had to embellish and stretch the truth throughout this trial. Many of us do not believe that the Ministry proved its case. All that matters now is that Judge Thomas Crabtree also concludes that the Ministry did not prove this and that it is in the best interests of these children to be returned to their parents.

How anyone could think otherwise is beyond my understanding. One of the special considerations favouring the Baynes that judge Crabtree has recently made in court was to permit one of the visitation days each week when Paul and Zabeth can see their children, to actually take place in the Baynes' own home. So for the past few Saturdays, all three children are brought to the Bayne home where each child is loved, loved, loved. They have six hours on a Saturday. The two boys have a shared bedroom where during the day if they choose to have a nap they can go there. These boys remember some toys and blankets from that brief time they spent with their mommy and daddy in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Baynes' small daughter has a room of her own with everything girly and fun. And there is a giant playroom for everyone and a large yard in which to play. And always these visitations are carried on with a supervisor present to monitor everything that is done. That supervisor cannot help but see how much these children love to be in their home.

That home is a rental house. You will remember that Paul and Zabeth lost their own home to pay for legal expenses in the early stages of this three year old struggle to regain their children. And Zabeth is a concert pianist and plays beautiful music and taught piano lessons but she had to sell her grand piano to pay for other legal expenses. They have exhausted all that they have in order to restore their family to a functioning and happy family once again. Paul and Zabeth deserve the right and the privilege of raising their three children into adulthood, instilling into their lives the values and principles and skills that will make them contributing members of society and contributing disciples of God's Kingdom.

In his closing summation, Baynes' lawyer Doug Christie told the Judge that the Ministry failed to prove its case. He said that this was purely a medical matter. It pertained to injuries sustained by their youngest child, an infant at the time. There was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Baynes. There was no confession by the Baynes. There was nothing to which the Ministry could point to prove that these parents willfully inflicted harm to their child and that is the only reason that these children should be removed from their parents. All that the Ministry has is a diagnostic opinion by a pediatrician who identified the injuries as shaken baby when there is no evidence that these injuries were the result of an act of violence. In fact it was later acknowledged by that doctor that the injuries indicated impact which of course is consistent with the explanation provided by the Baynes of an accident in the home when a sibling brother fell upon the baby.

Within days the Baynes will receive the transcript of the Ministry lawyer's closing summation and then Mr. Doug Christie will prepare a rebuttal and submit it to Judge Crabtree. The Judge wants to make a ruling as soon as possible, and he will take a few weeks, and hopefully make his ruling before the end of this year 2010. The very best scenario would be for Kent and Baden and Bethany to be returned home unconditionally for Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning, so that Paul and Zabeth can rejoice that unto them their children have been given.

All of you who pray, please continue to pray for this family, and particularly Paul and Zabeth who wait so patiently.

Added Nov 22^nd 2010: At the beginning of November the Bayne rebuttal of the transcript content was submitted to Judge Crabtree, and at that time he indicated he would take from 8-12 weeks before bringing his ruling which he prefers to deliver in person at another scheduled court date yet to be announced. In all likelihood that will be very early in 2011. Further, prior to the end of the court case, the Ministry was seeking to adjust the Baynes supervised visitation which until then had been three days per week at three hours per visit for a total of nine hours with their own children in a neutral and unpleasant visitation centre. The children love these times, and on more than one occasion the children would ask “can we stay with you now.” The Ministry felt that the children's schedules were too full for nine hours over three days. The Baynes with good advisors helping them countered that any concessions should come with compensations to them and the children, and the judge agreed by awarding them upon request, one day at three hours and Saturday for six hours but in the Bayne residence. Well that latter grant has been remarkable as all three children have their own beds and toys and many things that at least the boys remember. So on the Saturday, they may go for a couple of hours to an outdoor activity environment, library, museum, game farm, miniature golf etc and then come home for food and play and maybe a nap. The encouraging thing about this is that the judge granted this and we view this as an indication of the way he view this case, because to have granted the parents this and then take the children away forever would be terribly cruel. We do not see Judge Crabtree as anything but reasonable and fair. He is now the Chief Justice of BC.

[Our thanks to Dr. Ron Unruh for permission to publish this update. Ongoing comments on the Bayne case by this author may be read on his "GPS" blog.]

[We are happy to pass on this message from ARPA, and we encourage our readers to make use of this facility. We urge you to make your views of Bill C-389 known to your Member of Parliament.]

New Easy Mail Letter: Bill C-389 - the "Bathroom Bill"

Many of you were rightly concerned when reading about the swift passage of Bill C-389 through the Justice Committee on November 2nd. Put forward by NDP MP Bill Siskay, the legislation aims to add yet another group to the list of "prohibited grounds of discrimination" in the Canadian Human Rights Act. This time the group isn't even based on any sort of objective criteria but rather targets any discrimination based on "gender expression" and "gender identity." If it passes, it is likely that similar legislation will make its way through each of the provinces.

The consequences of moving in this direction are dangerous and unpredictable. If we see a man in a women’s public washroom, we rightly are concerned. But when the law recognizes this man based on how he “feels” he should be recognized (perhaps a woman), what assurance is there that the public can ever go into a public washroom with confidence that only people of their sex will be there?

Read more about the disturbing implications of the bill here. Read the text of the bill and more details here.

In response we have prepared the following Easy Mail letter that you can send to your MP with a few clicks through our new Easy Mail technology. Click here to send this letter right now. Click here to pick from 11 other letters.

Dear Honourable [Name of MP]

Thank you for your ongoing service as our representative in Ottawa.

I strongly oppose Bill C-389, which was rushed through parliamentary committee, with no hearings, in a matter of minutes. The private member’s bill proposes to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” to the every-growing list of prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The fact that it does not even define “gender identity” reveals how subjective it is. As the Catholic Civil Rights League points out “The standard diagnostic manual for psychiatrists, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-4th Edition lists gender identity questions as a disorder. The condition is very different from such objective states as race, colour, creed or gender, all of which the law quite rightly protects from discrimination in the workplace, and in the provision of goods and services."

"To protect by law a quality that the law does not even define could have serious implications for employers in their hiring and assignment decisions. People who believe they have faced discrimination on "gender expression" grounds could file human rights claims. This system is already misused by those who believe the issue was discrimination when it was not; to complicate it by opening the process to more subjective grounds is not in anyone's best interest."

Most important of all, it is not up to government to redefine gender to begin with. The civil government’s role is to promote justice and freedom, not reengineer society according to how people feel.

Instead of trying to appease every interest group, our nation should focus on strengthening the institutions in society that are pivotal to a healthy nation. Marriage and the family should be at the top of that list.

Please have the courage to vote against Bill C-389 and do what you can to strengthen the Canadian family.

Sincerely,

Send Easy Mail Letter In Seconds (Update the action meter at www.ARPACanada.ca - we are 95% of the way there!)

Gender identity and Gender expression

Leaders Pledge to Stop Bill C-389 From Exposing Our Children to Perverts

By Dr. Charles McVety Wednesday, November 10, 2010 in Canada Free Press online

Private Member’s Bill C-389 - An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (gender identity and gender expression) is on the verge of becoming law. If passed, it will add these terms to the list of identifiable groups listed in sections 318 and 718.2(a)(i) of the criminal code and the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The new criminal code would make it a crime to speak or discriminate against gender identity and gender expression. These two conditions are self identified with no proof so anyone at anytime can claim to be another gender.

Dr. Charles McVety, President of the Institute for Canadian Values states “Somehow this ridiculous Bill C-389 has succeeded through two votes in Parliament and has now passed a 30 minute committee hearing. If it passes third reading and the Senate our children will be exposed to perverts entering girls bathrooms, change rooms and even showers claiming transgender discrimination. The penalty for “discriminating” against them will be up to two years in prison. We are working with leaders across Canada and vow to protect our children.

Make gender identity and gender expression mandatory teaching in all schools in Canada

McVety goes on to say “in addition this Bill would make gender identity and gender expression mandatory teaching in all schools in Canada under the principle that the law is a teacher. Earlier this year Premier McGuinty scrapped such teaching in the Ontario Sex Education Curriculum but now the federal parliament is attempting to re-insert this onerous material by law. We don’t understand how a Conservative Government would allow this to happen under its watch.”

Tuesday

Nov162010

Bill C-389: The EFC Opposes Proposed "Gender Identity" Amendment to Human Rights Act

Tuesday, November 16, 2010 [from Activate CFPL, the law and public policy blog of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada]

The EFC opposes the passage of private member’s bill Bill C-389, which is intended to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” as prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

First, the bill would create a federal anomaly in that no other human rights legislation in the country specifically addresses the issue of people who either believe they are or would otherwise indicate their gender identity is different than their gender body. The anomaly would apply only to areas of federal jurisdiction, or it would create a setting where provincial governments will feel pressured into adding similar provisions to their human rights codes not because it is good public policy but because of a history whereby the courts have required similarity in the concepts between the varying pieces of human rights legislation across the country.

Second, given the difficulties of addressing what would constitute an offence against someone who doesn’t appear physically to others to be the gender they self-identify as internally, the results of passing the bill are unpredictable; other than what has been taking place in other jurisdictions where there have been reported difficulties with people wanting to use the public washroom of the gender they internally identify with rather than the gender they appear to others to be.

The EFC did not comment earlier on this bill because, quite frankly, we did not anticipate this bill would proceed to the place where it is eligible for third reading and potentially for passage by the House of Commons.

The bill has been problematic for some Members of Parliament, partly because people fear saying anything that might sound like an offence directed toward the LGBT community. This is because there are those in the LGBT community who have an unfortunate tendency to label people who oppose such initiatives as “homophobic.”

The terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” would remain undefined in the Act if this bill is passed, leaving interpretation to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and whatever cases might filter into the courts. For Parliament to engage in such an enactment requires that these new legislative terms be properly defined.

The intent of the legislation to protect others from hatred and discrimination is a worthy intent, however, there must be a fuller consideration of the potential consequences of such an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

The EFC strongly encourages Members of Parliament to giver fuller consideration to the potential consequences of passing this bill and to vote against it.

Canadian researchers transform skin into blood

Tom Blackwell, National Post · Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010

When scientists at Hamilton’s McMaster University noticed that a petri dish full of long, thin skin cells now also had a quite different occupant — distinctive, round blood cells — they suspected they were on to something big.

The researchers’ hunch, it seems, was dead on. As described in the journal Nature yesterday, the team under Dr. Mick Bhatia seized on that chance microscopic sighting and devised a process that transforms skin cells directly into blood, a mind-bending breakthrough that one expert suggests may turn cell biology “upside down.”

The discovery opens the door to creating healthy blood from a mere patch of skin. For leukemia sufferers unable to find a bone-marrow donor — and other patients — the innovation could one day prove life saving. . . .

Scientists in Japan managed to derive a type of stem cell from skin in groundbreaking work unveiled three years ago. Stem cells are famous for their ability to change into any other type of human cell, holding out the promise of fixing diseased or damaged parts of the body, from injured spinal cords to sick hearts and diabetic pancreases.

Dr. Bhatia’s discovery appears to go a major step beyond that research, eliminating the middle stage of creating those induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, and directly reprogramming skin into other types of cell. . . . .

[Read more in the National Post online.

RED ALERT: 'Scary' Canadian Transgender Anti-Discrimination Bill Sails Thru Committee

By Patrick B. Craine

OTTAWA, Ontario, November 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A private members bill that would criminalize discrimination based on “gender identity” and “gender expression” sailed through a parliamentary committee this week with no amendments, leaving pro-family advocates deeply concerned that the bill will pass when it comes up for a vote perhaps as early as December.

Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, today called on all people of good will to alert their MPs to the grave concerns and “legal nightmares” at stake in this bill, warning, for example, that it will lead to male cross-dressers and drag queens having the legal right to use female bathrooms.

The private members bill, proposed by New Democrat MP Bill Siksay, passed in mere minutes at the Justice and Human Rights Committee on November 2nd, reports the homosexualist news site Xtra. The vote was 9-2, with Conservative MPs Brent Rathgeber and Stephen Woodworth opposing.

The committee, which held no hearings on the bill, apparently wanted to push it through to give it a chance at passing before an election, at which point it would die. Further, Xtra reports that this plan was backed by the Conservative government, even though they opposed the bill at second reading.

Xtra reports that the government asked NDP committee member Joe Comartin to move that all clauses be carried. Liberal justice critic Marlene Jennings said she expected Conservative committee member Bob Dechert to support the bill “given that he’s the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice, and it was the government’s suggestion that a motion be put by Mr Comartin to deem the bill that all clauses been carried [sic], and I assumed then that he was favourable.”

At the same time, the Prime Minister's office told LifeSiteNews Friday that the committee's vote "does not denote our support for the Bill." "In fact the Justice Minister has stated in the House that Bill C-389 contains provisions which are unclear and unnecessary and that our government will not be supporting this legislation," said Sara MacIntyre, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's press secretary.

If passed, the bill will add “gender identity” and “gender expression” as prohibited grounds for discrimination to the Canada Human Rights Act and as identifiable groups in the Criminal Code’s hate crimes legislation.

Siksay, who serves as the NDP’s “LGBTT” critic, says the bill could come up for reporting, third reading, and a vote as early as December. It would then move to the Senate.

The committee’s decision is “great news,” said Siksay. “We are on track toward ensuring the full protection of transgender and transsexual Canadians under the law.”

This is Siskay’s third attempt to bring the bill, known as C-389, after it failed to make it to the House in 2006 and 2007. He introduced the current bill on May 15th, 2009 and it was sent to committee with the support of the House in June 2010.

The bill is being vociferously opposed by pro-family groups.

According to Alissa Golob, head of Campaign Life Coalition Youth, the move to recognize gender-confusion as a normal lifestyle choice is “not surprising” since we’ve already done so with homosexuality. “It’s just another attempt to normalize immorality,” she said. “What’s next? Polygamy? Pedophilia?”

Golob charged that there has been hardly any coverage of the bill in the media “because they have an agenda and will only promote whatever news they deem fit and not what is actually happening.”

“The government’s sole reason for existing is to serve the family, the building block of society,” she affirmed. “If laws are passed that are not in the family’s best interest, those members of parliament introducing these laws should be removed immediately and those bills automatically defeated. We need to stand up and elect people who will bring normalcy back to our society.”

Gwen Landolt, national vice president of the pro-family group REAL Women, said it’s “scary” that the bill has made it this far so easily. “The bill’s extremely dangerous,” she said. “It’s alright to be in favour of human rights, which we all support, but this is being in favour of a mental illness, and playing into it. It’s not good for individuals, let alone society.”

“It’s extremely dangerous for children to be taught that transgendered is equal to heterosexual and normal gender,” she continued, pointing out that the American College of Pediatricians warned this spring that sexual confusion should not be reinforced.

In their statement, the College explained that as children develop many will go through a temporary period of sexual confusion that they usually overcome. But if they are encouraged to self-identify as homosexual or “transgender,” “the confusion is reinforced and the child is conditioned for a life of unnecessary pain and suffering," they wrote.

“It would forever damage them,” said Landolt.

Hughes said that the bill “not only flies in the face of common sense, but is also potentially dangerous by creating the legitimized access that sexual predators often seek,” by opening the door to men using women’s bathrooms. “Imagine a young girl - your daughter or granddaughter - goes into a washroom and finds a man there. How is the young girl to determine whether or not the man in the bathroom is a ‘peeping tom,’ a rapist or a pedophile?”

Brian Rushfeldt, president of Canada Family Action, said the bill is “extremely dangerous” because it “basically reinforces the notion that gender can be anything you want. ... That I think is dangerous to developing youth. Then they have no standard by which to judge their behaviour.”

“If the House of Commons passes such an undefined, dangerous piece of legislation, my hope is that sober minds at the Senate will look at that and say we simply cannot have protection for every uncommon, unnatural sexual expression,” said Rushfeldt.

Contact Information:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 995-1547
Fax: (613) 992-7910
E-mail: Nicholson.R@parl.gc.ca

Find your MP’s contact information here.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Transexual Protection Bill Passes Second Reading in Canadian Parliament
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10061107.html

Canadian MP Tables Bill to Protect "Transgendered" People in Canadian Human Rights Act
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052004.html

Long-Time Canadian Pro-Life Heroine, Heather Stilwell, Honoured in Ottawa

By Patrick B. Craine

OTTAWA, Ontario, November 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Hundreds of pro-life supporters honoured a long-time Canadian pro-life heroine with an extended and moving standing ovation on Friday night at the International Pro-Life Conference in Ottawa, Ontario.

"I will fight abortion until the day I die," declared Heather Stilwell, one of Canada's major pro-life leaders for the last 30 years, as she was recognized with LifeCanada's annual Mother Teresa Award. The devoted mother of eight made a heroic trip from British Columbia to Ottawa for the conference despite her frail health.

"I think for many her name stands with the beginning of the pro-life movement in Canada," said Monica Roddis, LifeCanada's Acting President, who presented the award.

Stilwell is the former president of Alliance for Life, the now-defunct national pro-life educational group. There she produced 'Feel the Heartbeat', a widely-circulated documentary with interviews of young pregnant women and adoptive parents.

As president of the Surrey-Delta Pro-Life Association, she promoted pro-life candidates for the local hospital board and ran a TV program on local cable. She also served as president of the Pro-Life Society of B.C, Western Regional Coordinator for Campaign Life Coalition, and as a prominent member of the conservative lobby group REAL Women.

As a trustee on the Surrey public school board for 15 years, she was famous for her opposition to homosexuality, abortion, and sex education. There she also helped parents lobby for a traditional school and, said Roddis, "courageously stood for parental rights despite very strong opposition."

In 1997, Stilwell was involved in a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the decision to allow three children's books which portrayed same-sex parents in public elementary schools. The board's decision to not allow the books was eventually overturned by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

Additionally, Stilwell was a founding member and leader of the Christian Heritage Party. Her other community involvement included serving on the board of an adoption agency.

Roddis explained that even with her many pro-life and pro-family commitments, Stilwell was a devoted wife and mother. "When bringing home her seventh baby from the hospital, she was followed by the media, eager to interview her as the Alliance president about the Morgentaler decision [of] January 28, 1988," she noted.

"Through all of this, her deep faith and love of the most vulnerable have shone through," said Roddis. "Those who have worked with her throughout the years have confirmed her kindness, her understanding, and her great encouragement as she endeavoured to be the voice for those who have no voice."

Stilwell and her husband Bill, who recently celebrated their 45th anniversary, received the devastating news in 2008 that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. After chemotherapy and other treatments, she recently ceased treatments because they had become too aggressive.

Though frail and confined to a wheelchair, Stilwell's latest wish was to attend the International Pro-Life Conference in Ottawa. She was able to do this after an outpouring of support from friends and family to cover the first class tickets she and her daughter, Elizabeth, needed so that she could lie down for the long trip.

Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, a long-time friend and colleague of Stilwell, praised the award in the highest terms. "She's been a tremendous fighter, she's had dogged determination, she's a faith-filled woman," he said. "It was wonderful to see her honoured in that way."

CitizenLink, October 5, 2010:

Teen Suicide is a Complex Issue

Posted by Candi Cushman

Tragically, there have been several heartbreaking reports of young people taking their own lives in recent weeks. The national media has rushed to report these cases with dramatic headlines and quick summaries. National gay activists groups have been equally quick to link the recent tragedies to their own goals, through rapidly issued press releases.

The Human Rights Campaign—the nation’s largest homosexual advocacy group—for instance, issued a statement calling on “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to speak out immediately to push every school in the nation to implement anti-bullying policies inclusive of sexual orientation and gender identity,” and calling for use of its own Welcoming Schools curriculum in elementary schools.

But respected researchers and experts on the issue of suicide have long warned that oversimplified, sensationalized and snap-judgment reporting of the issue can actually have a detrimental impact. This was the concern raised by experts at a conference on the issue of suicide at the University of St. Thomas in Houston this past weekend, who wanted people to understand that “taking one’s life often is the result of multiple issues.”

Likewise, several scientific, medical and research organizations—including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Mental Health— have issued recommendations calling for socially responsible reporting about suicide. . . . .

The bottom line is that suicidal behaviors in young people are usually rooted in multiple social, economic, familial, and individual risk factors, with mental health issues playing an important role in the whole mix. To express it another way, suicide is the result of a “perfect storm” of complex, interrelated psychological problems, many of which are not under the victim’s direct conscious control.

Rather than letting the issue be politicized and sensationalized in an irresponsible way, it is important that we recognize the complexity of the issue—and continue to equip families with helpful information on recognizing warning signs.

To that end, below are some Focus on the Family online resources designed to help families recognize trouble signs among teens who may be depressed or having suicidal thoughts.

. . . .

AN UPDATE ON THE BAYNE FAMILY FOR CASJFVA DINNER OCTOBER 24, 2010

DR. RON UNRUH

All of you who pray, please continue to pray for this family, and particularly Paul and Zabeth who wait so patiently.

Sex Education Subject of Evangelical Fellowship of Canada Open Letter to Ontario Minister of Education

[Media Release]

For immediate release from The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

September 14, 2010

SEX EDUCATION SUBJECT OF EFC OPEN LETTER TO ONTARIO MINISTER OF EDUCATION

OTTAWA – The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) has sent an open letter to Ontario’s Minister of Education, the Honourable Leona Dombrowsky.

The controversial sexual education component of the Health and Physical Education curriculum was both introduced and withdrawn this past spring. It was withdrawn in large part because of many parents’ negative reaction to its content.

“The letter was sent for two reasons,” explains EFC Vice-President and General Legal Counsel Don Hutchinson. “First, parents felt they had been blind-sided. The way curriculum development currently works in Ontario requires parents to be reactive rather than engaged in the process. Public feedback is only being welcomed after the curriculum has been developed.”

“This lack of parental involvement runs contrary to Ontario’s Reach Every Student, Energizing Ontario Education plan which states that parental involvement is ‘integral.’ Further, it doesn’t recognize the role that parents have in determining their children’s education, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which the Province of Ontario has acceded,” states Hutchinson.

Second, the letter addresses the Ministry of Education’s proposed solution to controversial elements of the curriculum, that children can be withdrawn from “any course in conflict with the personal beliefs of the parents.”

“While we’re thankful that the Minister of Education recognizes the legal requirement to accommodate Ontarians’ religious beliefs, this type of accommodation runs contrary to the Human Rights Code, its very own Equity and Inclusive Strategy,” explains Hutchinson.

