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Have faith - Prayer, Fasting 
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Campaign Life Coalition NS
March/April 2008 Newsletter
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Tax funded
Abortions in NS [FAQ's]
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1. Bella Is Bellissima By John Pacheco – April 17, 2008
Social Conservatives United
News & Action Notice
Bella is Bellissima
This past Friday, my wife and I had a chance to take in the much-anticipated pro-life film, Bella
I simply cannot recommend this movie enough. It features great acting, a quick plot, a credible story line, and a robust family humour.
It's a beautiful story of how life and love can triumph even after disaster strikes two lives. Bella was purported to be a pro-life movie, and although it certainly had pro-life undertones, it really never did condemn abortion. But, in a devastating and honest way, it has done what a thousand years of conventional pro-life activism could never do: make substantial inroads into undercutting the so-called "choice" of abortion.
One of its purposes was to tell a story of how women find themselves in the position where abortion seems to be the only real alternative. No family, few friends, and little support. It's not hard to see why so many women choose abortion today. They only support they seem to get is a drive to the clinic from the boyfriend to ensure the correct "choice" is made. And it’s important for all of us in the great divide to admit that these problems exist. The controversy surrounding this issue is not abortion /per se/ but rather the lack of support women have who get pregnant. Very few women actually choose abortion. They are forced into it because there is no support for them; there is no love for them; there is no sacrifice for them. And that’s what this film really hits home, although in a very subtle and hidden way.
The solution that Bella offers is not to get into the whole "choice vs. life" polemic, but simply to deftly sidestep the conventional portrayal of the debate, and provide a solution through one man's love and how his sacrifice was able to conquer abortion by the sacrifice of his own life. For me, speaking personally as a man, as a father, and husband, this movie was about the redemption of men. It showed how one man's extraordinary sacrifice to love a woman and her unborn child (who was conceived by another man) can change not only three lives but also those generations who would follow because of his decision. It also showed the price that must be paid to reverse an incredible evil.
There is no "free lunch" in the battle against abortion. If we think that the battle is going to be won merely by political manoeuvres and legal strategies, we are a rather stupid people. Evil cannot be defeated on paper; it has to be won through extraordinary sacrifice in and through the flesh made by individuals, and, particularly, by men. This film was effective because it showed what would happen if men started to give and sacrifice for a woman instead of using and taking from her.
No woman really chooses abortion. And as this film makes so perfectly clear: men will decide, one way or another, whether abortion continues. It's really that simple.
Bella. Go see it. It's about sacrifice, redemption, and life.
Rating 4 out of 5:
Bella The Movie Website: http://www.socon.ca/or_bust/?p=856
Regards, John Pacheco; Social Conservatives United
www.socon.ca
www.socon.ca/or_bust/
2. Bloc MP Francine Lalonde Continues To Fight To Legalize Euthanasia And Assisted Suicide – April 14, 2008
Bloc MP Francine Lalonde continues to fight to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.
http://alexschadenberg.blogspot.com/2008/04/bloc-mp-francine-lalonde-continues-to.html
Last month during an interview on the CBC radio show Cross Country Checkup Jocelyn Downie, the Canada research chair in Health, Law and Policy from Dalhousie University stated that she knew that new legislation was being drafted to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. Downie also stated that a new test case had been drafted to challenge the criminal code prohibitions of euthanasia via the courts.
On April 13, 2008, Canada Press published an interview with Francine Lalonde, the Bloc Quebecois MP who had introduced bill C-407 in 2005, a bill that would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada. Lalonde stated that she intends to introduce new legislation to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide soon.
Lalonde, who has been battling cancer for the past 2 years is "pushing ahead with plans to force the House of Commons to relaunch the debate on assisted suicide."
Bill C-407 would have legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide for people suffering chronic physical and mental pain. Chronic physical and mental pain can be effectively treated.
Bill C-407 did not require that a person at least attempt effective treatment for their chronic physical or mental pain. The bill stated that a person qualifies for euthanasia even if they have refused to try effective treatments.
Bill C-407 did not limit euthanasia to competent people. Bill C-407 legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide for people who "appear to be lucid". What did it mean to appear to be lucid?
Bill C-407 did not limit euthanasia to physicians alone. Bill C-407 allowed anyone to carry-out euthanasia or assist a suicide of anyone, as long as they are "assisted by a medical practitioner", and act in the manner indicated by the person who wishes to die.