“While this may appear to be a non-discriminatory solution, it actually discriminates by removing a certain group of students and perspectives from the classroom – those that are either social conservative or Christian – contrary to the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in the Zylberberg case. It’s exclusionary rather than being inclusive.”

“If a child has to leave the classroom because the curriculum doesn’t permit the inclusion or respect for their beliefs, then the entire Strategy has failed. Those students certainly won’t feel included or accepted in the Ontario school system,” states Hutchinson.

The Open Letter to the Minister of Education can be read at theefc.ca/education.

- 30 -

For more information or an interview contact:
Gail Reid
Director, Communications
905-479-5885 ext. 227
Cell: 647-227-3464
reidg@efc-canada.com

Media Release from REAL Women of Canada:

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release September 28, 2010

Ontario court decision on prostitution is without merit

Ontario Courts are one of the most liberal in Canada. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has handed down a decision today on the prostitution law that merely confirms the court’s liberal perspective, which previously legalized marijuana for “medical” reasons, three-parent families, and same-sex marriage. The decision on the prostitution law today is just more of the same.

What has occurred is that an appointed non-answerable judge has handed down a decision on a national social policy that would never be passed by an elected Parliament.

Madame Justice Himel has used the vague wording in the Charter of Rights as a tool to interpret a grave national social policy according to her ideology, rather than on sound facts and legal principle. To declare prostitution and all its accompanying activities as a legal right and activity protected by the Charter of Right’s section 7 (security of persons) is an absurdity.

The purpose of the law on prostitution is to protect women and children (and also some men) from harm and possible death. To remove the law, as Madame Justice Himel has done, increases the number of individuals involved in legal and illegal prostitution. It is particularly important to protect the most vulnerable women, such as aboriginal and other women, who are used and exploited in the human trafficking business.

Ideology should not supplant common sense on a matter which degrades and exploits individuals who need assistance to get out of the horrendous activity of prostitution by protective laws.

- 30 -

Please contact:

Diane Watts

National Office

(613) 236-4001

BC Government Changes Plans on Part-Time Kindergarten

[From the Association for Reformed Political Action]

In a surprising turn of events, ARPA Canada has learned and confirmed that the BC government has announced that independent schools may now maintain half-day kindergarten with funding. According to a notice from the Office of the Inspector of Independent Schools "While government remains committed to the implementation of full-day Kindergarten for all five year-olds by September 2011, government also recognizes that independent schools support parental choice. After reviewing requests for continued funding for half-day Kindergarten in independent schools, government has agreed to fund half-day Kindergarten programs in independent schools."

This is welcomed news for many parents who have expressed concerns about the across-the-board move to full-time kindergarten as part of the BC government's efforts to roll in a "early learning" system for BC's children.

[Read more of this article on the ARPA website.]

News Release:
University of Calgary Students' Union Withdraws Complaint Against Campus Pro-Life

Date: Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 7:20 AM
Subject: For Immediate Release: U of C Students' Union Withdraws Complaint Against Campus Pro-Life

JUNE 24th, 2010: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY STUDENTS’ UNION WITHDRAWS COMPLAINT AGAINST CAMPUS PRO-LIFE

CALGARY – The University of Calgary Students’ Union Review Board has formally withdrawn its complaint against the Campus Pro-Life (CPL) student group in relation to a pro-life display held on campus each semester. On February 10, 2009, the Students’ Union Clubs Committee resolved that Campus Pro-Life lose its status as a sanctioned club.

“From the start, we always questioned which policy or bylaw we broke and never received an answer,” stated new CPL president Alanna Campbell. “Through this decision, the current executive of the Students’ Union has finally demonstrated a commitment to quality and intellectual freedom.”

The Students’ Union Clubs Committee decision was appealed by CPL and discussions between the student group and the Students’ Union had been ongoing. Separate from the Students’ Union, the University of Calgary administration has found eight members of CPL guilty of a major violation of the Non-Academic Misconduct Policy, which they are now appealing. Both the conflicts originate from the group’s display, the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP). The display compares abortion to past historical atrocities, such as the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust in Nazi Germany

“While we’re satisfied with the withdrawal, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Peter Csillag, CPL’s Vice-President (Internal), “we still have an ongoing battle with the University administration as long as they, despite being a public university, continue to engage in blatant viewpoint discrimination.”

The group's display has been held on the University of Calgary grounds without incident nine times since 2006. In 2009, the University charged six students with trespassing in relation to the display, but the Crown Prosecutor stayed these charges prior to a trial scheduled for November of 2009. Since then, members of Campus Pro-Life have been threatened with Non-Academic Misconduct upon each display, but only now has the University carried out its threats.

“If something is too terrible to look at then perhaps we should not be tolerating it,” said CPL’s Vice-President (External) Cameron Wilson. “We’re going to continue this coming year as we have before.”

For further information, contact the following:
Club President Alanna Campbell at (403) 690-5217,
Vice-President (Internal) Peter Csillag at (403) 465-1777,
Vice-President (External) Cameron Wilson at (403) 668-9624, or
Lawyer John Carpay of the Canadian Constitution Foundation at (403) 619-8014.

-30-

Obama Inserts Gay Dads into Father’s Day Proclamation

By Peter J. Smith

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In his fathers’ day proclamation President Barack Obama made what pro-family leaders have said were a number of praiseworthy statements about fatherhood and the importance of fathers in the lives of their children. At the same time, the president drew sharp criticism for using the proclamation as an opportunity to show his support for homosexual parenting.

“An active, committed father makes a lasting difference in the life of a child. When fathers are not present, their children and families cope with an absence government cannot fill,” stated Obama, whose own father was conspicuously absent for most of his childhood.

However, the president then made his plug for homosexual families as normative.

“Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian,” he said.

The carefully downplayed, but unprecedented remark drew sharp criticism from pro-family leaders.

“It’s just too bizarre for words,” Brian Camenker of President of MassResistance told LifeSiteNews.com. Calling the president the “apostle of gay rights” is not far off the mark, he said.

“He is pushing gay rights more than anybody could have dreamed that anybody would. Nobody would have thought that Barney Frank would have done this, and he’s my congressman,” continued Camenker. “I think it sort of fits with his general approach to America, values, Christian values, and everything else. It fits with his whole line of thinking about America and our way of life – it’s completely foreign and completely radical."

Peter LaBarbara of Americans for the Truth about Homosexuality said that Obama was appeasing the homosexualists in his base, without regard to what effect homosexual parenting has on children.

“If an adult man chooses to embrace homosexuality, that’s one thing. But two men imposing their homosexual lifestyle on an innocent, impressionable child — thus intentionally denying that child a mother — is something quite different,” he said. “Shame on Obama for ‘gaying down’ the noble institution of fatherhood to appease his homosexual activist supporters.”

LaBarbara stated that “notorious promiscuity … is rampant in the gay male subculture” and harmful to children and their healthy upbringing. LaBarbara pointed to Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist, who continued promoting “‘non-monogamy’ as an alternative to marital fidelity” even after Savage and his “husband” had adopted a baby boy.

In late May, President Obama emphasized his bona fides with the homosexualist movement by proclaiming June – for the second year in a row – as “Gay Pride Month.”

The proclamation outlines Obama's policy agendas for the promotion of homosexuality including the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), establishing a right for homosexuals to adopt, repealing the military ban on open homosexual service, and enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

LaBarbera: Obama 'Gays Down' Father's Day by Extolling 'Two Fathers' as a Nurturing Family

News Release

Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

June 21, 2010

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631

_________________

CAROL STREAM, Illinois — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH) President Peter LaBarbera today condemned President Barack Obama for “gaying down” the noble institution of fatherhood by extolling “nurturing families” with “two fathers” in his Father’s Day proclamation yesterday.

Obama proclaimed:

Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian.

“If an adult man chooses to embrace homosexuality, that’s one thing. But two men imposing their homosexual lifestyle on an innocent, impressionable child — thus intentionally denying that child a mother — is something quite different. Shame on Obama for ‘gaying down’ the noble institution of fatherhood to appease his homosexual activist supporters.”

Obama is the most pro-homosexual-agenda president in American history, and is currently working to subvert both the legal ban on open homosexuals serving in the military, and the Defense of Marriage Act, which affirms traditional marriage in federal law.

“Who can deny the notorious promiscuity that is rampant in the gay male subculture – and which often continues even after two homosexual men adopt a child,” LaBarbera said. “Witness gay parenting’s poster-boy, Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist and author of The Kid: What Happened When My Boyfriend And I Decided to Go Get Pregnant. Savage promotes ‘non-monogamy’ as an alternative to marital fidelity — and admits that he and his ‘husband’ twice engaged in sexual ‘three-ways’ even after they adopted a baby boy. (One wonders who babysat ‘the kid’ during their homosexual sex romp.)”

Such is the extent of tolerated outside sex in male homosexual relationships that their “negotiated” rules for “nonexclusivity” are studied by academics. “The gay community’s normative acceptance of casual sex, anonymous sex and nonmonogamy in couple relationships represents a dramatic departure from heterocentric norms and values,” wrote researchers Johnson and Keren in 1996.

“As a gay therapist who has seen hundreds of male couples in a vast range of unconventional, loving, and sustaining relationship configurations — including monogamy, nonmonogamy, three-partner relationships and more — I have grown to respect the fluidity and customized relationship forms that can work well for gay men (and potentially for all people),” wrote homosexual therapist Michael Shernoff in 2006.

But even if two homosexual men keep their disordered relationship “faithful,” homosexual parenting would not be worthy of celebration, LaBarbera said: “It is wrong to force children into a situation where they have two men modeling immoral behavior — condemned by God and all major religions — as the most important role models in their lives.”

“Gay parenting is a selfish social experiment whose long-term effect on children has not yet been determined — biased homosexual-authored studies notwithstanding,” he said. “We know that dad-and-mom-led homes are the best for children. That is the timeless brand of fatherhood that Obama should be promoting,”

[News release from the Americans for Truth website Americans for Truth About Homosexuality]

Fact finder to examine BC College of Teachers

By Janet Steffenhagen 18 May 2010 Report Card

Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid has appointed lawyer Don Avison as a fact finder to investigate complaints about the BC College of Teachers.

She really had no choice, given the number of organizations that have lined up behind the 11 college councillors calling for an investigation. (Her news release named the following, including two not mentioned previously: the BC Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils, the BC School Trustees' Association, the Federation of Independent School Associations, the BC School Superintendents' Association and the BC Principals' and Vice-Principals' Association.)

Avison is a former BC deputy minister who was, most recently, president of the Research Universities Council of BC. He was hired by the Vancouver board of education a couple of years ago to conduct an inquiry into the Tom Ellison sex scandal at Prince of Wales high school on Vancouver's westside.

BCTF vice-president Jim Iker said the union hopes the fact finder will shed light on what it believes is a "manufactured crisis".

"We look forward to the opportunity to meet with the fact finder to definitely express our concerns about the actions of the current chair (Richard Walker) and registrar (Kit Krieger) that we think have needlessly heightened a sense of dysfunction within the college council," he said. Click here to read the staff alert that the union distributed to members.

There is no indication the ministry intends to halt the election now underway in Zone 11. (Norm Nichols is the current Zone 11 councillor and favours greater college independence. But given that the BCTF has endorsed candidate Rob Millard - president of the West Vancouver Teachers' Association - and is helping with the cost of his campaign, Nichols is likely to lose.) The third candidate is John O'Flynn, an independent school teacher.

In a release this morning, the Education Ministry outlined Avison's responsibilities.

The fact finder will consider and make recommendations regarding the B.C. College of Teachers in fulfilling its mandate under the Teaching Profession Act.

. . . . [Read the whole article in the Vancouver Sun online.]

A Letter of Concern Regarding Proposal to Redesign the Teacher Education Program
(from a University of British Columbia Professor Emeritus)
[April, 2010]

Dr. Jon Shapiro, Dean
Dr. Rita Irwin, Associate Dean
Faculty of Education
Neville Scarfe Bldg
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4

Dear Dr. Shapiro and Dr. Irwin:

I wish to express my concerns regarding the UBC Faculty of Education proposal to significantly redesign the Teacher Education Program to ensure that in every class, “Social Justice and Diversity Issues” will be discussed. On the surface, “Social Justice” would appear to be a concept which would have the support of all well meaning people. At the same time, we are all too familiar with the insidiousness of words which can be abused to gain approval of the general population, clouding the true intentions of the abusers. Can we precisely define “social justice”? I think not. Different people have different views of what is right and what is wrong and therefore what constitutes social justice. Which interpretations of social justice will serve as the foundation of the new teacher education proposal, “CREATE” (Community to Re-Imagine Educational Alternatives for Teacher Education)? Will teacher educators be forced to promote conceptions of social justice as defined and dictated by administrators whose interpretations of social justice may be contrary to perceptions of social justice of classroom educators?

Consider the widely different opinions on a social justice issue, that of the right or wrong of abortion. Is there more justice in a woman’s “right to choose” or a fetus’s right to life? Among many debatable issues on what constitutes social justice, such an issue has adherents strongly defending one belief or the other. How will the designers of the Social Justice and Diversity program in the Faculty of Education fairly determine guidelines in teaching such a controversial issue without trampling upon those teaching under the new program whose sincere beliefs and opinions do not coincide with the guidelines?

There is no dearth of debatable issues on which decisions for guidelines on social justice would be difficult. Yes, debate upon social justice issues does need to be addressed in our society, but not at sacrifice to the primary goal of the Faculty of Education which is to prepare teacher education students to become excellent teachers. Teaching methodology should focus primarily on how best to promote learning in particular subject areas or the multiple learning rewards at various grade levels as well as to inspire love and appreciation for the knowledge which student teachers will be endowing their future students. As a mathematics teacher and educator I feel that I achieved great success and satisfaction in the beauty of what I was teaching and passing on to my students. I would not have been happy setting aside the beauty and learning of mathematics to “discuss class, gender or race.” In fact, I feel that as I was teaching, I was simultaneously practicing respect for social justice and diversity simply by paying equal respect to all students. My primary mission was to teach skills and and concepts and motivate students in the learning of mathematics. Abilities varied widely , but with respect to class, gender or race, all students were equal.

Despite the concerns which I have expressed, I respect and appreciate the sincere efforts of Faculty of Education leaders to improve the abilities of beginning teachers to achieve greater success in promoting more positive attitudes and respect for others as well as learning success of their students. The existence of a CREATE committee which in the next few months will engage in discussion on curriculum revision, will provide opportunities for different ideas and interpretations to be explored before final decisions are made. Also, the fact that you and other faculty members will meet with “stakeholders” comprising a wide range of institutes and interest groups in the professional educational community will enhance the likelihood that different ideas will be openly discussed, not arbitrarily imposed upon Faculty who may have legitimate differences with the all too common encumbrance of political correctness in our society of today.

In summary, however, while social justice and diversity issues need universal attention, they need not be given special attention at the expense of knowledge gained from the present teacher education program. This is not to say that the education curriculum should remain static. There is always room for improvement, but with respect to social justice, it can flourish naturally in the teacher education classrooms. Faculty and students can in daily interactions practicing respect for each other, concomitantly promote student awareness and willingness to support and practice social justice and acceptance of diversity .

Sincerely,

Walter Szetela, (Prof. Emer., UBC)

Quebec Parents to Take Mandatory Relativistic Ethics Course to Supreme Court

MONTREAL, Quebec, April 29, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Drummondville couple who requested that their children be exempted from Quebec's new program in relativism, Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC), have decided to take their case to the Supreme Court of Canada following the February decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal to deny their appeal.

The parents are being supported in this effort by the Coalition for Freedom in Education (CLE), who praised the family Wednesday for their “principled and courageous” fight for the authentic education of children. Sylvain Lamontagne, CLE's president, declared that "as far as the parents are concerned, this curriculum trivializes their religion and moral values and treat[s] them as no more important or true as any other.”

“Some sociologists have even publicly qualified it as indoctrination,” he added.

A study released at the end of 2009 by sociologist Joelle Querin found that the program teaches children that the values their parents espouse at home "are relative and that they are free to develop their own ethical life."

Richard Décarie, a spokesman for CLE, said that "imposing this curriculum to all children is a serious onslaught on parental rights and freedom of conscience, so much so that even the United States government is closely monitoring the situation.”

Décarie was referring to a 2009 report on religious freedom throughout the world from the U.S. State Department that included a paragraph on the Drummondville parents' case, which was before the Quebec Superior Court at the time.

The parents had requested an exemption to the course from the Ministry of Education on the basis that it violated their religious beliefs, but were denied. They took the Ministry to the Quebec Superior Court in the spring of 2009, which ruled in favor of the Ministry in August.

In a press release today, CLE pointed out that no exemptions at all have been granted to the ERC program. The loss of the fundamental right for parents to choose the moral and religious education of their children at school is currently limited to Québec, they said, but they warned that if this encroachment by the state goes unchallenged, it may set a precedent and encourage other provinces in Canada to follow Québec's lead.

The Québec family's appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada is supported by various associations, such as the 104,000-strong Knights of Columbus of Québec. The Québec population is also strongly committed to freedom of choice in moral and religious education, according to two successive Leger Marketing polls. In May 2009 they found that 76% of parents thought parents should be able to choose between ERC and a denominational religious education program. That was up from October 2008, when 72 percent favored such a choice.

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Quebec Family's Appeal Rejected for Exemption from Mandatory Relativism Course
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10022610.html

New Study Rips Into Quebec Relativism Course
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09121606.html

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10042907.html

Apr. 28, 2010

B.C. teacher claims Catholic school sent her home for being a lesbian

James Keller, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VANCOUVER, B.C. - British Columbia's education minister says she is looking into allegations by a Vancouver teacher who claims she was sent home from her job at a Catholic school because of her sexual orientation.

Lisa Reimer alleges the principal at Little Flower Academy told her to stay home for the remainder of the school year, when her current contract expires, after parents complained about the fact that her lesbian partner recently had a baby.

Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said she had only heard about the allegations through the media but has instructed her staff to investigate what exactly happened.

"I'm certainly concerned about the allegations that were reported," Margaret MacDiarmid said in an interview. "Generally speaking, there are labour laws, there are human rights laws in British Columbia that have to be upheld."

The school sent out a news release suggesting Reimer's claims were inaccurate, but the statement failed to shed any more light on what happened or why she is no longer teaching classes at the school.

"A meeting took place between the school and the teacher to discuss projects consistent with the music theory curriculum," said the statement.

"The school understood that her proposed role was acceptable and the matter was resolved. Therefore the school was quite surprised by the press release issued today."

Reimer was teaching music at the private, all-girls Catholic school during a leave of absence from her job at the Vancouver School Board, where she will return this fall.

"They (school administrators) said that they had lots of friends and family who were gay and they were completely supportive of that, but that families at LFA would not accept that," Reimer told reporters on Wednesday.

Reimer said received the news earlier this week after taking two weeks off following the birth of her son. She had previously asked for parental leave but said the school refused.

A group called the Pride Education Network sent out a news release Wednesday on Reimer's behalf, claiming the principal told her that parents were concerned "the girls might follow Ms. Reimer's lead."

Steve LeBel of the Pride Education Network, himself a former teacher, said telling someone to stay home for the remainder of the school year wasn't much different than firing them.

He said the move sends the wrong message to students.

"Every girl in that school is going to know by now ... and the message will be that our parents, our teachers, our principal thinks it's fine to let someone go because they're a lesbian," said LeBel.

"I think it's absolutely the wrong message."

There have been several cases in Canada of teachers being fired for their sexual orientation.

The most notable was that of Delwin Vriend, who was fired from a Christian college in Edmonton in 1991 after school officials learned he was gay. Vriend fought the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, which forced the province to include sexual orientation in its human-rights legislation.

Also in Alberta, a transgendered substitute teacher was fired by a Roman Catholic public school board last year. Jan Buterman has filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Some Catholic schools and Catholic school boards require teaches to sign a so-called "Catholicity clause" when they're hired, often agreeing to abide by the teachings of the church in their personal and professional lives.

The Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese, which has no official connection to Little Flower Academy, has such a clause in its teachers' contract. . . . .

[Read the whole article on the AM 770 web page.]

B.C. school disputes lesbian teacher's allegations

Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun: Thursday, April 29, 2010

Music teacher, Lisa Reimer, says she was fired from the Little Flower Academy because she is a lesbian parent. She held a press conference at the
BC Teacher's Federation offices accompanied by Glen Hansman of the Vancouver Elementary School Teacher's Assoc. here in Vancouver, B.C. on April 28, 2010.

Photo Credit: Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER — Officials at a Vancouver Catholic school are disputing the story of a music teacher who says she was fired after it emerged she was a lesbian whose partner had recently given birth.

Lisa Reimer said Wednesday her music classes were cancelled and she was told to work from home marking papers until her one-year temporary employment contract with Little Flower Academy expires in June.

She said the effect of the orders, which came after the school apparently received complaints from parents who didn't like a homosexual instructor teaching their children, amounts
to dismissal.

"I feel like I've been fired with a payout," she told reporters at a news conference.

"All the families have been told I am on a personal leave, which I am not."

She said the school took the action just as she was preparing to return to work after a three-week leave following the birth of her son.

But in a statement issued late Wednesday, Celso Boscariol, the chairman of the school's board of directors, said Reimer "has not been fired, and she remains in the services of LFA
until June 30 and will continue to be paid accordingly."

He said school administration met with Reimer when she wanted to return to work "to discuss projects consistent with the music theory curriculum. The school understood that her
proposed role was acceptable and the matter was resolved."

However, he said he would look into Reimer's allegations that she was told not to come to the school or have direct contact with any students.

B.C. Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid said she had only heard of the case through media reports but was concerned.

"I am concerned about what I have heard and I have asked ministry staff to look into this," she said. "Stepping way back, there are labour laws, human rights laws in British Columbia
and they have to be followed. They apply to everyone. The law is the law." . . . .

[Read the whole article on CHBC News online.]

B.C. trustees ask province to "redirect" private school funding to public education

By Stephen Hui, straight.com, Apr. 24, 2010

School trustees from across the province are calling on the B.C. Liberal government to take the funding it gives to private schools and put it into the public school system.

Today (April 24), at the B.C. School Trustees Association's annual general meeting in Victoria, trustees voted to "request the Ministry of Education to redirect to the public education system the public money spent on independent schools, other than band schools".

The Cowichan Valley school board had submitted the motion.

For the 2008-09 school year, the B.C. government provided $217 million in operating grants to independent schools, according to an overview on the ministry's Web site.