Bill C-407 did not even provide the typical "safeguards" that we have seen in other jurisdictions where euthanasia and assisted suicide have been proposed.
Even if Lalonde tightens up the wording in her new proposal, we already know her intentions based on the wording of Bill C-407.
Lalonde stated to Canada Press that: "I am not worried about abuse, I am worried, however, about what is going on in Quebec. People are suffering and can’t find help and they are putting moral pressure on people they know to help them die. I find that a slippery slope."
Whereas the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition is equally concerned about people who are suffering and can’t find help, we recognize that this is more related to our failure to effectively provide good end of life care rather than our need to legalize the killing of the vulnerable.
Bill C-407 allowed a person a kill another person. Once society allows one person to kill another it becomes impossible to protect those who are made to feel like a burden upon society. Bill C-407 directly threatened the lives of people with disabilities and other vulnerable Canadians. People who need to be treated with equality and dignity and who often need to be protected by society.
http://canadianpress.google.com:80/article/ALeqM5jwYIMTwsWUrluG2yypw09VsWXw2g Canadian Press – Ottawa – April 13, 2008
For more information or commentary on euthanasia and assisted suicide please contact the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition at: 1-877-439-3348 or E-mail: info@epcc.ca– www.alexschadenberg.blogspot.com
3. Google In Legal Row Over Abortion Ad – April 17, 2008
Patrick Goodenough, International Editor
(CNSNews.com) – Any Internet surfer entering the search term "abortion" on Google's U.K. Web site this week would bring up a list of main results, flanked by three advertisements – two for Britain's largest abortion providers and one for quick bank loans.
A pro-life Christian organization in Britain wanted to offer another option – but Google turned it down, saying that because its ad linked to a Web site containing "abortion and religious-related content," it was not permitted.
The Christian Institute now plans to take the Internet's biggest search engine to court, claiming discrimination under a 2006 equality law that prohibits religious discrimination in the provision of any goods or services.
In a letter to Google, the organization's lawyers said it would seek a court's permission to publish the ad, as well as damages and reasonable legal costs.
Google's Adwords is a product that allows customers to place small text ads alongside search results (and pay Google an agreed fee each time someone clicks on the ad.) The Christian Institute wanted Internet users who entered the search term "abortion" to see its ad appear in a column of ads using running down the right-hand side of the screen.
The ad would have read: "U.K. abortion law – news and views on abortion from the Christian Institute," with a link to its Web site.
But in an email last month, Google's Adwords division told the Christian group that the ad it had submitted did not meet its guidelines.
"At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content,' " it said. "As noted in our advertising terms and conditions, we reserve the right to exercise editorial discretion when it comes to the advertising we accept on our site."
A review of the Adwords editorial guidelines on Friday found no reference to abortion (although the guidelines do allow “sexual and adult content” with the exception of anything involving children, teens or “other non-consensual sexual material.”)
A Google spokesman on Friday confirmed that the company’s policy does not allow ads for sites “that contain abortion and religion-related content. We only allow ads that have factual information about abortion.”
”We recognize that this is a very emotive subject and that people have strong views on both sides of the argument,” the spokesman said. “Google takes no view on this issue one way or the other as a company.”
The spokesman did not answer directly a question about the absence of any reference to abortion in the guidelines.
"For many people, Google is the doorway to the Internet," Christian Institute director Colin Hart said in a statement. "It is an influential gatekeeper to the marketplace of debate. If there is to be a free exchange of ideas then Google cannot give special free speech rights to secular groups whilst censoring religious views."
"To describe abortion and religion-related content as 'unacceptable content,' while at the same time advertising pornography, is ridiculous," Hart said.
The institute's head of communications, Mike Judge, argued that the issue was one of free speech, not the rights or wrongs of abortion.
"You can be pro-abortion and still recognize that Google is acting unfairly," he said.
Make media inquiries or request an interview about this article.
4.
HLA Weekly Wire – April 16, 2008
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Human Life Alliance | 2855 Anthony Lane S. | Suite B7 | Minneapolis | MN | 55418 |
5. 