At the AGM, trustees also approved a motion urging Minister of Education Margaret MacDiarmid to release the report of the special advisor she sent to look at the Vancouver school board's books to that board as soon as it lands on her desk.

MacDiarmid announced on April 14 that she had appointed B.C.'s comptroller general, Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, as the special advisor. Wenezenki-Yolland is expected to report back to the minister by May 31.

The Vancouver school board is projecting a $18-million shortfall for the 2010-11 school year. Patti Bacchus, the Vision Vancouver chair of the board, has said the district cannot make cuts that large without hurting the education received by students.

[Read the whole article online.]

Hillary Clinton stirs the pot on Afghanistan, Abortion and the Arctic

[from thestar.com, Mar. 30, 2010]

Bruce Campion-Smith Ottawa Bureau chief

OTTAWA – Hillary Clinton was openly critical of Canada’s organization of an Arctic meeting, skipped a news conference on the topic with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and then went on national television to appeal to Canadians to stay in Afghanistan.

After all that, Canadian officials might have been excused if they woke up Tuesday wondering what the U.S. Secretary of State might do for an encore on the second day of her Canadian visit.

Turns out she had one more pot to stir, telling a Gatineau meeting of G8 foreign ministers that any initiative to improve maternal health – Ottawa’s signature global project this year – must include abortions, an option the Conservative government has tried to avoid.w [sic]

“You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health and reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortions,” Clinton said Tuesday. . .

[To read the whole of the article on thestar.com, click here.]

Obama's Historic Health Care Bill Also A Political Gamble

Jim Malone | Washington 22 March 2010, Voice of America online

President Barack Obama won a major political victory this week with congressional passage of his health care reform plan. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats made history with the reform legislation, but politically the bill is a major gamble and opposition Republicans have vowed to exact revenge in congressional midterm elections this November.

Unlike many of his predecessors, President Obama scored a political success on health care. But it remains to be seen whether it is a political blessing or a curse.
[Click here to go to the whole article on Voice of America online.]

Baby Isaiah Dies with Family on Parents' Terms

By Patrick B. Craine

EDMONTON, Alberta, March 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Baby Isaiah James May died yesterday afternoon in the arms of his parents. After enduring a legal fight to keep doctors from forcing death upon their child, the May family bade farewell to their son on their own terms after becoming convinced that there was no chance of his recovery.

According to Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, the tragic case “has probably turned out the best it possibly could have turned out.”

Baby Isaiah suffered severe brain damage after his umbilical cord got wrapped around his throat during an arduous, 40-hour labor on October 24 in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. He and his parents, Isaac and Rebecka, were airlifted to Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, where Isaiah was kept alive by a ventilator.

The hospital informed Isaac and Rebecka in a letter on January 13th that there was “no hope of recovery for Isaiah” and thus that they would remove Isaiah's ventilator on January 20th. Believing their son was improving, and wanting more time, the Mays took the doctors and the hospital to court, demanding a 90-day injunction against the hospital's order. Judge Michelle Crighton gave the parents time to seek independent medical assessment of Isaiah, delaying her decision about the injunction several times.

A hearing scheduled to hear medical assessments was cancelled by the Mays yesterday morning.

Dr. Richard Taylor, a neonatologist from Victoria General Hospital, independently assessed Isaiah in February and agreed with the hospital that Isaiah would not recover. "I advised Rebecka and Isaac that I was certain that Isaiah would never recover and that his body movements were likely due to activity in his spinal cord," he said in a statement. "He would remain ventilator-dependent for the duration of his life. As Isaiah would never recover, we agreed that this degree of life support was no longer appropriate."

Isaiah died shortly after noon on Thursday, in the arms of his parents and surrounded by aunts, uncles, and grandparents.

“We held out hope that there would come a time when we might see [Isaiah's] smile and hear his laugh,” the Mays related in a statement, read yesterday by their lawyer, Rosanna Saccomani. "Over these last four months, we have cherished every moment with our son. We have marvelled at the perfection of his hands and feet and face... at the color of his eyes and the shade of his hair. We have wondered who he most resembled.

"All along it was our hope that Isaiah's condition would brighten and improve. It has not,” they continued. “The decision that has now been made may be incomprehensible. But it has been made knowing that we did everything possible to find meaningful answers to our questions and that all reasonable alternatives were fully explored and carefully considered.”

"We very much believe that life is a gift from God and that our son's inherent value and worth as a human being is not diminished by the number of days recorded in this world,” they added. "Isaiah has reminded all of us once again that life is very precious and fragile.”

"We have set our tiny miracle free and he is now home in the arms of the angels."

Pro-life and disability advocates have applauded the Mays' courage, and called on the pro-life community to support them at this difficult time. . . .

From: The Record

Private and Public Schools Subject to [Proposed] Transgendered Guidelines
By Staff of the Christian Civic League of Maine
Feb 19, 2010
[Public hearing scheduled for March 1, 2010]

The Record wishes to share news of urgent importance to all Christians in Maine. The Maine Human Rights Commission is preparing educational guidelines which will apply to schools across Maine, both private aneawd public. The guidelines will require schools to allow transgendered students access to facilities of the opposite sex, including bathrooms and locker rooms. The guidelines will be discussed at a public hearing in Augusta on Monday, March 1st.

The guidelines are based on Maine's "Sexual Orientation Law" passed in 2005. The Christian Civic League vigorously opposed the law in a hard-fought referendum campaign. At the time, Mike Heath, the former Executive Director of the League, warned that the law would eventually require schools to grant transgendered children access to facilities of the opposite sex. Despite the best efforts of the League, the referendum was rejected, setting the stage for the eventual application of the law to public and private schools.

The Maine Human Rights Commission first applied the Sexual Orientation Law to schools in a case involving a transgendered student at Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono. The case arose when the parents of a transgendered boy demanded that their son be allowed to use the girls' bathroom. The school offered the boy the use of the teachers' unisex bathroom, a compromise the boy's parents rejected. The MHRC ruled in favor of the boy's parents, who then sued the school in Penobscot Superior Court.

In early February, the League learned information about the proposed new guidelines which up until now has not been disclosed to the public. This new information reveals that the guidelines will apply to all schools in Maine, with the exception of Christian and parochial schools, and will have the force of law. Schools which violate the guidelines will receive a summons to appear before the Commission. The procedure for bringing a charge of discrimination against a school consists of filling out a simple one-page document. If the Commission rules in favor of the Complainant, the case can be used to bring a lawsuit against the school for monetary damages.

The League has also learned that the Boston-based homosexual rights organization GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) was given a major role in writing the proposed guidelines, which are based in part on existing guidelines used by schools in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The Maine Principals' Association, the Maine School Management Association, and a representative of the University of Maine at Orono have already opposed the guidelines. They have expressed their concern that schools will be forced to allow boys to participate in girls' sports, giving an unfair advantage to teams with transgendered players. The League has also learned that GLAD is still vigorously advocating sending transgendered boys to girls' teams, saying that to fail to do so is discriminatory.

The public hearing scheduled for March 1st came about after a representative of the Maine School Management Association voiced his concern that the guidelines were being developed without any input from the public. He reminded the Commission that it has a duty under Maine law to hold a public meeting on the issue. The Commission eventually relented, and agreed to open the proposed guidelines to public comment at one of its regularly-scheduled meetings.

The public hearing will be held at the Senator Inn in Augusta on Monday March 1st. The League urges all concerned citizens to attend the meeting to express their opposition to the proposed guidelines. If you are not able to attend the meeting, we urge you to write the Commissioners and submit your written testimony in advance. The names of the Commissioners and the contact information for the Commission is listed below. The mailing address of the Commission is 51 State House Station - Augusta, Maine 04333-0051.

Commission Members

Patricia Ryan, Executive Director

Paul K. Vestal, Jr.

Sallie Chandler

Joseph Perry

Hold the fort on 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'

[This is an abridged version of an article on the Catholic Education Resource Centre website.]

ROBERT REILLEY

Military readiness is not the objective of having openly gay soldiers in the US armed services.

Thanks to recent statements by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen, we must acclimate ourselves to what now seems the inevitable rescission of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward homosexuals in the US military. This policy itself was a compromise reached under President Bill Clinton, who had wished to eliminate any obstacles to homosexuals in the armed services at the beginning of his presidency. At that time, a decades-old rule stated that homosexuality was "incompatible with military service." The "don't ask, don't tell" deal prohibited asking a person if he is a homosexual, but allowed for the removal of openly declared homosexuals.

In the intervening years, the willingness to consider the moral argument against homosexual acts has eroded further. Toward the latter part of the Bush administration, the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine General Peter Pace, still had the nerve to say, "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way." He received zero support for his forthrightness.

Now, after President Barack Obama hosted a homosexual celebration in the White House on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots, Admiral Mullen has appeared before Congress in favor of removing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. . . .

It might be wise to pause for a moment and think about what others may be forced to do should the policy of "don't ask, don't tell" be abandoned. I may be able to bring a certain perspective to the issue since I have both served in the military and worked extensively in the world of the arts, which homosexual culture often dominates.

I keenly recall my induction at Army basic training. It was conducted at a former WW II POW camp for Germans. At Indian Town Gap Military Reservation, we first had our heads shaved and then were told to strip naked as we, for several hours, went from station to station being prodded and poked to ascertain our fitness for the coming physical ardors. In the barracks, there were no stalls between the toilets or showers, in case any of us thought there might be some small refuge of privacy left. This was deliberately done to break us down, so we could then be reshaped into fighting men.

Now imagine inserting into this scenario some naked females. What would happen? All hell would break loose. And whose fault would it be? It would be completely unfair to both the men and the women to inject sexual tension into an already highly demanding, emotionally charged situation. Those who contrived such a state of affairs would be largely responsible for the consequences.

Since homosexuals define themselves as being sexually attracted to other men, why would anyone imagine that it is any less combustible to place openly-declared, practicing homosexuals in the same setting? It is curious that the military is the only form of association in which it is suggested that people would have to disrobe in front of others who find them sexually attractive, but with whom they do not desire any sexual intimacy. Is there a work place in which women are required to do this in front of men, or men in front of women? For obvious reasons, there is not. Why, then, make the US military such a place? The answer is, under the faux guise of civil rights, to enforce the rationalization for homosexual misbehavior on the country as a whole. What better way to achieve this than institutionalizing this rationalization in the armed forces?

The question may be asked: "If homosexuals are currently serving in the military under the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, why hasn't the mayhem described above already happened?" The answer is precisely because the current policy requires homosexuals to be covert in their behavior and not to display their predilections openly. Overturning this policy would mean "coming out of the closet" inside the military with the consequences described. Adding to the tensions would be the fact that any heterosexual service member who objected or acted in a way that could be interpreted as "homophobic" would be the one brought up on charges or dismissed. They would be forced not to object to homosexual behavior. . . .

. . . military readiness is not the objective of those seeking to overturn the policy. Moral vindication of homosexual behavior is the goal—no matter what the price. Congress, of course, can still stop this from happening as it requires a change in legislation—which has already been prepared by Congressman Murphy, who purportedly has 187 votes lined up for it (only 31 shy of the 218 needed for passage). At least people in the United States will have the opportunity to register their views with their representatives on whether to hold the fort for US service members, or to open the gates for using them as pawns in the homosexual revolution.

Trinity Western University protests "blacklisting" by university teachers

[By Janet Steffenhagen 31 Jan., 2010 in The Vancouver Sun online ]

Trinity Western University (TWU) has appealed to the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to reconsider a report that says TWU places unwarranted and unacceptable constraints on academic freedom by requiring a statement of faith as a condition of employment.

In a letter last month, TWU president Jonathan Raymond . . . . said . . . [the CAUT] it reached its harsh conclusion about the university without fair and careful due process.

"The use of allegations, censure and blacklists is in our view counterproductive and antagonistic," he wrote in response to CAUT's charge. "As colleagues, we urge CAUT to . . . engage with TWU in productive academic dialogue."

Read the CAUT report here and TWU's response here.

Raymond said the CAUT report appears arbitrary, since it wasn't responding to a complaint. Created by an act of the provincial legislature in 1969, TWU has an excellent academic record and there was no need for an inquiry, he added.

"Despite our requests, CAUT has never articulated a clear reason as to why it launched the inquiry now after TWU has been an accepted and respected member of the higher education community in B.C. for forty years."

. . . . The [CAUT] report says TWU recognizes academic freedom only "from a stated perspective, i.e., within parameters consistent with the confessional basis of the constituency to which the University is responsible."

"The subsequent assurance of free inquiry within these restrictions does not ensure genuine academic freedom."

The CAUT report notes the institution's own claim that "all teaching, learning, thinking and scholarship take place under the direction of the Bible, the wholly authoritative and truthful Word of God."

TWU isn't the only school on CAUT's radar. A story in the National Post says the association will now investigate three other Christian universities that require faculty to sign faith statements - Crandall University in Moncton, Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg and Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ont.

[

New plan for teacher education focuses on social justice, diversity

By JANET STEFFENHAGEN, Vancouver Sun, February 1, 2010

Social justice and diversity issues would get unprecedented attention in every course offered by the University of B.C.’s education faculty if a major program overhaul that began several years ago is approved.

“It’s safe to say that every aspect of our program is going to be changed,” associate education dean Rita Irwin said in an interview. “We want to be as responsive as possible to what’s happening in schools. Right now, we’re doing our best to do that, but we think there’s a need to reconfigure.”

It won’t simply be a matter of the university following the lead of B.C. high schools and offering an optional course similar to Social Justice 12. Rather, social justice and diversity are expected to become dominant themes in all education courses, Irwin said.

“If only one class deals with it, then teacher candidates can kind of set it aside. What we’re trying to say now is that you can’t set it aside. You have to understand that it infuses everything you’re doing.”
[boldfacing in the above three paragraphs is ours--Editor, BCPTL site]

For example, she said students taking a mathematics course might also end up discussing class, gender or race.

The changes, now being drafted, would also ensure that students wanting to become teachers are better prepared to work with special-needs, ESL and aboriginal children. And there would be a mandatory French course for those hoping to work in elementary schools, where teachers are now required to deliver French lessons in intermediate grades even when they have no training.

Irwin stressed that the redesign has not yet been approved by the university senate. “We’re pretty confident it will go through, but theoretically, it’s not quite through yet,” she said, adding she doesn’t expect changes will take effect before 2012.

The proposals are so far-reaching that Irwin described the process as the “re-imagining” of the UBC education degree. Part of that includes an expectation that education graduates would be “teacher inquirers” with an understanding of a wide range of education issues. As an example, Irwin said they would comprehend the arguments for and against the categorization of special-needs students.

“We want them not to think of teaching in a technocratic, instrumental way but ... [as something] that’s constantly evolving. They need to be attentive to the society around them, they need to be lifelong, life-wide learners, they have to take into consideration what new research in education is saying. . . . .

[Click here to read the whole article in The Vancouver Sun online.]

Comments
[Here is one of the comments that accompanied the article online:]

Tunya Audain

The Molding of “New Man” Continues

I agree with the critics who fear that this UBC proposal is more social engineering.

It was in the early days of the Soviet Revolution that one of the aims of communism was to create a “new man”. Human nature would be changed to turn labor and struggle into the greater good for the collective. Individualism was discouraged.

I really worry about these “social justice” programs, especially since it’s a major thrust of the teachers' union, the BC Teachers’ Federation, with every local having a “social justice” committee.
I'm really upset that mathematics classes “might also end up discussing class, gender or race”. Are math teachers also going to organize field trips to rich houses and poor houses to help student calculate economic disparities?

I just sent a letter to UBC to express my views to the search committee looking for a new Dean of Education.

The current Dean, Rob Tierney, has resigned to take a new post in Australia. I expressed my disappointment that he, as a dean, supports views that I see as inappropriate. He decried best practice and evidence-based practice, even suggesting it was malpractice. He strongly dismissed phonics as “simple minded” but which is a successful method of teaching reading in many schools. He also spearheaded the signing of an Accord by Canadian Deans of Education, that among other goals, aims to prepare new teachers to assume social and political activist roles, to interact with their communities so as to produce informed citizens who contribute to social change and community transformation. (Teachers as community organizers?)

As well as what’s going on at UBC, I’m disturbed about a new program just started at SFU Faculty of Education. It’s a two year Masters program in teacher unionism, the first program of its kind on this planet!

I really worry for the future of education in BC unless citizens check out what’s happening in our university teacher preparation programs. Citizens and our parliamentarians should have some say in these matters.

A different comment on the same article also posted:

When I was a kid , conservative Christians in the deep south of the US , were convinced that segregation was compatible with their religious beliefs. The process of overturning that historic injustice meant that real equality had to be shoved down their throats. Today , to the chagrin of many of those same right wingers and their ardent supporters , the country has the first African-American president in history. ( This remarkable fact is accompanied by FBI reports of a dramatic increase in death threats aimed at the leader of the free world.) Similarly , we have groups of various religious pursuasions who refuse to acknowledge the humanity and legal equality of an entitre segment of humankind ; homosexual Canadians , of course. Private religious schools may well have to face Charter rights being forced down their throats , and not one moment too soon.

A comment on the proposed changes to the teacher-education in The Peak (the Simon Fraser University student publication):

Teaching shouldn’t be indoctrination

By Eric Onderwater

Major changes to the teacher education curriculum at UBC are in the works, according to an article in the Vancouver Sun, and the biggest changes will be completely focussed on social justice and diversity issues. As quoted, “social justice and diversity issues would get unprecedented attention in nearly every course offered by the University of B.C.’s education faculty.”

For example, UBC’s associate dean of education, Rita Irwin, was quoted as saying that, “If only one class deals with it, then teacher candidates can kind of set it aside. What we’re trying to say now is that you can’t set it aside. You have to understand that it infuses everything you’re doing.” The article mentions that even courses in mathematics may end up discussing class, gender, and race.

Let’s get one thing straight: the faculty of education is responsible for training elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers for schools in British Columbia, and it wants to brainwash our future teachers by “infusing” them with social justice and diversity. Bear in mind that UBC is responsible for training teachers on how to teach students, not what the teachers teach students. That is the domain of the Ministry of Education in Victoria.

To my mind, this is profoundly disturbing. The idea that my future children may have to spend 12 years listening to brainwashed teachers expounding on the glories of left-wing social theory is deeply unsettling.

Social justice is a leftist concept that arose like a phoenix from the ashes of academic Marxism. In reality, social justice is the big, bad old wolf of Marxism all dressed up as little red riding hood’s innocent grandma in bed. It seems so right and innocent, but in reality it is only concerned with the old failed ideas of the redistribution of income and the state-controlled society.

You have to give it to them, as their ability to resurrect old ideas from the ash heap of history really is remarkable — almost as remarkable as their complete failure to think of ideas that aren’t fused like a baby to the teat of Marxism. . . . .

The goals of social justice are reasonable and relatively good things for society to pursue. The problem comes with the solution to these problems. The solution, invariably, is government control, government programs, government activism, government whatever; the solution is always built on the idea that the state is the solution to all society’s problems. Thus, the left returns to Marxism and state control.

My point is this: regardless of its merits, social justice is a political and ideological issue, not something into which we should be indoctrinating all teachers or elementary school students. Keep it out of the classroom. Nobody should have to be infused with social justice and diversity.

Rally Planned – “Let the Ad Run!”

Local Pro – lifers Organize Rally at Global TV

February 7, 2010, Kelowna, BC; A rally is being planned at the Global Okanagan building at 342 Leon Avenue for Tuesday, February 9 beginning at 4:00 pm. Members of the local pro life community are organizing the event in an attempt to respectfully but firmly ask Global Okanagan to run the pro life ad, “Everyone Against Abortion, Please Raise your Hand.” The ad contains an image of the severed arm of an unborn child who was killed by abortion.

All who value life and truth in media are welcome to take part.

The ad at the centre of the controversy received prior approval by Global TV and the Television Bureau of Canada. Last week, CHBC news director Derek Hinchliffe told The Province that it would be wrong for Global to refuse the ad, "It has met with [TVB] approval, so if we were to say, ‘No, we're not going to run it,’ we would have been offensive," he said.

Despite their initial approval, Global TV did a last minute about-face and decided not to run the ad. Station manager Dennis Gabelhouse said Thursday, “The more we looked at it, the more convinced we were that this ad was probably going to be objectionable to a lot of our viewers.”

Rally co-organizer Marlon Bartram responds that “disturbing imagery is shown on TV all the time, much if it far more graphic than what's in this ad.” He adds that, “this issue is more than just pro-life vs pro-choice, it is a matter of truth in media and their persistent refusal to show the reality of abortion. Certainly abortion is one of the most, if not the most important moral and social issue of our time, and it is an affront to the idea of informed civil discourse to deliberately keep the truth of it hidden from public view.”

A facebook group entitled “Let the Ad Run!” is attracting people from across Canada and elsewhere, and an on-line petition sponsored by the Campaign Life Coalition is also gaining steam. An on-line poll, access to see the ad, and a link to sign the petition are all available at www.prolifekelowna.com.

- 30 -

Contact:

Marlon Bartram

250 862-8202

kelownarighttolife@telus.net

More on the Colbourne Testimony [in the Paul and Zabeth Bayne Court Case]

[From Dr. Ron Unruh, blogging at GPS]

(The first portion was written earlier today and near the bottom you see an urgent addition in red font. The first is positive, the second is a concern)

I return to recap the results of the testimony and cross examination of Dr. Margaret Colbourne. She was in the witness box Wednesday and Thursday. She is a pediatric emergency medicine physician at BC’s Children’s Hospital, Vancouver , BC , and as a pediatrician with the Child Protection Service Unit of the hospital. She was a witness for the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It was her well intentioned diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome in connection with Bethany Bayne that initiated the October 2007 police action MCFD actions against the Baynes. It was her testimony of this diagnosis that was pivotal to the continued claim by MCFD that the Baynes are unfit parents. On Wednesday, when Judge Crabtree stepped from the bench and deliberated for one hour and returned to rule on the matter of whether Dr. Colbourne was qualified to testify that seven week old Bethany Bayne’s injuries were accidental or non accidental, and whether she was qualified to state categorically that Bethany’s injuries had been sustained by being shaken by an adult, the earth stopped on its axis for a moment. Then it continued to turn while simultaneously the sun shone more brightly and the landscape became clearer. Finn Jensen and Dr. Colbourne were informed that Dr. Colbourne’s testimony concerning the nature of the injuries she observed on the day in October 2007 when she examined Bethany was admissible, but that Dr. Colbourne was not permitted to state her opinions about whether the injuries were non accidental or accidental nor was she permitted to state her belief that Bethany was a shaken baby.
Fundamentally, this is a ruling which speaks to the requisite expertise for distinguishing accidental injuries from injuries inflicted by someone, the latter leading possibly to criminal charges and other consequences such as removal of the children when the injury inducer is a parent. This ruling on this day is specific at the moment to this one case. In time it may serve as the precedent in British Columbia for subsequent cases in which assumptions of cause have been rendered or will be rendered by medical professionals who are unqualified precisely in the disciplines needed for making such critical diagnoses. It is a ruling that speaks to an understanding that certain types of injuries require particular professional credentials. This may become a standard by which to assess the reliability of an expert witness in such cases as shaken baby and other suspected abuse cases that could have differential diagnoses.

In all the incidents of life that are horrific and painful, the understandable instinctive response is to ask, ‘WHY?’ It is possible and even likely that Paul and Zabeth Bayne asked this simply question. But two years and three months have crawled by. During these past months they began to reflect more seriously on the grand scheme of things and the possibility that their agony might one day result in not only redemption for their family but also the restoration of other families where there have been mistaken diagnoses yet no legal recourse because of the strength of condemning testimonies by professionals.

The following is a quick addendum to the post above. It's important to supporters of the Baynes because it shows they need your support and prayers so much more. If you can be at one of the court days, your presence helps them and makes a point to the Court.

I now have had to hastily add this addendum to my previously more positive note about the testimony of Dr. Margaret Colbourne. Yesterday, Thursday, Finn Jensen cleverly began his examination of Dr. Colbourne this way. Since on Wednesday he had received the Judge’s ruling that he could not have Colbourne speak to the cause as accidental or non accidental, he asked for her opinion on what causes she could rule out for Bethany ’s injuries. Despite Doug Christie’s objections she was permitted ultimately to narrow the causes until shaken baby was the only statement of cause left standing. (This, in spite of the previous day’s ruling.)

It was revealed during cross examination that Dr. Colbourne now views this injury as ‘blunt impact’ and shaking. She was reminded that she did not state this in her initial diagnosis. When asked at what time she arrived at this conclusion, she stated in the spring of 2008. Doug Christie suggested that this would have been following her receipt of the experts’ reports that had been supplied by the Baynes – reports which validated the history of events as the Baynes had described. Her response was that she had believed the ‘blunt impact’ component at the beginning but had omitted it in her initial report. (The point is that her exclusive shaken baby diagnosis was damning and did not allow for other causal possibilities.)

Dr. Colbourne disagreed that Zabeth witnessed the accident of Baden falling on Bethany . Colbourne’s testified that Zabeth told her Baden fell on Bethany but that Zabeth had not seen this happen. (That account of the event contradicts the doctors’ reports that preceded Colborne’s involvement – reports which make reference to a witnessed accidental fall of one child on the other.)

Dr. Colbourne also denied knowing that for three weeks prior to admission at Children’s Hospital, Bethany had severe vomiting. When Colbourne was shown an expert’s article which stated that a head injury accompanied by severe vomiting increases intracranial pressure and can cause supplementary bleeding and eye bleeds, Colbourne disagreed.

When Mr. Christie referenced numerous biomechanical papers to which she had access, articles on shaken baby and the physical impossibility for shaken baby to produce the symptoms under discussion, Dr. Colbourne disagreed. (She admitted that when reading the articles she did not comprehend them since biomechanics is not her specialty.)

The witness also disagreed with the published research papers by noted biomechanic and pathology experts which contend that a shaken infant will bear signs of a neck injury. She said that she could not state with assurance that she had ever observed a neck injury on any of the shaken infants she has diagnosed.

Today, Friday, Dr. Randell Alexander has been flown from Florida to give supporting testimony for Dr. Colbourne’s evidence. (His testimony in numerous other cases has assisted the successful prosecution of parents who are in prison today and their children adopted into new families and some parents have faced the death penalty.) More about him later.

Calgary church loses charitable status for its "non-partisan political activities"

January 22, 2010, by Gillian Grace

Charles Lewis, National Post

A Calgary church has lost its charitable status in part because it spends too much of its time advocating on social issues such as abortion and marriage.

In October, the Kings Glory Fellowship Association, a non-denominational Protestant group, was told by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that for several reasons, including a lack of clarity on how it spends it money, they could no longer issue charitable receipts.

But the letter highlighted that the group spent more than 10% of its time on “non-partisan political activities and therefore strayed into activities “outside its stated purpose.”

“We note ... the members of the Board of Directors espouse strong negative vies about sensitive and controversial issues, which may also be viewed as political, such as abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.”

The CRA allows charitable organizations to spend some time on “political activities,” but the cutoff is 10%. A spokesman for the CRA was not immediately available to explain how the percentage of time a group spends on non-charitable works is determined.

Artur Pawlowski, the head of the Kings Glory Fellowship, said his group “has nothing to do with politics and we do not advertise for a party or a candidate. The only political activity you can connect us to is defending our right to speak.”

Mr. Pawlowski said the primary mission of his church is to feed homeless people. He said this group supplies food for about 150,000 a year, mainly to people “that no one else wants to deal with.”

“When we feed people we don’t care whether they are homosexuals or have had abortions or been divorced but we preach what the Bible says about those issues.”

He said the financial issues are just a “smoke screen” and the real agenda is to “keep us quiet.” Mr. Pawlowski also noted that his church has never been audited by the CRA.

Mr. Pawlowski and his group have a long and loud history of dealing with Calgary officials. In 2007 he was arrested for obstruction and littering after attempting to preach the Gospel at a alternative theatre festival. The case was thrown out. . . . .

[Read the whole of the above National Post "Holy Post" online article .]

Ontario Bishops Reject High School “Gender Studies” Course

By Patrick B. Craine

TORONTO, Ontario, January 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario have rejected a “Gender Studies” course that is being promoted by the Ontario Ministry of Education.

The grade 11 course aims to help students “understand the meaning of gender identity and norms of femininity and masculinity,” according to the draft document, which is available on a Ministry website.

The bishops' education commission decided to reject the course at a December 7th meeting, after which they sent a letter to all of the Catholic chairs and directors of education in the province.

“The fundamental thrust of this proposed optional course reflects an ideology which is at variance with Catholic anthropology and moral teaching,” wrote Bishop Paul-André Durocher, chair of the education commission and Bishop of Alexandria-Cornwall.

“Consequently, we would recommend that Catholic secondary schools NOT include the proposed Gender Studies course in their syllabus of course offerings,” he continued, in bold print.

Among many expectations, the course plans to inculcate an appreciation for “the struggle for women's rights,” including “access to birth control information” and “reproductive rights.” Additionally, students will analyze the “struggle for the recognition of rights for sexual minorities,” dealing with such issues as same-sex “marriage” and homosexual adoption.

One section of the expectations seeks to have students evaluate individuals or groups who have promoted “equality between men and women and changing gender roles in society.” According to the course draft, one such model of “equality” is the infamous Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler. Another is Egale, one of Canada's leading homosexualist organizations.

In their letter, the bishops suggested two alternative courses, both dealing with “equity and social justice,” if Catholic high schools desire to offer more social science options. They indicated that once the expectations for these courses are released, the Institute for Catholic Education will integrate Catholic social teachings into the curriculum.

LifeSiteNews attempted to contact the Bishops' Assembly for comment, but did not hear back by press time.

The education commission's decision about the “Gender Studies” course followed their reception of a December 1st letter of concern from Campaign Life Catholic, which was presented at the meeting.

“We were pleased with [the bishops'] response,” said Mary Ellen Douglas of Campaign Life Catholic.

“When we discovered this [program], it didn't take long to read it to alert us to the concerns that were in there that were not following Catholic teaching,” she told LifeSiteNews. “There were very serious things the matter with this program that might have gone right into grade 11.”

Not all Catholic parties agree, however. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), which has become notorious for its promotion of feminist and homosexualist causes despite its role as the official Catholic teachers union, has actually made a public stand in promoting the course.

In March 2008, OECTA representatives joined Ontario NDP Women's Issues Critic Cheri DiNovo and the Miss G__ Project for Equity in Education in holding a press conference in which they called on the McGuinty government to implement the course. The Miss G__ Project, which currently has the implementation of this course as its main objective, lists the OECTA Toronto Secondary Unit as a financial supporter on its website.

“They're going to have to step back,” commented Douglas. OECTA's support of the course “doesn't surprise me at all,” she said, “but I'm hoping that they still have enough respect for the Church that they will listen to the Assembly of Bishops in Ontario.”

While it would appear the Ontario bishops' leadership will prevent the course from being taught in Catholic schools, it continues to be promoted for inclusion in the public high schools.

“I think the parents in the public school are going to have to be aware of curriculum changes that are coming in for their own students and speak up when things are contrary to their faith,” said Douglas. “I don't think there's any doubt they're going to have to take that role, as we do in the Catholic schools.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Ontario Gvmt Won’t Say Whether Catholic Schools Can Teach Beliefs on Homosexuality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10010807.html

Lesbian Ontario Education Minister Hires "Homophobia" Watchdog for Schools
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08031309.html

Ontario Catholic Teachers Run Far Left Conference Promoting Gay Activism
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/aug/06082202.html

Half of Urban Teen Girls Acquire STIs within 2 Years of First Sexual Activity

INDIANAPOLIS, December 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Half of urban teenage girls may acquire at least one of three common sexually transmitted infections (STI) within two years of becoming sexually active, according to an Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute study.

The study appears in the December 2009 issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The researchers followed 381 girls enrolled at ages 14 to 17 years and found that repeated infection with the organisms that cause chlamydia, gonorrhea and trichomoniasis also was very common.

"Depending on the organism, within four to six months after treatment of the previous infection, a quarter of the women were re-infected with the same organism," said Wanzhu Tu, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine and a Regenstrief Institute investigator.

Within two years, about three-quarters of participants with an initial sexually transmitted STI were diagnosed with a second STI, although not necessarily of the same type. Within four years of an initial STI, virtually all (92 percent) of the participants had a subsequent STI.

"To our knowledge, this study provides the first data on the timing of the initial STI and subsequent STI following the onset of sexual activity in urban adolescent women," said Dr. Tu.

The study also found that screening for STI may not be initiated until several years after sexual activity begins, especially for girls with earlier onset of sexual activity.

"This is important because many clinicians are reluctant to address sexual activity with younger teens, and may miss important prevention opportunities," said J. Dennis Fortenberry M.D. M.S., professor of pediatrics at the IU School of Medicine, and senior author of the study.

The study focuses on lower income urban adolescents; a group characterized by early onset of sexual activity, multiple sexual partners, and high STI rates.

From a December 16th, 2009, MassResistance "Update" e-mail:

Resolution introduced in Congress to remove "safe schools" czar Kevin Jennings.
MassResistance work cited.

MassResistance's research and activism exposing Obama's "safe schools" czar Kevin Jennings and has again made it to Congress. Back on October 15, 53 Congressmen signed a letter demanding Jennings be fired. But as more horrible information has surfaced, the pressure to remove Jennings is boiling over. . . . .

Dec. 11, Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX) introduced a resolution to Congress that Jennings be removed! The resolution cites Jennings' involvement in the "Fistgate" conference (which we uncovered in 2000) and his admiration of NAMBLA supporter Harry Hay, which the MassResistance blog recently helped bring to light.

111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 966

Calling on the President and the Secretary of Education to fire Kevin Jennings from his post as 'Safe Schools Czar'.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
December 11, 2009

Mr. BURGESS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor

RESOLUTION

Calling on the President and the Secretary of Education to fire Kevin Jennings from his post as 'Safe Schools Czar'.

Whereas, on December 11, 2009, The Washington Times reported that Kevin Jennings was involved in promoting a reading list for children 13 years old or older that made the most explicit sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable;

Whereas recorded tapings from conferences previously sponsored by Kevin Jennings had presenters explicitly conveying to adolescents certain types of sexual behavior;

Whereas Kevin Jennings has praised Harry Hay, a vocal supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA); and

Whereas Kevin Jennings in his capacity as 'Safe Schools Czar' may not promote criminal behavior: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) considers the behavior of a 'Safe Schools Czar' promoting sexual relationships between adults and children reprehensible;

(2) supports the belief that any and all who occupy the position of 'Safe Schools Czar' should not promote criminal behavior; and

(3) calls on the President and the Secretary of Education to find an immediate replacement for Kevin Jennings.

Copenhagen: China pushing Population Control as the Final Solution

By Hilary White

COPENHAGEN, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Population control has emerged as a key issue for "climate change" talks in Copenhagen, after the issue was brought forward by Chinese delegates. Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) said, "Population and climate change are intertwined, but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming."

"Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture."

The Chinese newspaper China Daily quotes Zhao saying that China's population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society. China has reduced the number of births by 400 million since instituting its one-child "family planning" policies, and this has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions per year, Zhao continued.

Although she declined to mention China's laws forcing women into abortion and sterilization, Zhao did acknowledge that her country faces what some have called a looming demographic crisis because of the policy, with an aging population, a reduced work force and a severe nationwide gender imbalance from sex-selective abortion.

"I'm not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I'm sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited," she said.

Todd Stern, the US Special Envoy to the conference told journalists yesterday that China is the world's largest emitter of CO2, calling the data "frightening."

"By 2020, China will be a 60% bigger emitter than the US; by 2030, it will be 80% bigger. The inescapable conclusion: major developing economies must be brought into an international framework that obligates them to curb emissions," Stern said.

The conference is proceeding despite the recent revelations that some leading climate scientists may have falsified or withheld scientific information to inflate the data on "global warming." Information was released on the internet by unidentified hackers in November that appeared to show that researchers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, one of the world's key sources of the climate change theories, had sought to prevent dissenting scientific papers from being published and deleted e-mails and raw data that would have refuted the global warming theory.

After the internet world was immediately filled with stories and theories on what quickly became dubbed "Climategate," the University of East Anglia announced it would conduct an independent review of the matter.

The 15th Session of United Nations Climate Change Conference . . . runs from December 7 to 18.

Prominent Canadian Journalist Calls for Imposed Planetary One-Child Policy

By John-Henry Westen

TORONTO, December 9, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a column published yesterday in one of the major Canadian national newspapers, Diane Francis, the Editor-at-Large of the National Post, has called for a globally enforced one-child policy taken after the example of China. "A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently of one million births every four days," writes Francis.

Commenting on the ongoing climate talks in Copenhagen, where world leaders are deliberating on possible solutions to hypothetical environmental catastrophes, Francis says, "None will work unless a China one-child policy is imposed."

In an attempt to forestall criticism of her proposal Francis stated, "For those who balk at the notion that governments should control family sizes, just wait until the growing human population turns twice as much pasture land into desert as is now the case or when the Amazon is gone, the elephants disappear for good and wars erupt over water, scarce resources and spatial needs."

Don Feder, a free-lance journalist and former media consultant for the documentary films Demographic Winter and the Demographic Bomb responded to Francis' assertions in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com.

The films document scientific evidence that, rather than overpopulation, civilization will soon be feeling the effects of the collapse of demographic growth, with most nations not achieving even a replacement birthrate of 2.1 children per woman.

Questioning Francis' proposal to impose a one-child policy, Feder asked: "Did she say how she wants to enforce this, if she wants to enforce it with fines, or imprisonment, or execution, or castration?" Feder added, "It's amazing that someone can look at China, with forced abortions, forced sterilizations and female infanticide, and can see that as a model and say 'we need that on a planetary scale.' It's mind boggling."

Francis' comments, he said, "expose these neo-Malthusians as the coercive utopians that they are. They actually want to punish people for having large families, and I think they would if they had the means to do so."

While Francis is well known for her fiscally conservative stance, she is also radically pro-abortion. In a 2002 column she exclaimed: "Any law that would force someone to have a child she did not want, or could not look after or have to put up for adoption, would be an act of state-sanctioned violence."

Francis has a particular animosity towards religion. Lamenting the inability to enforce a one-child policy, she said, "Unfortunately, there are powerful opponents. Leaders of the world's big fundamentalist religions preach in favor of procreation and fiercely oppose birth control."

Reporter Fired Over Gay Marriage E-Mail

11 Dec 2009 on MyFOXMaine.com

WATERVILLE - Larry Grard, a veteran newspaper reporter at The Morning Sentinel in Waterville, says he was fired for sending an angry e-mail to a pro-gay marriage group.

Grard says he was offended by an e-mail he received from the DC-based Human Rights Campaign the day after the November 3rd vote overturning Maine's same-sex marriage law. He fired off a response, which read, in part, "You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since the campaign began. Good riddance!"

Grard says he was immediately fired when his boss found out about the e-mail.

The union representing Grard has filed a grievance against the owners of The Sentinel.

Abortion an obstacle to health-care bill

Some Democrats vow to block final passage if amendment stays

By Alec MacGillis

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 9, 2009

President Obama and Senate Democrats sought on Sunday to generate momentum from the House's passage of health-care legislation, even as a new hurdle emerged: profound dismay among abortion-rights supporters over antiabortion provisions inserted into the House bill.

The House passed its version of health-care legislation Saturday night by a vote of 220 to 215 after the approval of an amendment that would sharply restrict the availability of coverage for abortions, which many insurance plans now offer.

[You can read the whole of this article at The Washington Post online.]

November 7, 2009 News Items Regarding the Passing of the U.S. Health Care Reform Bill Preceded by
the Passing of an Amendment Prohibiting Coverage of Elective Abortion by a Government Program

US Congress Passes Health Care Reform Bill 220 to 215

By Steve Jalsevac

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7, 2009 11:15 p.m. Eastern Time (LifeSiteNews.com) - The U.S. House passed the historic health care reform bill Saturday evening
by a very close 220 to 215 vote. The Democrats needed 218 votes to pass the bill. One Republican voted for the bill.

The bill includes the Stupak Amendment which basically contains the provisions of the long standing Hyde Amendment prohibiting any coverage of elective abortion by
a government program.

The bill still requires approval by the Senate.

BREAKING: Stupak Amendment to Health Care Bill Passes 240 - 194 Saturday Evening
Next this evening is vote on Health Care Bill

By Steve Jalsevac

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 7, 2009 10:45 p.m. (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Stupak-Pitts Amendment that would prohibit coverage of elective abortion in two big new federal programs created by the Democrat's health reform bill passed by a wide margin of 240 to 194 Saturday evening.

Debate in the House is now under way on another, much less likely to pass Republican amendment. After the vote on this last amendment, there is expected to be a final vote on the main health care bill later this evening.

CitizenLink, Nov. 4, 2009

Election Results Good for Conservatives [in the United States]

Two big governor's races and a win for marriage headlined the off-year election Tuesday.

Despite last-minute campaigning by President Barack Obama, Republican candidates won clear victories in New Jersey and Virginia.

In New Jersey, a predominantly blue state, Chris Christie was declared the winner over incumbent Jon Corzine. President Obama won the state by a 15-point margin in 2008.

Virginia Republican Bob McDonnell easily defeated Democrat Creigh Deeds, 59 percent – 41 percent.

[You can read the whole of the above article at CitizenLink.]

Sask. MP Trost launches petition against funding of planned parenthood group

Saskatoon-Humboldt MP Brad Trost
Photograph by: Gord Waldner, The StarPhoenix

The Star-Phoenikx (Saskatoon)
Wed Nov 4 2009
Page: B7

Byline: Jenn Sharp

A petition calling for a stop to federal funding of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) has been launched by Saskatoon-Humboldt MP Brad Trost.

Trost presented the petition to the House of Commons Monday. IPPF is funded through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and, according to Trost's petition, "promotes the establishment of abortion as an international human right and lobbies aggressively to impose permissive abortion laws on developing nations."

The petition says that the government pledged $18 million to the IPPF over four years and that "the IPPF does not support physician's freedom to practice according to their conscience and/or religious beliefs regarding abortion referral."

According to IPPF's website, the federation promotes sexual and reproductive health rights and provides health services for people in six world regions. Its work is focused in five priority areas: Access to services for marginalized groups, education services for adolescents, advocacy campaigns, HIV-AIDS and abortion services. . . . .

[You can read the rest of the above article on The Star-Phoenix online.]

Thursday October 29, 2009

Did Feminism Benefit Men more than Women? Prominent US Feminist Asks

By Hilary White

October 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an Op Ed in the New York Times, leading US feminist Maureen Dowd has expressed her surprise that recent research continues to find that women, who may have been economically "emancipated" by the feminist revolution, are more unhappy now, forty years later, than men.

Calling it a "paradox" that women may have thrown off the aprons, Dowd wrote, "But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?"

Dowd, a journalist and regular columnist for the New York Times, is known as one of the last of the old-school radical feminists, and is the author of the book "Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide".

Dowd's Op Ed follows a report by Time Magazine showing that despite increased economic opportunities, limit-free "reproductive choice" and easy divorce, men are more happy overall than women in the US. Women, Dowd said, are being "driven to distraction" by maintaining both their status as mothers and wives while at the same time maintaining high-powered careers. Citing several different researchers, Dowd said that a big part of the problem is children. "One area of extreme distraction is kids," she wrote.

But an even bigger threat to women's happiness, she said, is the natural instinct of women for forging strong emotional bonds and relationships. "They tend to attach to other people more strongly, beat themselves up more when they lose attachments, take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants."

In the Time piece, Nancy Gibbs says that the magazine's research showed that although women have "gained more freedom, more education and more economic power," the study found that "they have become less happy".

Since Time did a piece on feminist gains in the early 1970s, Gibbs wrote, "close to half of law and medical degrees go to women...half the Ivy League presidents are women, and two of the three network anchors soon will be; three of the four most recent Secretaries of State have been women. There are more than 145 foundations designed to empower women around the world."

But women are still saying they are not happy compared to men, according to the surveys, and are suffering more than men in the financial downturn. The mysterious "paradox" of modern, emancipated, contracepting and high-achieving women is not so mysterious to some.

Gibbs writes that among the "most confounding" changes is the evidence "that as women have gained more freedom, more education and more economic power, they have become less happy". "No tidy theory explains the trend."

Gibbs herself points to an answer, saying, "Among the most dramatic changes in the past generation is the detachment of marriage and motherhood" and that women "no longer view matrimony as a necessary station on the road to financial security or parenthood".

She notes the leap in the numbers of children born to single women (from 12 per cent to 39 per cent) and notes that while "a majority of children in the mid-1970s were raised by a stay-at-home parent, the portion is now less than a third".

But Albert Mohler, commenting in a column, followed the evidence, saying, "The big question raised by these studies is this: Has feminism produced unhappiness among women? That question is inescapable when seen in light of the historical context."