International Right-To-Life Federation, Inc. – April 17, 2008
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Volume 19, Number 2 |
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March/April 2008 |
Luxembourg Legalizes Euthanasia Kosovo to Legalize Abortion? U.S. Teen Abortion Drops |
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Cloned Human Animal Hybrid Embryos Created UK Reproductive Bill Called "Terrifying" Pro-Abortion Party Wins Election in Spain |
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Uganda VP Opposes Abortion Ecuador Debates New Constitution England - No to Amnesty International (A.I.) Contraceptives Do Not Prevent Pregnancy |
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South Korea - Girls Now Accepted Dominican Republic Antoerh Threat U.S. Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Strongly Pro-Abortion German Pastor in Jail for Comparison |
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Northern Ireland Again Says "No" to Abortion Ulster, Paisley and Archbishop Agree Slovakia Limits Abortion Mental Health Again |
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Kazakhstan Youth Protest Abortions Brazil - Pro-life Manifesto Bishops in Brazil Declare Culture War |
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Stem Cells Help Alzheimer's Fish Population Threatened by Hormones The UK High Court - Chastity a No-No! Women Dies from Contraceptive Pill |
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Post-Abortive Women Likely to Use Drugs Nicaragua, Maternal Deaths Decline A Catholic Ruling on the Pill East Germany Kill More Babies |
J.C. Willke, President, International Right to Life Fed. |
International Right to Life Fed., International Office |
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6. Letter Of The Day, Let Us Not Forget The Victims Of Crime – April 17, 2008
(Submitted to Montreal Gazette)
Let us not forget the victims of crime! – By Denise Mountenay
Letter to the editor:
It is very interesting that Dr. Gaetan Barrette, president of the Quebec Federation of Medical “Specialists” is worried about Bill C-484. Since this bill is written to make violent people who viciously attack and kill or injure pregnant women and their unborn babies, accountable for their crimes!
Let us never forget! Here are some Canadian women and their unborn babies who were murdered.
Why are Gynaecologists so afraid that this is “a backdoor attempt” to re-criminalize abortion? Bill C-484 has nothing to do with abortion. Please note that in a recent Press Release the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists reminded us about the “very foundation of medicine, the Code of Ethics that governs the medical profession and the Hippocratic Oath that is binding on all physicians at all times and in all circumstances”. Yet it is more of a Hypocritical Oath for doctors who do abortions. The Hippocratic Oath states in part: “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice, which may cause his death. Nor will I give a woman a pessary, (uterine device or vaginal suppository) to procure an abortion.” Interestingly, Quebec has the second highest abortion rate in Canada; over 636.733 were performed there in the last 30 years. A very lucrative business indeed.
How could medical doctors renounce a bill, which is designed to make murderers accountable for the blood on their hands?
Sincerely,
Denise Mountenay
107 Discovery Ave.
Morinville, AB. T8R 1N1
780-939-5774
www.canadasilentnomore.com
7. Mourning Marriage By William D. Gairdner – April 17, 2008
http://www.williamgairdner.com/journal/
By William D. Gairdner
Life has gotten in the way of blogging lately. But on an occasional basis, I am back at it. For some reason the weirdness of Canada’s enthusiastic embrace of gay marriage has stuck in my craw, and so I got warmed up by trying to write something brief about it. But the topic is so galling I failed miserably at keeping it short, and have ended up with about eight pages. I can only respond to the advice that blogs should be short by saying readers can make them as short as they wish by reading longer ones such as this in pieces, a bit each day, if desired.
Alas, I, like many others, have grown tired of this topic. But moral fatigue is no excuse for capitulation on principles. Civilization is like a spider’s web; delicate in the making, difficult to sustain, easy to destroy. It does not arise naturally, but is always the result of human will. But if the will becomes weak, if we drift, then the direction is always downward. Thus do all concerned citizens have a moral duty to oppose anything that undermines the common good of civilization. Edmund Burke got it so right when he said that the main reason for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. He did not say, as we might suppose, that good men have to do bad things. If they just do nothing, the bad will soon take over. That is the reason for the downward direction of a civilization that drifts. Battered though it has been by easy divorce and common-law laxities, traditional marriage – the only human institution the sole aim of which is to ensure there is a loving mother and father in as many homes as possible – has been the best thing for the vast majority of the kids on this planet since time began. Marriage, and the family that is its natural consequence are institutions that have preceded in existence, legitimacy, and prestige all rulers, all courts, and all states.