Mohler is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a board member of Focus on the Family and hosts a Christian radio talk show that discusses social issues. He quotes Gail Collins, who wrote in her book "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present," that the achievements of women "did not resolve the tensions of trying to raise children and hold down a job at the same time".

"Sadly," Mohler writes, "most feminists seem incapable, given their ideological commitments, of asking the hardest questions.

"In reality, feminism was never only about opening doors for women. In order to make the case for the vast social transformation that feminism has produced, the feminist movement aspired to nothing short of a total social, moral, and cultural revolution. Along the way, feminism redefined womanhood, marriage, motherhood, and the roles for both men and women."

Obama's "Safe Schools Czar" Funds Pornographic Display at Harvard

By James Tillman

WASHINGTON, DC, October 21, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- Obama's controversial and embattled "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings, has helped fund a pornographic, anti-Catholic and sado-masochistic art display currently being shown at Harvard University, reports massresistance.org.

The Harvard exhibition, entitled, ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993, chronicles the efforts of the homosexual civil disobedience group, Aids Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP), through the graphic stickers, posters, and other visual media used as propaganda in the early years of the homosexualist movement.

ACT UP describes itself as a "diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis." According to Jenning's homosexual partner, Jeff Davis, Jennings was once a member of the group.

Jenning's name is listed on the Harvard art display's website, beneath those who provided a gift or grant.

The posters on display, which were designed in the early days of the movement, were part of ACT UP's protest against a government that they saw as having failed to do its duty in the AIDS crisis.

One poster is comprised of an up-close photograph of a woman's genitals, with text objecting to the Supreme Court's ban on abortion. Another, ostensibly about sexism and AIDS, includes an up-close shot of male genitalia.

Other posters include a variety of offensive images and messages. One image calls President Ronald Reagan a murderer and President George H.W. Bush a serial killer, for their perceived negligence in not using tax dollars to help those with AIDS.

ACT UP also vented rage against another figure of authority: the Catholic Church. One image visually compares New York's late Cardinal O'Connor to a condom, stating that the condom, at least, helps prevent AIDS. Cardinal O'Connor was well known for maintaining the Church's teaching on contraception and homosexuality. The poster states in large letters: "Know your scumbags."

Similarly, another poster depicts two gay men kissing in front of New York's St. Patrick's Church. ACT UP is infamous for its involvement in a "protest" in St. Patrick's Church on December 10, 1989, wherein a Blessed Sacrament was desecrated.

Yet the displays of how ACT UP raged against all and any authority are perhaps less disturbing than those regarding the sexual desires of the homosexualist movement.

One image features a female toddler, with the word "Dyke" written beneath her in typeset. "Dyke" is a term used to designate a homosexual female, and often carries the connotation of a "butch" homosexual female.

In another part of the museum one finds text apparently describing an adult's violent sexual assault on a child.

ACT UP is described on their website as a group "united in anger" to help end the AIDS crisis. They are notorious for their disruptive protests; their website includes instructions regarding how to handle being arrested.

Kevin Jennings has increasingly come under fire in the last number of months, as more information about his radical views has come to light.

Jennings is a co-founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which targets children in public schools and classroom curricula to embrace homosexuality as a normative behavior.

In addition, during a speech in 2000, Jennings admitted failing to report the statutory rape of a fifteen-year old who was involved in a homosexual relationship with a much older man. Rather than reporting the situation, Jennings instead instructed the boy to wear a condom.

Jennings has also come under fire for his praise of Harry Hay, an ardent admirer of the North American Man/Boy Love Association and an advocate of lowering the age of consent laws. Additionally, it has recently come to light that Jenning's helped raise money for the Obama presidential campaign.

53 House Republicans have asked President Obama to fire Jennings, stating that he will push a homosexual agenda and that he clearly "lacks the appropriate qualifications and ethical standards to serve in this capacity."

[Can "Gay-Straight Alliance and Christian clubs can co-exist in public schools"?]

School club controversy raises more questions

. . . .

Naoibh O'Connor, Vancouver Courier

Published: Friday, October 02, 2009

A teacher-librarian's failed human rights complaint alleging religious discrimination at University Hill secondary raises questions about whether Gay-Straight Alliance and Christian clubs can co-exist in public schools.

The complaint by Po Chiang, sponsor of the Christian Fellowship Club at UHill, was dismissed by B.C. Human Rights Tribunal earlier this month, as reported in the Sept. 30 edition of the Courier.

It was filed against the Vancouver Board of Education, Megan Fergusson, sponsor of the Gay-Straight Alliance and Jill Philipchuk, former principal at University Hill.

Several incidents in 2007, outlined by the tribunal, suggest tension. They include Fergusson emailing teachers a video clip of an extremist American Christian group, which Chiang felt depicted all Christians as intolerant bigots. The tribunal reported that Chiang repeatedly asked Fergusson if she could attend an Alliance meeting to talk about the views of the Christian right and the "Protestant Christian's view towards homosexuality." The requests were refused.

Chiang also delayed cataloguing books donated by the Gay-Straight Alliance.

Philipchuk eventually wrote Chiang a letter of expectation, which reads, in part, "I do not expect all staff to actively engage in the work of the [Gay-Straight Alliance] club, but I do ask that all staff cooperate with the teacher sponsor's efforts in relation to activities planned by the club."

The tribunal wrote, "...[such] behaviour [by Chiang] could reasonably give rise to an impression of a lack of cooperation with or professional support for the activities of the GSA."

Chiang complained that days after attending a Christian Fellowship Club meeting, Philipchuk informed student leaders they couldn't have guest speakers because it violated the School Act's prohibition on teaching of religious doctrines and dogma.

The guest speaker was a youth pastor from a local church who had been invited by students. Chiang said students complained it was unfair since the CFC is extracurricular and other clubs are allowed guest speakers. She maintained Philipchuk singled out a religious group for special attention.

. . . .

Chiang argues staff and students with religious beliefs feel increasingly disenfranchised from the Vancouver school system. "I'm constantly wary of the fact that more of this is going to happen again," she said in a phone interview with the Courier earlier this week. "I really do think the attitude of the board and administration--I think there is a bias against Christians and religious people."

But school board chair Patti Bacchus supports the tribunal's decision, while saying she hopes students of all faiths feel welcome in public schools. "I think the question of any club that is extracurricular and based on religion is possibily an area that perhaps we have to maybe take a better look at. We have policies of inclusion. The School Act does state that schools must be conducted on a strictly secular, non-sectarian principle," she said Monday.

Glen Hansman of the Vancouver Elementary School Teachers' Association and a former anti-homophobia consultant for the district, said he's fine with religious clubs meeting after school hours on school property, but proselytizing can't be allowed at schools.

. . .Hansman , , , maintains school boards need to do more to support gay youth.

noconnor@vancourier.com

[See the article above at The Vancouver Courier online.]

A Family In Need Of Reunification

By Raphael Alexander 28 Dec 2009 Vancouver Sun Community of Interest

A Surrey family that had their three children seized by the government of British Columbia in October of 2007 is still desperately trying to get them back more than 26 months later. Their children were taken by the province after Child Services believed that the parents had shaken their then two-month-old baby girl, Bethany, even though those allegations now seem to be false, and government workers even advised their boys be returned as early as November of 2007.

The children have been in foster care ever since. The two boys who are aged five and four, respectively, and Bethany, now two, were taken by the Ministry of Child and Family Development when Paul and Zabeth Bayne were suspected of shaking their baby girl causing a head injury. The accusation is commonly known as “Shaken Baby Syndrome”. The Bayne’s insisted the injury occurred when their younger son tripped and fell on their daughter, but those pleas fell on deaf ears. . . .

. . . in April of this year a new and shocking revelation came to light that could explain the injuries of their daughter. Internal documents from the Ministry of Child Development revealed that the head injuries to the little girl were likely not caused by abuse, accident, or otherwise, but from a rare genetic disorder called glutaric aciduria.

Zabeth and Paul Bayne have had to find night jobs in the time since their children were abducted by the government, so that they can visit them during the days when they are granted access.

A court hearing on the alleged abuse will finally commence on January 10. Before then, the parents are holding a fund-raising concert entitled “For Love and for Justice” at Richmond Peace Mennonite Church on January 3 between 6:30-8pm. Those attending are encouraged to call the number 778-228-4717 to reserve a place. You can also visit several Facebook pages to learn more about their plight to get their children back.

For Love and for Justice: Facebook Event
The Bayne Campaign for Justice: Facebook Group
The Bayne Petition Site: Here

Bayne Family in British Columbia Still Without Their Three Children after Government Takes Them in Controversial Seizure
CASJAFVA Holds Eighth Rally in Support of the Parents

October 3, 2009

The Canadian Alliance for Social Justice and Family Values Association (CASJAFVA) , a group mainly based in the Chinese-Canadian ethnic commuinity in Vancouver, British Columbia, held anotbher rally October 3rd on behalf of the Baynes family. It was the eighth rally put on by the group on behalf ot the Baynes. The children of Paul and Zabeth Bayne have been separated from their parents for two years now as a result of a controvsial move by the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

The story of the Bayne family, can be seen on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj9Infbts30&feature=related . The video includes a clip from earlier CBC coverage of the issue.

The CBC print article below gives a summary of the case as it had developed up to April. of this year (2009):

Ministry disregarded legal advice to return seized children: document
Surrey parents insist they never harmed baby daughter

Friday, April 3, 2009

CBC News

Paul and Zabeth Bayne say they never abused their baby girl and are fighting for the return of their three children. (CBC)

A lawyer representing the B.C. government in a child seizure case in September 2007 had advised the return of two of three children to the Surrey parents, CBC News has learned.

The children — two boys, now aged four and three, and a 19-month-old baby girl — were taken by the Ministry of Children and Family Development because Paul and Zabeth Bayne were suspected of shaking the girl and causing a head injury.

The Baynes said their daughter's head was accidentally injured by their second son tripping and landing over her body. The couple have been fighting to get their children back ever since.

The lawyer representing the children's ministry had suggested the return of the two older boys to the parents because there was no evidence of harm done on the boys, according to documents obtained by CBC News on Friday.

Government lawyer Finn Jensen believed the case for holding the two boys would not hold up in court, and John Fitzsimmons, a community services manager, was aware of the lawyer's position, according to a ministry correspondence dated July 14, 2008.

"[A] medical report of November 2007, completed shortly after the two older children came into care, indicates that there was no evidence of harm of injury to the children," the correspondence said.

"No new evidence has come to light, which would indicate a risk to these children," it said.

. . .

The two boys and the baby girl have been placed in foster care.

"The boys have been in four foster homes now; that is not a secure, loving environment," Zabeth Bayne told CBC News Friday.

Kelly Gleeson, communications director of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, said Friday the matter is before the courts and "we will not be commenting."

. . . .

Campbell said Friday he is not aware of the Baynes' fight to get back their children.

"I understand these people, like most people, would like to have their children back," Campbell said when asked by CBC News at a public event.

"My constituency assistants are following it up with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I don't have the details of the case. I'm glad to follow it up," he said.

CBC News reported on Thursday the Baynes obtained internal documents from the children's ministry that suggest their daughter likely suffers glutaric aciduria, which is often mistaken for child abuse.

Glutaric aciduria is a rare genetic disorder with varied symptoms, sometimes including bleeding and swelling of the brain.

The couple, who now work as night janitors, have begun a legal challenge against the ministry's decision. But they said they likely won't get their day in court until next year because of delays and backlogs in the court system.

[Click here to see the above article on the CBC site.]

Ron Unrah has written a series of blog entries on the plight of the Baynes. His narration of their story and comments on it is in five parts. Click here for "Part One." The links to the other five parts are in the column to the right of Part One in that blog.

The following summary by Paul and Zabeth gives their side of the case:

Statement

During these past sixteen months our family has endured one of the most traumatic experiences as a result of a medical misdiagnosis and the consequent involvement of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. I wish to outline some of the injustices and hardships that have resulted as well as the damage that has been inflicted on our children as a result of this.

Due to the removal process our children have been submitted to experiencing the emotional trauma associated with the invasive and violent manner in which removal occurs. They have had a negative first hand experience with the RCMP and its subjection to the wishes of the Ministry to remove children right in the middle of their birthday party. They have lived through the pain of being separated from their parents and placed in an unfamiliar environment with strangers at a young and vulnerable age. This removal was the first time that our children had witnessed violence and emotional abuse. It was the first time that they experienced their parents unable to protect and assist them as they reached out for help to us.

The RCMP interrogated us an entire day resulting in an ambulance being called to the station to take me to the emergency room for a body that had completely seized from the brutal interrogation that an innocent mother had to endure. The RCMP then informed us that one set of finger prints and photos had gone missing and therefore could not be destroyed.

The Ministry of Children and Family has denied our premature son the needed Infant Development Programs for many months when first in care. This delay will now affect his ability to adjust in school with his peers. The emotional damages also incurred with removal from a safe and loving environment has also caused delay in his development as well as in the development of our other children who were also premature infants.

The Ministry has sought to undermine the bond that we have developed with our children, has verbally admitted this in phone conversations, and now has evidenced this through limiting and cutting back our access times. Our children are suffering as a result from this.

This wrongful removal has resulted in damaging the trust relationship we have had with our children, their sense of security and stability and their ability to form meaningful attachments due to continued bouncing from one foster home to another and then to times of respite in relief homes. . . . .

Our family has also suffered financially from this injustice. I had taught piano to children for many years and had to auction off my grand piano to pay for lawyers fees, my husband was laid off one of his positions due to too many missed days for court, visitations and meetings with the Ministry. We had to place a second mortgage on our home to also pay for lawyers fees and medical experts and now have lost our home to bankruptcy because of this. Family and friends have also given much to cover the costs incurred. The expenses now are well over $80,000 to date and the Ministry wishes to draw this over a fifteen to twenty day trial and wish us to fly our experts in for the purpose of cross examination. We now have to self represent ourselves in court.

The emotional trauma of having your children removed is unspeakable. They have torn our very heart and soul out when they took our treasures. Enduring day after day wondering if they are being cared for properly and knowing they need you and miss you and do not understand. Knowing they think you don’t want them and you have placed them with strangers is another unbearable thought as we had wanted them to know they could rely on us for everything, that they could trust us and they were loved unconditionally. Coming home to empty beds at night brings tears as we go into their rooms and pray for them one by one and blow them a kiss to wherever they are. The pain is unbearable. Putting on a brave smile at the end of a visitation as you wave goodbye to your crying child that is begging you not to leave him is barbaric.

We have been robbed of our parenthood. We have had our children stolen on false allegations and have missed the whole first year and a half of our first little girl. We are enduring what no parent should ever have to.

September 17, 2009

European Parliament Raps Lithuania for “Protection of Minors” Law Curbing Homosexual Advocacy
[title altered]

By Piero A. Tozzi, J.D.

     (NEW YORK – C-FAM) The European Parliament voted 349 to 218 today to condemn Lithuania for its "law on the protection of minors" which prohibits promotion of "homosexual, bisexual or polygamous relations" among children under 18 in the Baltic nation. Conservative critics contend that the measure, crafted in reaction to the domestic legislation of a sovereign member state pertaining to the family, oversteps the Parliament's authority.

     The resolution directs tkhe Agency for Fundamental Rights to opine on whether the law contravenes European anti-discrimination standards. Any such opinion would be non-binding, though activists would likely use it to press for greater recognition of rights based on "sexual orientation."

     An earlier proposal by the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the "liberal" parliamentary faction, would have initiated proceedings to suspend Lithuania pursuant to article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, the 1992 pact that created the European Union (EU). Parliamentarians principally affiliated with the Christian Democratic grouping, the European People's Party (EPP), worked behind the scenes to soften the resolution and remove the Article 7 reference.

     While "progressive" parliamentarians lined up to charge Lithuania with promoting "homophobia," several EPP and conservative members spoke in opposition to the measure and in support of the country's sovereign right to pass laws protecting families and children, including Lithuania's first post-Soviet head of state Vytautas Landsbergis and Slovakian parliamentarian Anna Záborksá.

     Nevertheless, the EPP remained divided on the measure, with virtually every EPP member from France voting to censure Lithuania. Surprisingly, Malta's delegation, including its two EPP representatives, voted as a bloc against Lithuania.

Lithuania's Parliament, or Seimas, passed the child protection legislation in June. The President vetoed it, in apparent reaction to criticism from Western European politicians and homosexual advocacy organizations. In July, Lithuania's parliament overrode the veto. The law is scheduled to take effect in March 2010.

     David Quinn, Director of Ireland's Iona Institute and a family rights advocate, called the resolution "a completely unwarranted intrusion in the domestic affairs of a member state." Critics such as Quinn see the non-discrimination principle, particularly with respect to sexual orientation, being used to trump long-enshrined values such as religious liberty and parental rights. Quinn called anti-discrimination "the skeleton key that opens every room of the house."

     Some observers expect the Parliamentary action to have repercussions in Ireland, where the nation will vote in a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty next month.

     While the EU has "guaranteed" that Ireland's constitutional protection of unborn life would be unaffected by a "yes" vote on Lisbon, the European Parliament's action on Lithuania has fueled concerns among Irish euroskeptics that European institutions would seek to override the Republic's domestic laws. Among other changes, the Lisbon Treaty would make the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding upon members. While silent on abortion, critics fear an activist European Court of Justice reading such a right into the charter.

     Forty-six parliamentarians abstained on the Lithuanian resolution, including three Irish EPP members. The four Irish ALDE members broke with their party and voted against the resolution, a move insiders see as tactical and intended to forestall criticism in advance of the Lisbon referendum.

Good News: Science Awards Go to Adult-Cell Researchers

[From CitizenLink.com, Septlember 16, 2009

Dr. John Gurdon, a developmental biologist from Oxford University, and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, a physician and researcher at Kyoto University, have been chosen to receive the prestigious Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award. In 2007, Yamanaka discovered Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells.

iPS cells are embryonic-like cells that can become specialized cell types without destroying a human embryo.

In a promotional video from the Lasker Institute, Yamanaka said he's excited about the future of the research.

"I expect some diseases like heart disease, heart failure, and some retinal diseases," he said, "may be a good candidate" (for therapies using this research).

Gurdon and Yamanaka will split the $250,000 cash prize and receive their awards in New York on Oct. 2.

—Steve Jordahl

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about lifesaving treatments using adult stem-cell research.

Sex Ed Gone Wild: Canadian Mag Covers Trend toward "Pleasure-Based" Sex Ed in Schools
Countered with physician's warning that "There are life and death infections involved here"

By Patrick B. Craine

Warning: The nature of this article required the inclusion of sexually explicit language that some may find offensive.

TORONTO, Ontario, September 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lianne George of Maclean's magazine has penned a piece published this week on a new trend in schools' sexual education offerings to focus on the pleasure of sex. Her article highlights the work of Toronto's Carlyle Jansen, the owner of a 'sex shop' for women, Good For Her, who has launched a new not-for-profit organization devoted to offering free, "pleasure-based" sex workshops to schools and other groups in the area.

Jansen has long offered pleasure-based workshops through her store, but, according to George, a year and a half ago Jansen started getting calls from local high school teachers who wanted her to come and offer sex-ed to their classes. Since then, Jansen guesses that she has spoken to about 12 or 15 classes.

"Kids are taught to death about all the bad things that can happen to them if they have sex," Jansen told George. "They've said, 'We've heard about sexually transmitted infections, we know you can get pregnant, but we want to know about pleasure and we want to know about healthy relationships.'"

In the classes, she talks to teens about whatever they would like to know, from masturbation to oral sex to sex toys (examples of which she brings to the classroom in case teens ask). She also teaches the kids about the sexual 'pleasure centres' using items depicting sexual organs.

Now, Jansen has helped launch the Sexual Health Education Pleasure Project (SHEPP) in the Greater Toronto Area, whose mission is "to provide free, pleasure-based sexual health education focused mainly on marginalized communities including youth, people of colour, women, queer and trans communities." Course topic titles include "Negotiating what you want - in and out of the bedroom," and "Cool, safe, and hot sex."

A topic entitled "Re-visioning 'pro-choice'" is also on the list, with the description: "Not just about abortion any more. Know your rights!" The group explains their vision of 'pro-choice' further on a page entitled 'What We Believe In'. While the phrase is certainly used to designate openness to abortion, the groups sees it as including a broader range of sexual choices, including the freedom to exercise sexual license and the freedom to marry whomever one chooses.

Gwen Landolt of REAL Women Canada criticized Jansen's narrow focus on pleasure in teaching about sexuality. "Obviously this woman is promoting her own business," she told LifeSiteNews.com, "but also it absolutely misconstrues the whole objective of sexuality.

"Obviously pleasure is a component," she said, "but not the component that matters. It's a part of a loving, truly bonding relationship, and they're missing the whole point in letting children think that sex is just an extracurricular activity, with anyone at anytime as long as it's pleasurable."

Landolt pointed to the moral dimension and to the purpose of sexuality, "which as we know is to bring forward children in a marital relationship," she said. "That's why we've been given this wonderful gift of sexuality," she explained. "It's missed the whole object of it. It's zeroed in on one component, but not the whole picture, and children should not be exposed to such a narrow perspective.". . . .

At meeting, NEA declines to remain neutral on abortion
[from the Baptist Press website]

Posted on Jul 6, 2009 | by Erin Roach

SAN DIEGO (BP)--The National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union, voted July 5 to reject a proposal officially to remain neutral on the issues of abortion and family planning.

Also during its annual meeting in San Diego July 1-6, the NEA went on record as supporting laws legalizing civil unions and "gay marriage" -- it said either are acceptable -- and it backed efforts to repeal federal legislation that "discriminates" against same-sex couples, which presumably could target the Defense of Marriage Amendment.

The proposed bylaw amendment regarding abortion would have invalidated NEA Resolution I-16 on family planning, which says NEA "supports family planning, including the right to reproductive freedom."

The defeated proposal said the NEA takes "no position" on the issues of abortion and family planning. It would have prohibited the NEA from filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in litigation seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade, and it would have kept the NEA from "lobbying for or against legislation regarding the dissemination of birth control information, the funding of birth control procedures, or the sale of birth control products." [Click here to read the rest of this article on the Baptist Press website.]f

John Holdren: Not Even Born Babies Are Human Yet

John Holdren, President Obama's Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, has written two books outlining a host of options to deal with what he sees as a global crisis of "human overpopulation."

First Things quotes Holren as follows:

“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”

["Obama Science Adviser: Trees Should be Allowed to Sue, Babies Not Yet “Human Beings," "Second-Hand Smoke," First Things online. July 30, 2009, Wesley J. Smith]

Catholics launch anti-euthanasia campaign

By ANDREW HANON, Sun Media

Last Updated: 4th September 2009

Local Catholics are inundating their MP’s with emails and letters opposing a proposal to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia.

The campaign was launched by Archbishop Richard Smith, who warned parishioners that Bill C-384 is “morally unacceptable and unworthy of our country.”

He’s trying to meet with all Edmonton area federal politicians and is urging Catholics to lobby their MP.

The author of the private member’s bill is Bloc Quebecois MP Francine Lalonde. It’s her third attempt at legalizing euthanasia, but this time it’s made it to second reading, the furthest any such bill has ever gotten.

It’s expected to be debated in Parliament on Sept. 29 — assuming that the Tory minority government isn’t toppled by the Liberals, forcing an election.

But Archdiocese of Edmonton spokesman Lorraine Turchansky said Catholics aren’t taking any chances. . . .

In his letter to parishoners, Smith said, “the common good of any society depends upon the commitment of all citizens to uphold the dignity of every human life at each moment and circumstance. The legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada would be a major social failure.”

Edmonton St. Albert Tory MP Brent Rathgeber says he’s received hundreds of emails from constituents on the issue. Only one was in favour of the bill.

“I was opposed to Bill C-384 long before I met with His Grace or received the voluminous letters and emails from my constituents,” Rathgeber said. “He was preaching to the converted.”

The politician wrote in his blog, “I do not accept the argument that euthanasia or assisted suicide is a compassionate response to suffering. As life nears its natural end, the compassionate response to any pain and hardship is good palliative care, not the termination of the patient’s life.”

But Lalonde has argued that her bill is more compassionate than the status quo. A cancer patient, she says she understands intolerable pain and thinks individuals should have the right to ease their own suffering.

She has the full support of groups like the Right To Die Society of Canada. .. .

She said surveys show growing acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Polling data on the society’s website says that in 1968 45% of Canadians thought doctors should be allowed to end the life of terminally ill patients who’ve requested it in writing. By 2002, the number had climbed to 79%.

andrew.hanon@sunmedia.ca

[To read the whole article, go to the Edmonton Sun online]

Kelowna's Mayor's Office Proclaims "Protect Human Life Week"

September 26 — October 4, 2009

September 8, 2009

The City of Kelowna, BC, Canada, has once again proclaimed Sept 26 — Oct 4, 2009 as “Protect Human Life Week” in Kelowna. It is the second consecutive year that Mayor Sharon Shepherd has agreed to sign the proclamation, which promotes dignity and respect for all human beings from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

“Protect Human Life Week” makes the statement that all human life is sacred from beginning to end.” says Marlon Bartram, the Executive Director of The Kelowna Right to Life Society. “The abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide mentality purports that inflicting death is an acceptable way to deal with difficult life circumstances or to end suffering. We’re here to say 'no,' the taking of innocent human life is always a serious ethical wrong. Offering compassion, and not death, is the a

Evangelical Francis Collins Named to Head NIH

Tiffany Stanley

Religion News Service

July 10, 2009

WASHINGTON (RNS) -- Francis Collins, the researcher who mapped the human genome and navigated clashes between his Christian faith and science, has been chosen to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Calling Collins "one of the top scientists in the world," President Obama announced his nomination on Wednesday (July 8), one day after the NIH released new stem cell research guidelines that angered many conservative Christians.

Though Collins, a self-described evangelical, will head the nation's primary scientific research agency, the avid supporter of stem cell research seems unlikely to allay the fears fellow evangelicals have over embryonic stem cell research.

"Francis is a great person, a good scientist, but we disagree with his positions on human embryonic stem cell research and on cloning human embryos for experimentation," said David Prentice, senior fellow at the conservative Family Research Council.

Prentice's office, along with the National Association of Evangelicals, Concerned Women for America and other Christian advocacy groups, favor adult stem cell research, but oppose embryonic research because they believe the process destroys nascent forms of human life.

[from Crosswalk.com ]

From citizenlink.com, June 24, 2009:

Gay-Activist Movement to be Honored at White House
by Steve Jordahl, CitizenLink senior staff writer

Event comes just months after the Obama administration failed to acknowledge the National Day of Prayer with East Room celebration.

The Obama administration, which refused to send a representative to a Capitol Hill commemoration of the National Day of Prayer, is hosting a White House celebration of what most gay activists regard as the birth of their movement.

President Barack Obama has invited key leaders in the gay community to the East Room on Monday to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of June 28, 1969, during which hundreds of homosexuals threw bottles and garbage at police and set a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, on fire.

Tim Goeglein, Focus on the Family's vice president of external relations and a former special assistant to President George W. Bush, said the White House event is a boon to the gay lobby, which has been becoming impatient with Obama.

"The president of the United State has the largest bully pulpit in the country and clearly gets to pick and choose among the issues that he would want to highlight," Goeglein said. "There's an enormous amount of pressure (to advocate for pro-gay policies). The president has partially extended health benefits to homosexual partners. The president is of course now doing a commemoration, a very important commemoration.

[Read the whole article on citizenl.ink.com .]

Scarce Federal Dollars Fund Sex Parade

[The following action alert comes from Canada Family Action in an e-mail of June 22, 2009.]

Action Alert:

Some of you will not be aware yet that the federal Conservative government “proudly” announced a transfer of $400,000 of your tax dollars to the Toronto Pride s-x parade.

There are pictures and videos from the past parades of perverted sexual acts occurring during those parades. Public nudity and other indecent acts are common in this homosexual parade, although no convictions have ever occurred. One such image I sent to every Conservative MP to show them what they just approved of and paid for. Some MPs were offended. Well - look reality in the face, “lawmakers” – this is what you spent our tax dollars on, I said.

On June 4^th Prime Minister Harper announced a new program setting aside $100 million for “Marquis Tourism Events”. With record speed, on June 15^th, the Minister of State, Diane Ablonzcy, got a $400,000 cheque out the door to fund the sex parade in Toronto this week. The next giveaway, to who knows what city, for their sex parade remains to be seen. But all this is a clear indication that the Conservative party has abandoned conservative principles. This event combined with the $50 billion dollar (and rising) debt ridden position we have been put into may well be the end to the merged conservative – progressive party as government. This is beyond being acceptable.

Some will argue that government cannot legislate morality. If that was true, government surely should not pay to promote immorality and indecency.

The Con-servative party that exists now is a dirty muddied version of liberalism at its worst.

We are thankful for the raising of the age of consent, and the steps taken to toughen justice in Canada by the Conservatives. But all of that pales when other counter productive actions are taken.

Canada Family Action is suggesting four things you may want to consider doing:

1) call upon the government to right a wrong they have perpetrated upon tax paying Canadians. Ask them to STOP the funding of anti-family and indecent projects with our TAX dollars ( the movie fiasco was such an issue). Real Conservative ideology of smaller government does not take money from tax payers and give it to sex activists.

2) call the Prime Minister and ask him to cancel this kind of out of control and excessive spending. This is a muddied, weakened, progressive version of liberalism.

3) consider whether your membership and donations to the current version of the Conservative party are good political investment.

The Conservative Party number is (866) 808-8407.

4) Call your MP’s constituency office also to express your position on this issue now. Parliament has adjourned.

http://webinfo.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

Brian Rushfeldt

Executive Director

Canada Family Action

"What Would We Do with $400,000?"

[An excerpt from an article on the website of the Association for Reformed Political Action Canada, downloaded July 10, 2009]

When we read about these developments we can only shake our heads. So many things are wrong with this scenario. Why is our federal government spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a gay pride parade? How many other similar events or activities are being paid for that people aren't responding to? (Think of the millions of dollars that this same government has given to the infamous Canadian museum of human rights, or the ongoing tax-funded slaughter of the unborn). If it was a mistake, what does that tell us about how money is being managed on a bigger picture? Why is the Prime Minister's office giving such a different message to the mainstream media then Mr. Trost is giving to a small Christian media outlet? Christians get blamed for wanting to impose our morality on the general public by applying our faith to politics. How does this government-funded homosexual festival not impose a morality of its own? The question is not whether a government will impose a morality. The question is which morality will it be? Is it the morality that says do whatever you feel like whenever you feel like? Or is it the morality that built so many of the things that we value about Canada (such as the rule of law, equality, and basic human rights)?

What if $400,000 was spent promoting the morality that builds this country stronger? What if the recent March For Life in Ottawa was given a government grant of this size each year. There is little doubt it would draw bigger crowds and be a lot of fun. Think about how backwards this is! An event that praises unrestrained sexual activity is funded (some of the money apparently was used to hire "performers") even though there is no doubt that it hurts individuals and families. But an event that promotes the value of human life is sneered at. At the March for Life children, adults, and seniors unite to proclaim the the importance of upholding our responsibilities by caring for each other, especially the most vulnerable. Afterall, we need this as a basis for the human rights that we claim to value so highly. Even a high-profile think tank recently proclaimed that Canada needs more babies. In contrast, the "gay pride" parade is about selfishness, lust, and individual rights at the expense of responsibilities. Where we spend our money gives us a pretty clear picture of where our heart is at.

Of course the point is not that we want $400,000 for causes that we believe in. The federal government should stop pretending to be a giant philanthropist and allow citizens to pay less taxes so individuals can put more money towards the things that we believe are worth supporting.

Action Items: Let's not settle for cop-out answer from our government officials who give us one answer and the mainstream media a different answer. Phone, write, or email your MP to discuss what we as a nations should be valuing and funding. If you MP is a Christian, be sure to ask them what they are doing within their party to respond to decisions like this.

Second, send a note of support to Mr. Trost ( Trost.B@parl.gc.ca ) and CC Mr. Harper ( Harper.S@parl.gc.ca ) and Mr. Clement ( Clement.T@parl.gc.ca ) so they are aware of your support for those MP's who are brave enough to speak to these issues. We can't just speak up when we disagree with something. We should be commending those who do what is right as well.

Third, beneath all political debates is an underlying war between worldviews. As Christians, we understand this bigger battle that is going on. We have to always be careful to engage in this battle in a way that is consistent with all of God's Word. Regardless of how rediculous or immoral something might be, we have to show both grace and truth. Let us remember to speak to our fellow Canadians in a spirit of love, regardless of whether our comments are public or anonymous.

[Click here to read the whole of the article from which the excerpt above was taken.]

UK, American, Canadian Pro-Life Groups Condemn Tiller Murder

By Alex Bush

June 1, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In the wake of the murder of late-term abortionist George Tiller, pro-life groups from across North America and the UK have condemned the killing as “heinous,” “deplorable,” “cowardly,” “senseless,” and “unconscionable.”

Abortionist Tiller was renowned for performing late-term abortions in Kansas, many of them post-viability. The abortionist only recently found himself in court facing 19 counts of performing illegal late-term abortions, but was found “not guilty” by a jury last month. He had also survived a previous murder attempt in 1993.

Scott Roeder, a man with no affiliations with the mainstream pro-life movement, has been taken into custody and is expected to be charged with allegedly murdering Tiller.

LifeSiteNews.com has obtained statements from some 20 pro-life groups, all unanimously condemning the murder. The statements stress that while Tiller was involved in perpetrating a great evil, all life is sacred, including the lives of abortionists. They also stress that the pro-life movement wishes to change abortion laws by legal means and not by violence. (To read all the statements, click here)

“Pro-lifers do not answer violence with violence,” said Stephen Borden, a Pastor in a pro-life African-American coalition, in response to the news of the Tiller slaying.

Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and a colleague of Borden, said that she “wanted to share with [Tiller] the harm [she] experienced from abortion.” She continued, saying that she had a deep desire for Tiller to “join me in repentance.”

“I am deeply sorry that his life was taken before that could happen,” King said.

Dr. James Dobson from Focus on the Family issued a statement saying that members of the organization “categorically condemn the act of vigilantism and violence.” Dobson said that America was built on the rule of law, and despite the verdict in Tiller’s case “he was acquitted by the court and declared ‘not guilty’ in the eyes of the law. That is our system, and we honor it.”

Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition in Canada and Vice President of International Right to Life said that not only is the murder of abortionists “seriously damaging to the pro-life cause, it is also deeply contrary to everything that is meant by the phrase pro-life.”

The Family Research Council issued a statement saying that they “strongly condemn the actions taken today by this vigilante killer and we pray for the Tiller family and for the nation that we might once again be a nation that values all human, both born and unborn.”

The UK group Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) director John Smeaton said on his blog, “SPUC has always condemned violence, whether against abortionists or unborn babies.”

“Those responsible [for violence against abortionists] have on each occasion acted as individuals, and not members of any pro-life group,” he continued.

The American Life League’s executive director Shaun Kenney said that “Leaders within the pro-life movement often discuss justice in connection with our mission to end the tragedy of abortion. Today, Dr. George Tiller's life ended in an act defying those principles.”

“We firmly hope the perpetrators of this act are apprehended, that the facts be made known, and that justice according to the law is preserved and dispensed.”

Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, said in a statement that “We cannot create a Civilization of Love with such violence. We call upon all people of good will to pray this week for the soul of Mr. Tiller and to pray that our society will abandon every form of hatred and violence.”

Burch quoted Cardinal John O’Connor, who said that killing abortionists “discredits the right-to-life movement. Murder is murder. It’s madness. You cannot prevent killing by killing.”

The National Right to Life Executive Director David O’Steen said that the “pro-life movement works to protect the right to life and increase respect for human life. The unlawful use of violence is directly contrary to that goal.”

List of pro-life groups condemning the murder (To read all the statements, click here):

Society for the Protection of Unborn Children

40 Days For Life

Operation Rescue

Center for Bio Ethical Reform

American Life League

Focus on the Family

Women Influencing the Nation

Campaign Life Coalition

Kansas Coalition for Life

Family Research Council

The Christian Anti-Defamation League

Kansas Family Policy Council

Susan B. Anthony List

Priests For Life

Kansans For Life

Stand True

National Right to Life

CatholicVote.org

Kelowna Right to Life

Real Women of BC

[British Columbia Parents and Teachers for Life would also add its condemnation of this slaying. I heard the news while travelling on holiday and we have not had time to write a formal statement. --President of BCPTL.]

Canadian Evangelical Leadership Looking to Increase March For Life Attendance

By Alex Bush

TORONTO, Ontario, May 26, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Bruce Clemenger, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), said in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com that the EFC "will be exploring ways in which we can encourage more participation" for the annual March for Life in the future.

In a recent EFC weekly update Clemenger strongly encouraged Evangelicals to make the trip to Ottawa for this year's March for Life.

Clemenger also said that he was impressed with "the number of youth attending from Catholic schools" and with the "positive and upbeat" attitude of those in attendance "despite the weather."

"We are gaining momentum, evidenced by the size of the rally, the number of young people, the number of MPs and the encouraging reports about the energy in the pro-life caucus," Clemenger said.

Clemenger told LSN that his participation "with the leaders of the Catholic Church" struck him personally. This was the first year in the history of the pro-life event that the Canadian bishops put the full weight of their official support behind the march. Nearly a dozen bishops joined the marchers earlier this May.

Clemenger led the opening prayer at the March, saying, "We stand and bear witness to the truth of life. We ask that You would bring us a government that will honour life. God, our Father, we ask that these killings stop and that together we can foster a Canadian identity built on relationships of healing."

He continued, "Give us words of wisdom as we choose life, as we affirm the dignity of all human life, and give us strength as we plea for the protection of unborn children."

Transcript of Bruce Clemenger's opening prayer at the March For Life 2009, here.

Related LifeSiteNews.com Coverage

Life Chain: a public pro-life witness
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/sep/06092002.html

12,000: Canadian 2009 March for Life Smashes Previous Attendance Records
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09051409.html

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
http://www.evangelicalfellowship.ca/

From: "The Caucus," The New York Times, May 26, 2009, 8:15 am

Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court Nominee

By Jeff Zeleny

Ron Jordan Natoli Studio/U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, via Associated Press U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

President Obama will nominate Judge Sonia Sotomayor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as his first appointment to the court, officials said Tuesday, and has scheduled an announcement for 10:15 a.m. at the White House.

If confirmed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, Judge Sotomayor, 54, would replace Justice David H. Souter to become the second woman on the court and only the third female justice in the history of the Supreme Court. She also would be the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.
[Read the whole article in The New York Times online.]

Links to Christianity Today "Politics Blog" Comments on the Sotomayor Choice

· Hope

[Note: Steven Ertelt ison LifeNews, not LifeSite as stated in error on the Christianity Today site.

· The Offhand Comment Pro-Life Groups Don't Like

· The Sotomayor Decision Pro-Life Groups Aren't Sure About

The Sotomayor Decision Pro-Life Groups Like

CBC "Engaged in Blatant Media Censorship" Says CLC about Lack of National Coverage for March for Life
CLC lodges formal complaint to the CRTC

By Alex Bush

May 25, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), the Canadian pro-life organization that every year organizes the National March for Life, is accusing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) of engaging in "blatant media censorship." According to the pro-life group, "for a broadcaster who is funded by the taxpaying Canadian public" CBC's failure to give national coverage to this year's March for Life "certainly constitutes unethical journalism and professional misconduct."

A letter signed by CLC president Jim Hughes was sent to the CBC Ombudsman today, suggesting that CBC willfully "ignored" the 12,300 people who convened on Parliament Hill two weeks ago to protest the 40th anniversary of the legalization of abortion. This despite the fact that CLC provided CBC with information about the massive pro-life event well in advance, and the fact the station has reported on much smaller protests on the Hill in the past.

"How is it that CBC's national news desk has in the recent past given lengthy coverage to a paltry 200 individuals at a pro-marijuana rally on the Hill," asks the letter, "but fails to notice 12,000+ prolife citizens overflowing the grounds of Parliament Hill?"

"Is this not proof of a double standard which favours 'socially liberal' causes?"

The letter points out that even the local coverage of the March by the CBC was limited to a mere "25 seconds on a local affiliate which misrepresented the numbers attending as 'hundreds'," rather than the more than 12,000 who attended.

According to CLC, the national blackout regarding the March for Life was to all appearances initiated by the CBC "for no other reason than the CBC disagrees with our opinions on abortion."

CLC suggests out that the omission by the CBC is even more egregious given the unprecedented level of support given to the march by the Canadian bishops, 11 of whom were present on Parliament Hill, and the "explosive 50% growth in attendance" at the march over last year's event.

Jim Hughes concludes the CLC letter, saying, "On behalf of millions of Canadians who have been deprived of unbiased journalism by its public broadcaster and the hundreds of thousands who are disgusted by the CBC's annual blacklisting of the National March For Life, I request a thorough investigation into CBC's programming practices. The results and remedies ought to receive the national publicity and exposure which CBC routinely denies to opinions with which it disagrees."

CLC also sent the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) a letter of formal complaint, which accuses the CBC of discrimination against the March for Life.

"We believe the evidence is overwhelming to support our claim that the CBC has discriminated unfairly against our massive National March For Life in that it gave no national television coverage whatsoever to this historic event," says CLC in that letter.

To read the CLC letter to the CBC: www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009_docs/CBC_letter_May2509.pdf

To read the CLC letter to the CRTC:
www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009_docs/CRTC_letter_May2509.pdf

Contact information for the CRTC and the CBC Ombudsman:

CRTC:
Toll-free: 1-877-249-CRTC (2782)
Outside Canada: 819-997-0313
Media inquiries: 819-997-9403

CBC Ombudsman Vince Carlin
E-mail: ombudsman@cbc.ca
Telephone: 416/205-2978

Thursday May 14, 2009

12,000: Canadian 2009 March for Life Smashes Previous Attendance Records

By John Jalsevac

May 14, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Under the threat of dark clouds and sometimes through pouring rain, a record-smashing crowd of 12,000 Canadians today gathered on Parliament Hill for a rally and then marched through the streets of Ottawa in protest against 40 years of legalized abortion in Canada.

The number of participants significantly exceeded last year's record-breaking crowd of 8,000, making it by far the largest crowd in the 12 years that the march has taken place.

Those in attendance included 18 Members of Parliament.

Jim Hughes, the president of Campaign Life Coalition, the pro-life group which organizes the annual event, told LifeSiteNews that he was thrilled with the turnout. "It's a real blessing," he said, "especially the growing number of young people that are here."

"This is going to make a difference," said Hughes, who pointed out that pro-life Canadians are beginning to mark the date of the march on their calendars, and are going out of their way to make it every year. "We're having a real impact here," he said.

Today's events began in the morning with interdenominational prayer services at the Canadian Reformed Church and St. George's Anglican Church, and two Catholic masses at Notre Dame Basilica and St. Patrick's Basilica.

Eyewitnesses at the Catholic masses said that both churches were filled to, and beyond, capacity. Approximately 900 people squeezed into St. Patrick's Basilica, while over 1,100 overflowed Notre Dame. As well, an additional 200 or so at each location had to watch the mass on a screen in the basement of each church, due to the lack of space.

Hughes said he was especially pleased by the unprecedented show of support from the Canadian Catholic bishops, with 11 bishops celebrating at the masses. This was the first year in the history of the march that the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has thrown its official support behind the event.

At 3 p.m., after the rally on Parliament Hill and the march, representatives of Silent No More Awareness Campaign began delivering powerful testimonies about their personal experiences with abortion, repeatedly moving their listeners to tears. Just as the clock on the Hill was striking 3:00, many in the crowd marvelled that the sun suddenly broke through the clouds for the first time that day and soon afterwards the sky cleared with hardly a cloud in sight. Also, some pointed out that as each of the Silent No More Awareness speakers was introduced, as if on cue a strong wind would blow, with the strongest occuring when the Canadian leader of the group, Angelina Steenstra, was introduced.

[From: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09051409.html ]

Alberta's culture minister not backing down on parents' rights bill

By Trish Audette, Edmonton JournalMay 14, 2009

EDMONTON — Alberta's culture minister says he has no intention of backing away from a controversial plan to guarantee parents the right to pull kids from classes that clash
with their moral beliefs.

Lindsay Blackett, a rookie minister and first-time MLA, says that despite the barbs sent his way from teachers, human rights groups, school boards, parents and opposition
politicians, he's convinced he's doing the right thing by enshrining 'parents' rights' in the provincial Human Rights Act.

"One of the things that this bill and the parental rights piece has brought to light is a discussion about our rights as parents," Blackett said.