But in substituting the term “union of two-persons” for “union of a man and a woman,” Canada has removed the natural biological and procreative foundation from marriage, leaving behind an eviscerated and merely legal definition – bereft of biology, bereft of what is humanly natural, bereft of custom, and bereft of any primordial concern for children. In doing so, our political leaders and courts – in sharp contrast to our neighbours to the south, where to date some 28 states have passed laws outlawing gay marriage – have once again taken the easy way out by declining to protest and end one of the most foolhardy social experiments the world has ever seen.
Same-Sex “Marriage” Is Not a Right
To add shame to the sham, Stephane Dion, the new leader of the Liberal party has tried to stir us into a fit of moral indignation by insisting that same-sex marriage is “a fundamental right” under Canada’s Charter. But that is a distortion of the truth by an otherwise decent-seeming man. All things connected with homosexuality were roundly discussed and deliberately excluded from Canada’s Charter by its framers prior to 1982. But it didn’t take long for judges (who are responsible to no one) simply to decide (against the expressed wishes of the Canadian people, who have never given majority approval to gay marriage) that homosexuality, and same-sex marriage are practices they wanted to include under the “equality” provisions of Section 15 of the Charter, where none of this is mentioned. And Dion knows this. He also knows that there is no existing human-rights treaty with Canada that recognizes any such rights. Indeed, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically names the family as the “natural and fundamental group unit of society,” as does the European Convention of Rights where marriage is specifically defined as a union of a man and a woman. The German Basic Law of 1949 also gives pre-eminent right to the family and preference in law to the raising of children by their own biological parents. In this spirit, France has just recently repudiated gay marriage entirely on the ground that children thrive best with the love and support of their own parents, and should never have same-sex parenting thrust upon them as a matter of state policy merely to satisfy the homosexual desires of adults. The French have insisted that wherever possible, the primordial natural right of children to know and be raised by their own biological parents must trump all adult rights.
Same-Sex Persons Cannot “Unite” in “Conjugality”
To avoid an anticipated public abuse of the state of marriage and a rush for merely financial and legal benefits by “any two persons,” courts have ruled that these new unions must be “conjugal.” Well now, “conjugal” comes from the root word “to join,” and any two persons can /say/ they have a conjugal union. But leaving aside the question that ought to embarrass this nation as to whether or not two penises or two vaginas can ever be “joined” in “union;” and leaving aside also a fact that is so obvious to any biologist that only human beings of opposite genders can have a “sexual” relation in any strict sense of that word; we are now in a position to ask a merely administrative question. Namely: in order to qualify for Canada’s considerable legal and economic marital benefits, /must/ two persons have sexual relations (or mock sexual relations, as in the case of homosexuals) to be considered married? If the answer is “No,” then what kind of “union” is “a union of any two persons”? And if the answer is “Yes”, then how is a state responsible for handing out benefits to married couples to know that any two persons claiming these benefits are actually living “conjugally”? Will we now have conjugality police to ensure “married” couples qualify? Not likely. So then, practically speaking, why does conjugality matter? After all, there are many older heterosexual couples who no longer “have sex,” as that depressingly utilitarian saying goes. Point being: if we cannot prove, or disprove conjugality, how then can it be the state’s test-condition to receive the benefits accruing to the act of marriage? And if it is not a good test, then other than the traditional requirement of heterosexuality as a presumptive condition for marriage and its benefits, what is?