Last month, the minister introduced a package of proposed changes to the act which would, for the first time in provincial history, enshrine in law the right to protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

But it was the parental rights clause, which would allow parents to withdraw their children from classroom lessons on sexuality, sexual orientation and religion, that made headlines. . . . .

[Click here to read the whole article in the Calgary Herald online.]

Good News - Human Trafficking Bill Easily Passes First Vote in Parliament
[from the ARPA website at http://www.arpacanada.ca/index.php/mn/563-human-trafficking-bill-easily-passes-first-vote-in-parliament]

ARPA Note: Thanks to all those who urged their MP to support this private member's bill. We will continue to watch it as it makes its way through the necessary stages on its way to becoming law. Continue to urge your MP to pass this legislation.

News Release from Joy Smith:

VOTE REVEALS STRONG SUPPORT FOR C-268 - Ottawa, ON: Joy Smith, Member of Parliament for Kildonan – St. Paul, was delighted with the results of a vote today on Bill C-268 at Second Reading. Bill C-268, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (minimum sentence for offences involving trafficking of persons under the age of eighteen years), passed at Second Reading by a vote of 232 in favour to 47 opposed.

“The resounding support for Bill C-268 is a clear indication that Members of Parliament understand the importance of enacting enhanced penalties for the trafficking of children,” said MP Joy Smith. “Victims of human trafficking, especially children, experience catastrophic lifelong physical and psychological harm. Mandatory minimum sentences would reflect the both gravity of this crime and Canada’s international obligations to protect children.”

MP Joy Smith also tabled petitions containing over 5000 signatures from Canadians who are demanding that the penalties to child traffickers fully reflect the gravity of the crime.

“It is clear that the lenient sentences handed out to for child traffickers in Canada are not acceptable to Canadians,” said MP Smith. “I would encourage Canadians to continue voicing their support for mandatory sentences for the trafficking of children.”

Bill C-268 will now be reviewed by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, before being reported back to the House of Commons for Third Reading.

A Look Back at Obama's First 100 Days

[ From: CitizenLink April 29, 2009 at http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000009905.cfm ]

staff reports

'I would hope he would do more to protect families in this country.'

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama will mark his 100th day in office. Focus on the Family Action has analyzed his decisions and policies thus far, as they relate to the family.

In his first 100 days, Obama has:

Signed an executive order allowing taxpayer funding to go to international groups that promote or provide abortions. The “Mexico City Policy,” as it’s known, also was rescinded by President Bill Clinton and then reinstated by President George W. Bush.

Opened the door for more human embryos to be destroyed for unethical stem-cell research despite science showing that adult stem cells provide cures; to date, embryonic stem cells have not.

Begun the process of rescinding the Bush health care provider conscience regulations. This move comes at a time when the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of practicing physicians, a drop one senator described as reaching "crisis proportions." Making it easier for hospitals and medical schools to discriminate against physicians based on their moral or religious beliefs will only drive more of them out of the profession.

Lifted a seven-year ban on taxpayer funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is linked to forced abortion programs.

Nominated Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. Clinton is an ardent pro-abortion politician who recently accepted Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award. During her acceptance speech, Clinton praised the eugenicist Sanger as a great Americans.

Nominated Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services. She has accepted campaign contributions from notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller and welcomed him into the governor’s mansion. Sebelius is one of the most pro-abortion governors in the country.

Nominated Dawn Johnsen, former legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Johnsen has called motherhood “involuntary servitude” and has said that restrictions on abortion make women nothing more than “fetal containers.”

Attacked charitable giving by proposing a reduced tax deduction for gifts to nonprofits. If it becomes law, it will have a major impact on faith-based ministry giving and other nonprofits.

Signed a bill that kills the District of Columbia’s successful school-choice program. The program benefits low-income families by providing private-school scholarships. Approximately 3,500 students have benefited from this program.

. . .

Appointed Ellen Moran to a major communications post at the White House. Moran is the former executive director of the pro-abortion EMILY’s List.

. . . .

Expressed support for hate-crimes legislation and will sign if it reaches his desk. The House will vote on the measure April 29. The legislation creates a special class of crime based on the victim’s sexual orientation. Those accused of “inducing” a federal hate crime could be held responsible for the actions of another person. For example, pastors preaching against homosexuality could be charged with a crime if someone listening committed a “hate crime” against a gay individual.

Ordered a legal review of hiring-and-firing standards instituted by faith-based groups that receive federal funding.

Released a Department of Homeland Security “watch list” that included pro-life Americans.

. . . .
[To read the whole of the article, go to http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000009905.cfm .]

German Parents Convicted after Withdrawing Daughter from Explicit Sex-Ed Program: Appeal Filed

April 22, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Alliance Defense Fund attorneys are representing two German parents in an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights filed Tuesday. The two parents were convicted under German law when they chose to educate their child at home on the subject of sexuality rather than allow her to participate in a four-day "sexual education" course and related stage production at her school, both of which taught views of sexuality in conflict with the family's Christian faith.

"Parents, not the government, are the ones ultimately responsible for making educational choices for their children," said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska.

The parents, Eduard and Elisabeth Elscheidt, and their three children are active in the Christian Baptist Church. The Elscheidts were concerned about allowing their 11-year-old daughter Franziska to attend four school days of "sexual education" and a mandatory, interactive stage play titled, "Mein Körper gehört mir" ("My Body Is Mine") in February 2007. They regarded the play and lessons as morally harmful.

The parents, being convinced that they were within their legal and moral rights to protect their daughter, removed her from the offending play and accompanying lessons, instead opting to educate her according to their own views on sexuality during those days. They did not withdraw their daughter from any other school programs or classes. The parents believe that the play and lessons were not only opposed to their faith, but also obliterated their rights under Protocol 1, Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

The Elscheidts argued to a German court that no scientific proof existed that the programs prevented child abuse (the play's stated purpose) but, to the contrary, taught the children to become sexually active by ultimately teaching the principle that if something feels good sexually, then it is acceptable to do it. The court nonetheless convicted and fined the Elscheidts in June 2008.

Two subsequent appeals were rejected, resulting in the appeal to the European Court of Human Rights filed Tuesday. The application objects to the punitive measures applied by the German court in convicting the applicants and seeks to establish that such opt-outs of "sexual education" programs are in line with ECHR Protocol 1, Article 2.

ADF Counsel Kiska said, "These parents were well within their rights under the European Convention of Human Rights to opt to teach their children a view of sexuality that is in accord with their own religious beliefs instead of sending them to a class and stageplay they found objectionable. These types of cases are crucial battles in the effort to keep bad decisions overseas from being relied upon by activists who attack parental rights in America."

URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042203.html

Miss California USA Loses Crown after Defending Marriage

[From CitizenLink, April 21, 2009]

by Jennifer Mesko, [CitizenLink] editor

'It's not about being politically correct. For me, it was being biblically correct.'

Miss California USA Carrie Prejean said she knew she'd lost the Miss USA crown as soon as she spoke in favor of one-man, one-woman marriage.

During Sunday night's Miss USA telecast, Prejean was asked whether other states should follow Vermont's lead in legislating same-sex "marriage."

"In my family, I … believe marriage should be between a man and a woman," she said. "No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

Prejean later told NBC: "I knew at that moment, after I'd answered the question, I knew that I was not going to win because of my answer — because I had spoken from my heart, from my beliefs, and for my God."

Even Donald Trump, who co-owns the pageant, said her answer "probably did cost her the crown." Prejean finished as first runner-up to Miss North Carolina.

Perez Hilton, a gay-activist blogger, was the judge who posed the question to Prejean. He called it the "worst answer in pageant history" and called Miss California profane names.

"That is not the kind of woman I want to be Miss USA," he told MSNBC. "Miss USA should represent all Americans. And with her answer, she instantly was divisive and alienated millions."

Interestingly, tens of millions of Americans in 30 states — including California — have passed constitutional amendments to protect the definition of marriage.

"The majority of California’s voters — more than 7 million people — voted to protect traditional marriage," Ron Prentice, chairman of California's ProtectMarriage.com, told Fox News. "And we congratulate Miss California for her conviction to speak her beliefs."
Hilton apologized Monday for his comments, but today said he stands by what he said. . . . .

[To read the whole of this CitizenLink article, click here.]

"Mr. Bean" Star Urges House of Lords to Protect Free Speech Clause in "Anti-Homophobia" Law

By Kathleen Gilbert

LONDON, March 20, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Comedian Rowan Atkinson, best known for his role as "Mr. Bean," has urged the British House of Lords to ignore a bid to remove a clause protecting free speech in the UK's "anti-homophobia" law.

The Blackadder and Mr. Bean actor told the Lords meeting Tuesday: "Do I think that I would risk prosecution because of jokes or drama about sexual orientation with which I might be involved if we don't have the free speech clause?

"Not really - but I dread something almost as bad - a culture of censoriousness, a questioning, negative and leaden attitude that is encouraged by legislation of this nature but is considerably and meaningfully alleviated by the free speech clause."

The Government is expected to delete a free speech protection added last year to rein in the law against "incitement to homophobic hatred," which carries a maximum seven-year jail sentence. The protection reads: "For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred."

If the Government succeeds, it would fall to the House of Lords to possibly recuperate the amendment. A similar scenario was played out last May, when the same words were deleted by MPs in Parliament, then reinstated by Peers in the House of Lords.

Atkinson, who has led criticism of "hate speech" laws in previous years, criticized such laws in general: "The last thing that any academic, or cleric, or practitioner in creative writing wants to hear, is of police officers walking round with a tool box bulging with sanctions against speech and expression that 'could be useful one day'," he said.

"I do not believe that legislation of such a censorious nature as that of Hate Speech, carrying as it does the risk of a seven year jail sentence for saying the wrong thing in the wrong way, can ever by justified merely by the desire to 'send the right message'."

Lord David Waddington, who inserted the amendment last year, said after Tuesday's meeting: "Last year the House of Lords voted not once but twice to force the Government to accept a free speech clause in its controversial new 'homophobic hatred' offence.

"Many of my colleagues are shocked that the Government should be trying to repeal such a modest protection so soon after it was passed into law," he continued. "However, I think the Government has got a fight on its hands."

Waddington noted that "Christian groups are particularly concerned that the homophobic hatred law will be unfairly used against them" as "there have been plenty of examples of heavy-handed police intervention even before the new law."

"In recent months there has been a growing sense that devout Christians are being marginalised in British society. Repealing the free speech clause will only make things worse," he said.

Staring into the Abyss

Why Peter Singer makes the New Atheists nervous.

Dinesh D'Souza | posted on Christianity Today online on Mar, 17, 2009

I write this fresh from debating bioethicist Peter Singer on "Can we be moral without God?" at Singer's home campus, Princeton University. Singer is a mild-mannered fellow who speaks calmly and lucidly. Yet you wouldn't have to read his work too long to find his extreme positions. He cheerfully advocates infanticide and euthanasia and, in almost the same breath, favors animal rights. Even most liberals would have qualms about third-trimester abortions; Singer does not hesitate to advocate what may be termed fourth-trimester abortions, i.e., the killing of infants after they are born.

Singer writes, "My colleague Helga Kuhse and I suggest that a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to life as others." Singer argues that even pigs, chickens, and fish have more signs of consciousness and rationality—and, consequently, a greater claim to rights—than do fetuses, newborn infants, and people with mental disabilities. "Rats are indisputably more aware of their surroundings, and more able to respond in purposeful and complex ways to things they like or dislike, than a fetus at 10- or even 32-weeks gestation. … The calf, the pig, and the much-derided chicken come out well ahead of the fetus at any stage of pregnancy."

Some people consider Singer a provocateur who says outrageous things just to get attention. But Singer is deadly serious about his views and—as emerged in our debate—has a consistent rational basis for his controversial positions.

To understand Singer, it's helpful to contrast him with "New Atheists" like Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. The New Atheists say we can get rid of God but preserve morality. They insist that no one needs God in order to be good; atheists can act no less virtuously than Christians. (And indeed, some atheists do put Christians to shame.) Even while repudiating the Christian God, Dawkins has publicly called himself a "cultural Christian."

But this position creates a problem outlined more than a century ago by the atheist philosopher Nietzsche. The death of God, Nietzsche argued, means that all the Christian values that have shaped the West rest on a mythical foundation. One may, out of habit, continue to live according to these values for a while. Over time, however, the values will decay, and if they are not replaced by new values, man will truly have to face the prospect of nihilism, what Nietzsche termed "the abyss."

Nietzsche's argument is illustrated in considering two of the central principles of Western civilization: "All men are created equal" and "Human life is precious." Nietzsche attributes both ideas to Christianity. It is because we are created equal and in the image of God that our lives have moral worth and that we share the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Nietzsche's warning was that none of these values make sense without the background moral framework against which they were formulated. A post-Christian West, he argued, must go back to the ethical drawing board and reconsider its most cherished values, which include its traditional belief in the equal dignity of every human life.

Singer resolutely takes up a Nietzschean call for a "transvaluation of values," with a full awareness of the radical implications. He argues that we are not creations of God but rather mere Darwinian primates. We exist on an unbroken continuum with animals. Christianity, he says, arbitrarily separated man and animal, placing human life on a pedestal and consigning the animals to the status of tools for human well-being. Now, Singer says, we must remove Homo sapiens from this privileged position and restore the natural order. This translates into more rights for animals and less special treatment for human beings. There is a grim consistency in Singer's call to extend rights to the apes while removing traditional protections for unwanted children, people with mental disabilities, and the noncontributing elderly.

[Read the rest of the above article on Christianity Today online.]

Obama to lift stem-cell restrictions

Medical ethics at issue

Jon Ward THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Saturday, March 7, 2009

President Obama on Monday will overturn President Bush's limits on federal funding of embryonic stem-cell research, negotiating an ethical minefield to fulfill a campaign promise that some think could lead to cures for a variety of diseases.

The president will sign an executive order at the White House on Monday, an Obama spokesman confirmed to The Washington Times.

The Bush administration, citing moral objections to the destruction of embryonic human life, banned federal funding of the research for all but a few lines of embryonic stem cells, those already in existence in 2001, about which President Bush said at the time, "The life-and-death decision has already been made."

"It's very exciting. It means many new opportunities for embryonic stem-cell science," said George Q. Daley, a leading researcher on the subject at Harvard Medical School.

"I'm looking forward to the [National Institutes of Health] being able to make really credible decisions based on science and not on politics," Mr. Daley said.

But opponents of embryonic research said the president is, in fact, defying scientific evidence with his decision to promote research that requires eggs to be fertilized and human embryos created in order to harvest the stem-cell lines.

David Prentice, a former Indiana University researcher now at the Family Research Council, said, "All of the scientific success is taking place with adult stem cells for patients, and the IPS cells for basic research."

IPS, which stands for induced pluripotent stem cells, is the technique that has produced a wave of excitement within the scientific community over the past few years, as researchers have discovered the ability to manipulate adult stem cells to make them similar to embryonic stem cells.

"They look and act exactly like embryonic stem cells, but they're cheaper and easier to make. You can make them from any patient to treat the disease, and you bypass the ethical problems," Mr. Prentice said. "When we talk about science, the results have bypassed using human embryos for these experiments. It really is the poorest and obsolete science."

[Read the whole article in The Washington Times online.]

_________

The obsession with stem cells obtained by destroying embryos has little to do with any real evidence of therapeutic benefit, and a great deal to do with researchers’ ultimate goal of being able to manipulate human life at will.

--Richard M. Doerflinger is deputy director of the Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, quoted on Focus on a the Fanuly website ``Citizen Link``

___________

Local study sheds light on HIV

More than a quarter of female sex trade workers in city infected with virus

By Pamela Fayerman, Vancouver SunMarch 5, 2009

Twenty-six per cent of Vancouver's female sex trade workers are infected with HIV, as are 17 per cent of the city's injection-drug users, a new B.C. study shows.

The study, by researchers at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and published in the Harm Reduction Journal, is the first in Canada to estimate the per-capita prevalence ranges for high risk groups, using United Nations/World Health Organization software, 2006 Statistics Canada data and other sources such as population surveys.

Gay men, the local population of which is said to be 20,000, including male sex trade workers, have an estimated HIV prevalence rate of 15 per cent.

The overall prevalence of HIV in Vancouver is about 1.21 per cent, six times higher than the national rate.

"Drugs and sex are the preferred routes for transmission. Female sex trade workers get paid more money for having unprotected sex with johns," explained co-author Dr. Julio Montaner, who is president of the International AIDS Society and head of the division of HIV/AIDS at the University of B.C.

There are up to 520 female sex trade workers in Vancouver.

[Read the whole article in The Vancouver Sun online.]

California's Temper Tantrum

How the gay rights movement lost more than Proposition 8.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway | posted 3/05/2009 on Christianity Today online

Obnoxious mobs that won't tolerate disagreement don't usually win supporters.

A manager at a Los Angeles Mexican restaurant was targeted for her $100 contribution in support of traditional marriage. Protesters hounded her out of her job, and did the same to a Sacramento theater director and the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. Churches and Mormon temples were vandalized. The mainstream media ran an all-out public relations campaign in support of same-sex marriage. Hollywood quickly put together "Prop. 8: The Musical," an Internet video that mocked Jesus, the Bible, and Christians.

"Want to cause a nice long backlash to gay rights? That's the way to do it," said lesbian social critic Camille Paglia.

Obnoxious, bigoted mobs that won't tolerate any disagreement don't usually win supporters. Or, as the usually insufferable Objectivist Ayn Rand said, "Argument from intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence." Of course, if the media are to be believed, same-sex marriage is a done deal. "Same-sex marriage is inevitable. It just takes time," a Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist wrote.

The conventional wisdom is that traditional marriage is a demographically lost cause. Younger voters are more likely to support same-sex marriage than older voters, we're repeatedly reminded. Indeed, 61 percent of voters over 65 supported Prop. 8, while 61 percent of people under 30 voted against it.

But if history and demographics are on the side of same-sex marriage, one wonders why journalists, Hollywood executives, and gay activists didn't just sit tight and wait. Why voluntarily sabotage their cause with a coordinated campaign of bigoted, violent, and hateful reactions to recent public votes on the matter?

Despite the story pushed by the mainstream media, the only statistics that really matter are at the ballot box. And marriage supporters have been victorious in each of the 33 states that have put the issue up for vote. The only significant success the same-sex marriage crowd has had has been achieved by judicial fiat. In California, a never-before-assembled coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons raised $40 million and generated hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

"In spite of repeated efforts by gay activists and mainstream media types to portray this as an issue nobody but the gay-rights people really care about, the Prop. 8 victory itself demonstrates the marriage issue is drawing new attention," said Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage.

And just because younger voters support same-sex marriage now doesn't mean their attitudes won't change. As people age, they tend to get married, have children, and worship more regularly—all of which weigh heavily in voting decisions.

The violent mobs and sneering media confirm one of the arguments made by traditional marriage proponents: Same-sex marriage and religious freedom are on a collision course.

Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown University law professor and gay activist who drafts federal legislation related to sexual orientation, has publicly said that when religious liberty conflicts with gay rights, "I'm having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win."

Indeed, religious liberty almost always loses. A lesbian couple in Albuquerque successfully sued a Christian photographer because she declined to shoot their commitment ceremony. When Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, Catholic organizations had no option but to shut down their adoption services.

The California Supreme Court ruled that doctors must provide reproductive services to lesbians despite religious objections. A Methodist camp in New Jersey lost its tax exemption after it told a lesbian couple they could have their commitment ceremony anywhere except in buildings that are used for religious services. The list goes on.

But the response to California's democratic vote publicized this clash between religious freedom and gay rights like never before.

[Read the rest of the article on Christianity Today online.]

One small victory for freedom of speech

The Gazette, March 5, 2009

McGill University's student government has bucked an unfortunate national trend by granting full club status to a student anti-abortion group.

The Student Society's decision to grant recognition to Choose Life is not so much a victory for pro-life forces as it is a victory for free speech and freedom of association, values that seem to be under attack, and poorly defended, on many Canadian campuses - where they should be safest.

Students at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, for example, have denied status to an anti-abortion group, and Carleton University's student leaders are considering a motion to refuse support or space to any group that doesn't support "a woman's right to choose."

[Read the whole of the article in The Gazette online.]

Abbotsford Approves Social Justice 12

By Janet Steffenhagen Feb. 10, 2009

Abbotsford trustees have decided that schools may teach Social Justice 12 starting in September 2009 to students who have permission from parents or guardians.

The decision was announced in a news release today. It says:

"While there has been a perception that the Abbotsford board prohibited access to the Social Justice 12 elective course, in fact no such decision was made. The board has now reviewed the course, which the Minister of Education approved for elective use in British Columbia schools in late August 2008.

"As part of the process, the board's education committee conducted an in-depth review of the draft version of the course, the board's submission and reply to the ministry, and approved the Integrated Resource Package (IRP).

"The board has approved a recommendation authorizing the course for use in the Abbotsford school district, provided that parents/guardians given their consent." That stipulation - which is unusual in Abbotsford - is due to the "sensitive nature" of some of the course content, it adds. . . . .
[Click here for the whole of Janet Steffenhagen'a article on her online blog, plus comments.]

Obama and evangelicals: Form over substance

Posted: January 24,,on WorldNet Daily
By Gary Bauer

President Barack Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration was suffused with political overtones. While the selection of Warren (who, like most Americans, opposes same-sex marriage) attracted fierce attacks from homosexual-rights groups, it also was seen as a way for the president to increase his political capital with evangelical voters.

A few days later, Obama's decision to wait until after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade before issuing an order restoring U.S. funding for international abortion groups was seen as proof that our new president is willing to reach out to both sides in the abortion debate. Even though waiting just one day had no substantive effect on abortion policy, many in the media saw it, as one newspaper put it, as proof of the president's "sensitivity to foes of Roe. v. Wade."

But, barring divine intervention, Warren's inauguration prayer and Obama's one-day abortion delay won't help the new president's standing among religious conservatives. To understand why, Obama should study Jimmy Carter, whose presidency taught evangelicals a generation ago that Christian policies, not symbolic gestures, matter most. . . . .

Jimmy Carter attracted religious voters in 1976 because he was an ardent "believer." He lost them four years later in part because of his support for policies most religious voters abhorred, including liberal abortion policies, the Equal Rights Amendment, special rights for homosexuals and ending public school prayer.

Evangelicals also discovered that, though not a regular churchgoer, Reagan understood that America's liberty comes from God and that it was wrong to destroy innocent human life. Religious voters learned a generation ago that strong religious sentiment is not by itself a reliable predictor of policy.