We Should Not Promote What Is Unnatural As Desirable
If this matter pertained only to individuals, I would say, who cares? Acting within the law, we ought to be able to live with whomsoever we wish, and to be left alone. But this in turn means the state, its courts and tribunals, should not be using the law to intimidate or to force me, my children, my friends, or my society at large to agree that what other people do to excite themselves with those of their own sex is normal, or natural, if we sincerely believe otherwise. If someone chooses to “marry” a partner with whom he or she will by definition and design barred from true sexual union and barren forever of children I should not be pressured or obliged to agree that this is a good idea for those persons, or for my country. For I do not. I accept that some individuals may prefer such a life, and may think that it is good for them. But no amount of logic or argument can convince a reasonable person that it is good for society as a whole, for the common good, or for the continuation of civilization. I may think homosexuality is weird, sad, unnatural, a sexual neurosis, a disorder of the soul, whatever. But I still say – tenuously, and with much circumspection – live and let live. Well, Bill, I am told – there have always been some childless hetero couples. What’s the difference? Of course, I answer. There are some by choice, some too old, and some who live with the deep sadness of infertility. But a society that has intentionally privileged human partnerships that are barren by definition and thus made them a legitimate and normative model for the young, with a social status and with benefits equal to those enjoyed by unions that conform to society’s difficult procreative model, has entered a perilous course. I say “difficult,” because raising fine, honest, well-mannered, civil human beings is perhaps the most selfless daily challenge that most of us will ever undertake, requiring extraordinary emotional, personal, and financial dedication and sacrifice. And that is why it is only these unions, with the customs, laws, and practices surrounding them that ought to enjoy the venerable status in human society that has until now been reserved only for true marriage (or its common-law equivalent, as distinct from the mock homosexual marriages we are being forced by law to accept as true). We have long ago accepted the fact that some people cannot or do not wish to row the lifeboat in which we are all passengers by contributing children who, as we age and weaken, grow up and row in their turn. We let them go along for the ride, so to speak. But it is perilous to the voyage of life to encourage such behaviour.
The Arguments for Same-sex Behaviour or Marriage are Weak
I have tried in vain to find a reasonable defence of homosexual behaviour and of same-sex marriage that speaks to the common good. But there just isn’t one. There is simply no reasonable biological, social, evolutionary, or health defence of homosexual behaviour or same-sex marriage. Biologically, it is obviously a dead end. Socially, and in the sense that our moral behaviour may be judged according to how it legitimizes our actions for others, it is also a dead end, for we should not be setting up homosexuality, or homosexual marriage as an ideal for others. Neither can we use the genetic or the evolutionary argument to the effect that homosexuality provides some “survival value” for the human species, for the simple reason that homosexuals do not reproduce with each other. Indeed, any “gay-gene” argument works against its proponents, for a gay gene would lead to the extinction of gayness in a generation or two. (And spare us the “helper at the nest” argument – the idea that although they do not have their own kids, gays help with the raising of other people’s kids, and therefore they do have a sort of species-survival value. This is a sweet, but ridiculous argument. And the only reason some male birds, for example, hang around to help the pair from which they have been rejected by the winning male, is in the hope of taking over next time around). Perhaps most dire of all, is the health question. If AIDS is any indicator, homo-sex remains one of the most life-threatening practices imaginable (Ottawa consistently tells us that over 80% of all AIDS deaths in Canada since the mid 1970s have been gay males). Culturally? Homosexuality has been discouraged by all civilizations in history apart from a few abnormal cliques or periods – one of which we are presently living through. And of course, anyone who reflects frankly on what it is that homosexuals actually do with each other for their sensual (again these cannot, by definition, be sexual) pleasures will conclude it is profoundly unnatural, just as any farmer who buys two bulls to service his herd of cows and wakes up to find them mounting each other would conclude there is something deeply wrong with
them.
The Arguments Against Gay Marriage Are Strong
These can be summed in a paragraph or two. All human beings are born of a mother and begotten by a father, and the law and the state have always protected marriage – the mother-father-child relation – because this is the only natural means of creating human life and continuing civilization. Of high importance is the argument that marriage has always been a child-centered and not an adult-centered institution (until now, in Canada), and no one – no judge, no politician, and no state – has ever before claimed the right to redefine marriage so as intentionally to impose a fatherless or motherless home on a child as a matter of state policy. For until now, marriage has always rested on four conditions, like a four-legged chair, and compliance with all these conditions has been the trigger for marital benefits. These have to do with number, gender, age, and incest. We have always said you can only marry one person at a time, who must be someone of the opposite sex, someone above a certain age, and not a close blood relative. But the recent official removal of the opposite-gender condition has badly weakened this stable social structure. For if it now takes only two persons to make a marriage, then why not a man and a twelve-year old girl (breaking the age condition)? A brother and sister (breaking the close-relation condition)? What about three friends who want to marry just to cut their expenses (breaking the number condition)?