The 1980 presidential election foreshadowed Obama's difficulties with evangelical voters. Ever since bursting onto the national political scene at the 2004 Democratic National Convention announcing, "We worship an awesome God in the blue states," Barack Obama has made attracting religious voters a cornerstone of his presidential aspirations. As David Paul Kuhn of Politico wrote a few days before Election Day, "No Democratic nominee in the modern day has made more of an effort to court religious voters than Obama."

But, according to exit polls, white evangelicals chose John McCain over Barack Obama by 50 percentage points, 74 percent to 24 percent. Obama improved on 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry's white evangelical vote by only 3 percentage points. This despite that Kerry made almost no effort to court religious voters and faced a much more overtly religious opponent whose campaign focused on turning out religious voters.

What happened?

During the campaign, Obama made several mistakes that disenchanted religious voters. First came the revelation of incendiary remarks by Obama's long-time pastor and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright. Then, during a religious forum at Warren's Saddleback Church, Obama's glib remark that the question of when a child gets human rights is "above my pay grade" stunned those in attendance, including me.

That incident led to increased scrutiny of Obama's abortion position, which evangelicals soon discovered is uniformly anti-life and includes positions even the abortion group NARAL has refused to endorse.

Added to this were Republican nominee John McCain's firmly pro-life answers at the Saddleback forum (When does life begin? "At conception.") and the selection of pro-life heroine Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Like Reagan, McCain is a divorcee who was reluctant to use overtly religious language on the campaign trail. But, again like Reagan, McCain held the right positions on what religious voters call the "nonnegotiable issues."

It's hard to downplay these developments. Last spring, after a giant opinion poll by Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showed that abortion and marriage continue to be crucial for evangelical voters, Pew's John C. Green told the New York Times that the survey "suggests that the efforts of Democrats to peel away Republican and conservative voters based on economic issues face a real limit because of the role these cultural issues play."

In the days before the election, as polls continued to predict that few evangelicals would turnout for Obama, Green told Politico, "What we could be seeing is that comfort and campaigning only go so far [with religious voters], and that ultimately it's substance that matters to these voters."

Obama should ponder an important lesson of Jimmy Carter's failed presidency, which is that "faith without works is dead." If Obama wants to send a real message of inclusion and build a bridge to the faith community, he must do more than invite evangelicals to offer prayers and wait a day before implementing an extreme policy that forces Americans to pay for overseas abortions in a time of recession. He must affirm basic Christian values in his policies while distancing himself from the extreme social positions that alienate most Americans. It will be by Obama's deeds, not his words, that the evangelical community can be won.

[Clickl here to read the whole article on WorldNet Daily.]

Sexually transmitted disease rates soar: CDC

From the National Post online:

Will Dunham, Reuters Published: Tuesday, January 13, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. syphilis rates rose for a seventh year in 2007, driven by gay and bisexual men, while chlamydia reached record numbers and gonorrhea remained at alarming levels -- especially among blacks, health officials said on Tuesday.

Blacks make up 12 percent of the U.S. population, but account for about 70 percent of gonorrhea cases and almost half of chlamydia and syphilis cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. . . . .

Chlamydia and gonorrhea are easily diagnosed and treated, but frequently have no symptoms and remain undetected.

Untreated, chlamydia and gonorrhea -- both bacterial infections -- can cause pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility in women. The two infections also can cause ectopic pregnancy, chronic pelvic pain and other health problems.

"Of all the causes of infertility, this is probably the most preventable -- since these infections can be prevented, diagnosed and treated," Douglas said in a telephone interview.

In men, gonorrhea can cause a painful condition of the ducts attached to the testicles that cause infertility. Gonorrhea also can spread to the blood or joints and can be life threatening. Chlamydia complications among men are rare.

Douglas said to avoid STDs, teens can delay the beginning of sexual activity, people can limit the number of sexual partners and use condoms. "Condoms have risk-reduction value for every sexually transmitted condition," Douglas said.

Syphilis is less common than the others, with 11,466 cases reported in 2007. Rates rose 15 percent from 2006. Syphilis rates dropped by 90 percent in the 1990s to a record low level in 2000, and officials thought it might disappear as a public health threat before its resurgence this decade.

Syphilis has increased each year since 2000 -- its rate is up 81 percent -- with gay and bisexual men representing 65 percent of cases, the CDC said.

Douglas said many cases are occurring in HIV-positive men who are choosing other HIV-positive men as sexual partners.

"Within that relationship, they are less concerned about the transmission of other conditions. They're not using condoms. They believe that their partner already has got the worst they can get -- they've got an HIV infection," he said.

When all STDs are considered, including human papillomavirus (HPV or genital wart virus) and herpes simplex viruses, almost 19 million new infections occur each year, with nearly half among those ages 15 to 24, the CDC said.

[Click here to read the whole Natonal Post article online.]

Pepsi Gives $1,000,000 to Advance Homosexualist Agenda

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

January 2, 2009 (LifeSIteNews.com) - Soft drink giant PepsiCo, which also owns Frito Lay chips, Tropicana orange juice, Gatorade and Quaker oatmeal, has given a million dollars in the past two years to organizations which promote homosexuality, and forces its employees to attend sexual orientation and gender identity/expression classes.

$500,000 went to the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays' (PFLAG) "Straight for Equality" program which, according to PFLAG's website (http://community.pflag.org/Document.Doc?id=160), "will be used to expand workplace training."

Jacqueline Millan, director of PepsioCo Corporate Contributions, said in a PepsiCo bulletin, "We are delighted to continue our partnership with PFLAG. The Straight for Equality in the Workplace training program is unique in that it is promoting the necessary message of inclusion to untapped groups within the local community, and that is a crucial step towards building a healthy work environment."

Pepsi also gave $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a group that describes itself as "America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality," according to an American Family Association (AFA) report.

The AFA indicated that both HRC and PFLAG supported efforts in California to defeat Proposition 8, which defined marriage as being between a man and a woman. HRC, the homosexual group financially supported by Pepsi, gave $2.3 million to defeat Prop 8.

The AFA has launched a petition and boycott campaign focused on demanding that Pepsi "remain neutral in the culture war."

"PepsiCo has refused a request by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war," said AFA Chairman Donald Wildmon in an Action Alert. "The company indicated that it will continue major financial support of homosexual organizations," adding that "Pepsi refuses to give money to any pro-family organization that opposes the homosexual agenda."

Wildmon explained that the AFA wrote Pepsi two times (on October 14 and October 29) requesting a meeting to discuss Pepsi's support of homosexual groups, subsequently receiving a "condescending letter" from Paul Boykas, director of public policy, in which Boykas refused to address Pepsi's support of the homosexual agenda.

Link to the AFA Action Alert: http://www.afa.net/boycottpepsico/pepsionemillion.htm

Link to the AFA petition: https://secure.afa.net/afa/activism/signpetition.asp?id=1800

Contact PepsiCo with your concern:

PepsiCo, Inc.
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577
Phone: (914) 253-2000
Toll-free: 1-800-433-2652

Richard Neuhaus, Editor of First Things, Mourned by Pro-Life Leaders

The death of Richard Neuhaus on January 8th, 2008, will be felt as a great loss by many in the United States, in Canada (where he was born0, and in many other regions. The following may be taken as representative reactions:

The following is from the media release of the American Life League:

REV. RICHARD NEUHAUS, EDITOR OF FIRST THINGS, DIES AT 72

Washington, D.C. (8 January 2008) – The following is a statement by Judie Brown, president of American Life League, on the passing of the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic priest and editor in chief of First Things magazine. Neuhaus died at 9:30 a.m. today.

"Father Richard John Neuhaus, a wise and holy priest, has gone from this earth on this day to his eternal reward. Those of us who admired him, dialogued with him and always respected him will miss him greatly.

As his dear friend and First Things editor Joseph Bottum wrote of his passing, "My tears are not for him – for he knew, all his life, that his Redeemer lives, and he has now been gathered by the Lord in whom he trusted. I weep, rather for all the rest of us. As a priest, as a writer, as a public leader in so many struggles and as a friend, no one can take his place. The fabric of life has been torn by his death, and it will not be repaired, for those of us who knew him, until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away."

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.

American Life League was co-founded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or press inquiries, please contact Michael Hichborn at 540.659.7900.

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The following article is from Focus on the Family's CitizenLink of January 8th, 2008 (website URL: http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000009026.cfm )

Richard Neuhaus Brought 'Gentle Spirit to Great Debates about Truth'

The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a leading voice of Catholic conservatism and editor of the journal First Things, died this morning after a battle with cancer. He was 72.

Neuhaus advised President George W. Bush on a range of religious and ethical matters. He spent the latter part of his life seeking to strengthen the bonds among Catholics, evangelicals and Jews. In 2005, Neuhaus was named, along with Focus on the Family founder Dr. James Dobson, one of the "25 Most Influential Evangelicals in America" by Time magazine.

"Richard Neuhaus was to moral principle what William Buckley was to conservative politics: a leader who brought intellectual heft, urbane wit and a gentle spirit to the great debates about truth," said Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy at Focus on the Family Action. "While we differed with Rev. Neuhaus on some aspects of his theology, we appreciate his tremendous contributions."

Like a Virgin: The Press Take On Teenage Sex

Yes, attitudes do make a difference in behavior.

By WILLIAM MCGURN

The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don't. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.

Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in.

"Virginity Pledges Don't Stop Teen Sex," screams CBS News. "Virginity pledges don't mean much," adds CNN. "Study questions virginity pledges," says the Chicago Tribune. "Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds," heralds the Washington Post. "Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data," reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.

In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the CBS News story: "Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study."

Here's the rub: It just isn't true.

In fact, the only way the study's author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers. The study is called "Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers," and it was published in the Jan. 1 edition of Pediatrics.

The first to notice something lost in the translation was Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former head of both the Red Cross and the National Institutes of Health. Today she serves as health editor for U.S. News & World Report. And in her dispatch on this study, Dr. Healy pointed out that "virginity pledging teens were considerably more conservative in their overall sexual behaviors than teens in general -- a fact that many media reports have missed cold."

What Dr. Healy was getting at is that the pledge itself is not what distinguishes these kids from most other teenagers. The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment. As she notes, when you compare both groups in this study with teens at large, the behavioral differences are striking. . . . .

[Click here to read the whole article in the Wall Street Journal online.]

Christian ministry suffers web attack

Allie Martin - OneNewsNow - 12/30/2008 4:00:00 AM

The chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission says homosexual activists have launched a criminal attack on his ministry.

Recently, Dr. Ted Baehr says he learned about the distribution of a number of emails and blog posts that were supposedly from him or his organization. However, the emails were links to pornography, including homosexual content.

Baehr says he heard of the email attack against the CFTC and MovieGuide through a longtime supporter.

"I went to the link; it was not our site on YouTube. We do have a MovieGuide site on YouTube, and we have MovieGuide.org," he explains. "It was a phony site, but it had my picture that somebody had taken and had...very salacious material, occult material, scientology, a lot of hardcore S&M-type stuff."

Baehr said authorities have been contacted and the computer address of the source has been found.

He believes the web campaign is in response to his public statements favoring California's Proposition 8. Baehr says the attacks demonstrate that for homosexual activists, tolerance is a one-way street. "In the last couple of days, the L.A. Times has published some...editorials saying the 'religious right' is the worst thing that has ever happened to this country...[and] another one saying Christians are dumb," he relates.

Criminal charges are being considered, adds Baehr.

[Click here to go to Internet source.]

We recognize that the following excerpt immediately following represents only one angle on the proposed coalition in Canada. It is, however, one that we think our readers will be interested in.
"Queers uniting around Liberal-NDP coalition" *

POLITICS / Best hope for progress, activists say; rallies planned across Canada

Dale Smith / National / Tuesday, December 02, 2008

[From Xtra.ca]

With a signed agreement between the Liberals and the NDP to form a coalition government under the leadership of Stéphane Dion, with the support of the Bloc Quebecois, progressives across the country are moving to show their support for the union.

Ottawa activist Ariel Troster is rallying support for the coalition.

"In terms of any possibility of making gains for our community, a coalition government is the best way to go," says Troster.

Toronto activist and Spa Excess owner Peter Bochove is moving to organize his network to get involved online.

"I'm delighted," Bochove says of the coalition. "I want to see as many people as possible speaking out in light of the massive public relations campaign the other side is financing."

The Conservatives began their public relations assault almost immediately, inviting their supporters to not only offer up "emergency donations" to the party, but also to call into radio talk shows and to write letters to the editor, complete with scripted talking points.

The party has also set up a number of rallies around the country to take place on Dec 6, which they have called "Rally for Canada," seems largely aimed at both discrediting Bloc support for the coalition, while proclaiming itself as a voice for Canadian democracy.

To counter this sentiment, progressives are rallying around MakeParliamentWork.com, which highlights the need for a coalition because of the Conservatives' failed economic performance. The site also references the Conservatives' plan to curtail the right of public servants to strike, and their proposal to claw back women's right to pay equity.

' ' ' '

Aside from Harper's lack of responsiveness to queer issues, grassroots organizers are hoping that other areas of social justice will be restored under a coalition government, including the Court Challenges Program, the Kelowna Accord, funding for the Status of Women, and action on the environment.

. . . .

* The word "queers" in the title is the word used in the title of this Xtra/ca article, and is not the word of choice for the editor of this BCPTL website.

Massachusets Department of Public Health "groundbreaking" report says homosexuality linked with health problems, destructive behavior.

December 3, 2008

On November 21 the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) released what it calls a "Groundbreaking Report on Health Disparities Based on Sexual Orientation".

As the DPH press release describes:

"The report revealed significant disparities among people who identified as homosexual or bisexual in the areas of access to care, self-reported health status, anxiety, depression, suicide ideation, smoking, binge drinking, illicit drug use, sexual assault victimization, intimate partner violence, disability, obesity, asthma and heart disease . . . Lesbians were 2.2 times more likely than heterosexual women to be obese."

Read entire DPH press release.

Read the Department of Public Health report HERE

In other words, the DPH is forced to admit what everyone has known for a long time. Unfortunately, the extremely destructive nature of homosexual behavior - both medical and psychological - is usually not only suppressed, but is considered completely off-limits for discussion. But ultimately, some of the truth gets out, even in Massachusetts.

[Click here to read the whole article on MassResistance website]

Tolerance? Not when some activists Do't Get Their Way

Pro-homosexuality activists have reacted vociferously, in some cases in a violent or threatening manner, to the recent passage in California of Proposition 8, which added these words to the state constitution: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

The following report was passed on to us by Mission America:

Angry homosexual mob surrounds Christians in San Francisco; police escort to safety

On Friday night, before the day of protest we saw across the nation, a conflict erupted in San Francisco's Castro District between a group of residents and a group of Christians who reportedly meet every Friday on the same corner to preach to gays and lesbians about 'converting' into heterosexuals. This time, they were met by an angry mob and the conflict grew so large riot police were called to the area as the Christians were basically chased out of the neighborhood.

KTVU reports: "'Their rights were respected,' said Joe Schmitz, an opponent of Prop 8. 'They got a chance to go ahead and pray on the sidewalk and I had the opportunity to express my freedom of speech which is telling them to get out of my neighborhood.' San Francisco Police officers in riot gear formed a line and escorted the religious group into a van to safely get them out of the area. Members of the gay community insisted that their reaction to the Christian group was spontaneous. 'It was not an organized thing. We're tired of it. It's not religious. It's not a racial thing. It's about hate. We're trying to send a message across the world that we're standing up and we don't want this to go on anymore,' said Adam Quintero."
[Highlighted section in the above article boldfaced by editor of this BCPTL websitge. Note the interesting take on the rights.of free speech..]
See the video of the incident at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrRxFoBSPng [Warning: bad language from protestors]
[The above article and video link is also posted on our "News and Views" page. of this website.]

'Jesus is a homo' Homosexuals Disrupt Church Service

By Deacon Keith Fournier
11/12/2008

Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Using megaphones for amplification they shouted epithets at those entering the service such as “Jesus is a homo”. They also mockingly carried an upside down pink cross.

In a news release, Bash Back referred to Mt. Hope Church as “a deplorable anti-queer mega church.” They further elaborated their disdain for the Christian community at Mt. Hope on their web site.

LANSING, Michigan (Catholic Online) - Dr. Dave Williams is the Pastor of a large evangelical Protestant Church in Lansing, Michigan called the Mount Hope Church. The Church web site informs the visitor of Pastor Williams that “He has served for 25 years, leading the church in Lansing from 226 to over 4000 today.” The Pastor is respected in the broader Christian, religious and civic community and the Church has extensive outreaches.

This past Sunday, during a Worship Service at the Church, a group of loud and intentionally disruptive homosexual activists stood outside of the sanctuary of Mount Hope dressed in strange pink attire. Using megaphones for amplification, they shouted epithets at those entering the service such as “Jesus is a homo”.They also mockingly carried an upside down pink cross.

Reports filed with the Eaton County Sheriff’s office indicate that other demonstrators had staged a further action intended to disrupt the Sunday Worship at Mount Hope. Dressed in clothing which would not have indicated their intention, they entered into the sanctuary and were seated with the community. Then, in an orchestrated manner, they left their seats, pulled fire alarms, distributed anti-Christian literature and stormed the Pastor’s pulpit waving a rainbow colored flag and shouting “It’s Okay To Be Gay! Bash Back”.

The organization behind this action is called “Bash Back”. They describe themselves as “a radical trans/queer/anarcha-feminist group” committed to “fight for liberation while rejecting all forms of state power.” In a news release, Bash Back referred to Mt. Hope Church as “a deplorable anti-queer mega church.” They further elaborated their disdain for the Christian community at Mt. Hope on their web site in these words: “The Mount Hope Church is a deplorable, anti-queer mega-church in Lansing, Michigan. The church works to institutionalize transphobia and homophobia through several repulsive projects including organized “ex-gay” conferences and so-called “hell houses”, which depict queers, trannies and womyn who seek abortions as the horrors. Mt. Hope is complicit in the repression of queers in Michigan and beyond.”

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization led by Bill Donohue, Ph.D., has called on the Attorney General of State of Michigan to institute an investigation. :

[Click here to read the rest of this article on Catholic Online.]

Protests Over Gay-Marriage Ban Escalate in California

Friday, November 07, 2008

Fox News online

New plan for teacher education focuses on social justice, diversity

Redford open to revisit rights issue in schools

Bill 44 lets kids 'opt-out' of classrooms

Teacher watchdog resigns following Star investigation

School board to spend $21,500 on homophobia policy

Comox Valley Echo

Nuclear Families Healthiest for Children

JUDGE RULES - NOT GOOD NEWS / For Love and For Justice / Zabeth and Paul Bayne

NEW TO THE BAYNE STORY?

National Post editorial board: Stop the anti-Christian witchhunt on campus

Canadian Supreme Court embryo ruling will lead to more deaths say pro-life groups

Transgender Bill C-389 Proceeds to Third Reading and Debate

New Easy Mail Letter: Bill C-389 - the "Bathroom Bill"

Bill C-389: The EFC Opposes Proposed "Gender Identity" Amendment to Human Rights Act

Canadian researchers transform skin into blood

MEDIA RELEASE

For immediate release September 28, 2010

Ontario court decision on prostitution is without merit

BC Government Changes Plans on Part-Time Kindergarten

Obama Inserts Gay Dads into Father’s Day Proclamation

Fact finder to examine BC College of Teachers

Quebec Parents to Take Mandatory Relativistic Ethics Course to Supreme Court

B.C. school disputes lesbian teacher's allegations

B.C. trustees ask province to "redirect" private school funding to public education

Hillary Clinton stirs the pot on Afghanistan, Abortion and the Arctic

Obama's Historic Health Care Bill Also A Political Gamble

Hold the fort on 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell'

Military readiness is not the objective of having openly gay soldiers in the US armed services.

New plan for teacher education focuses on social justice, diversity

Reporter Fired Over Gay Marriage E-Mail

Abortion an obstacle to health-care bill

Some Democrats vow to block final passage if amendment stays

Election Results Good for Conservatives [in the United States]

Sask. MP Trost launches petition against funding of planned parenthood group

Thursday October 29, 2009

Did Feminism Benefit Men more than Women? Prominent US Feminist Asks

School club controversy raises more questions

. . . .

Naoibh O'Connor, Vancouver Courier

Ministry disregarded legal advice to return seized children: document Surrey parents insist they never harmed baby daughter

Friday, April 3, 2009

CBC News

European Parliament Raps Lithuania for “Protection of Minors” Law Curbing Homosexual Advocacy [title altered]

Good News: Science Awards Go to Adult-Cell Researchers

Catholics launch anti-euthanasia campaign

Evangelical Francis Collins Named to Head NIH

Tiffany Stanley

Religion News Service

Obama Chooses Sotomayor for Supreme Court Nominee

Thursday May 14, 2009

12,000: Canadian 2009 March for Life Smashes Previous Attendance Records

Alberta's culture minister not backing down on parents' rights bill

Good News - Human Trafficking Bill Easily Passes First Vote in Parliament [from the ARPA website at http://www.arpacanada.ca/index.php/mn/563-human-trafficking-bill-easily-passes-first-vote-in-parliament]

A Look Back at Obama's First 100 Days

German Parents Convicted after Withdrawing Daughter from Explicit Sex-Ed Program: Appeal Filed

Miss California USA Loses Crown after Defending Marriage

Obama to lift stem-cell restrictions

Medical ethics at issue

Jon Ward THE WASHINGTON TIMES Saturday, March 7, 2009

Local study sheds light on HIV

One small victory for freedom of speech

Sexually transmitted disease rates soar: CDC

Richard Neuhaus Brought 'Gentle Spirit to Great Debates about Truth'

Like a Virgin: The Press Take On Teenage Sex

Yes, attitudes do make a difference in behavior.

By WILLIAM MCGURN

Massachusets Department of Public Health "groundbreaking" report says homosexuality linked with health problems, destructive behavior.

December 3, 2008

Ministry disregarded legal advice to return seized children: document
Surrey parents insist they never harmed baby daughter

European Parliament Raps Lithuania for “Protection of Minors” Law Curbing Homosexual Advocacy
[title altered]

Good News - Human Trafficking Bill Easily Passes First Vote in Parliament
[from the ARPA website at http://www.arpacanada.ca/index.php/mn/563-human-trafficking-bill-easily-passes-first-vote-in-parliament]

Jon Ward THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Saturday, March 7, 2009