I know: marriage was already weakened by no-fault divorce and common-law. But that is no excuse for smashing it entirely. We just tore off one leg of the chair, and there are already legal attempts to tear off the other three. Indeed, in the middle of my writing this piece, the Ontario Court of Appeal decided that a child may have three parents! Leaving aside the argument that courts often have to appoint guardians or legal “parents” and that a child may need more than two protectors in some anomalous situations; that is quite different from setting up multiple parenthood as a desirable social precedent merely to accommodate homosexuals – which was the motive this time around. This decision opened the door to legalized polygamy, and soon our Charter will be used specifically for this purpose, and then to defend such things as “intergenerational sex” (a fancy term for pedophilia). And then we will see Charter rights to “marry” a sibling, and so on. Just wait. In 1990, people thought gay marriage was a ludicrous idea (let alone a right), and those who warned against it, such as this writer, were mocked as fear-mongers.
If a Policy Is “Equal” – It Cannot Be a Policy
One of the most common, but for sure among the weakest of arguments in support of gay marriage is the call for “equality.” For a moment’s reflection tells us that all genuine policies are intended to discriminate in a positive way in favour of some human arrangements, and not others. That is what makes a policy a policy, which is to say a program intentionally designed and targeted to achieve a specific social or economic result by encouraging some human behaviours and discouraging (vigorously discriminating against) others. However, if the test of a policy is that it must be “equal” for all then it disqualifies itself as a policy, for it has thereby lost the very thing essential to its particular goal or purpose – the targeted discrimination or preference for certain human actions that made it a policy in the first place. In short, if we eliminate the qualifications that made a policy effective we convert it into a hand-out for all which automatically loses its capacity to steer citizens one way rather than another.
Some examples of how ordinary policy distinctions discriminate beneficially for the common good are the welfare system, public awards, veteran rights, and elite athlete benefits. I am not necessarily supporting these programs. I am just arguing that if we give welfare benefits to everyone without qualification (having a very low income), they immediately lose their policy purpose as welfare rights. And if we give all Canadians the Order of Canada it loses all value as a public honour. And if we give veterans’ benefits (let alone the Victoria Cross!) to all citizens, just to make them “equal” to veterans, those who have served their country as soldiers and earned these benefits and recognitions would be justifiably outraged. In the same way, we do not give stipends to ordinary athletes – only to those of the highest rank. The same logic applies to everyday privileges like special parking spaces for handicapped people and expectant mothers – you have to qualify for them.
Just so for marriage. It has always been the intent of state policy on marriage to encourage and privilege only unions that meet the four conditions or prohibitions concerning age, gender, number, and incest, and to value them higher thanany other type of human partnership. Why? Simply because the state knows that if with the various benefits available you encourage enough men and women to unite sexually you will inevitably get a lot of babies. And everyone knows this will not be so if you reward girls for partnering with girls, or boys with boys.
At this point, people say – Bill, there only a few thousand gay marriages. What’s the harm? The response is that you can ruin the value of the Victoria Cross by presenting it with full public support to a single coward, just as you can ruin the prestige of the Order of Canada by presenting it to one Canadian of zero achievement. In short, to remove the qualifications for a privilege is to remove the privilege.
Love Is No Argument for State Benefits
The state has – and ought to have – no business whatsoever involving itself as protector-adjudicator-benefactor of the private love-lives of citizens for any reason except for the fact that heterosexual marriages and the children we expect and hope they will produce – about 95% of them do so – are vital for the well-being of human society and so must be honoured and favoured above all other such love arrangements because they are the only ones with procreative potential.
At this point, homosexuals are outraged, as the fashionable expression goes, and start to protest that they love each other, too, and therefore are being deprived of an equal right. But I say, you love someone? So what? Love is an adequate reason for demanding attention from your partner, or even from friends and relatives if they are interested in your love. But it is not a compelling ground for demanding attention from the state, or from complete strangers (citizens and taxpayers), or for insisting that equal public respect or privileges or benefits be paid to support your love. For its own sake, love can be wonderful, as we all know. But it is a private matter, and all alone, for itself, even the most wonderful private love does not justify receiving public attention when by definition there is no hope of public benefit. And why should it? Love is the easy part; the fun part. But childrearing – the creation of productive and competent citizens – is very, very tough. And that is why the only justification for extending legal protection or economic benefits even to heterosexual unions is for the simple reason that society and the state have a high and justifiable expectation of getting something crucially important in return: more well-raised citizens. Without the reasonable expectation of this return on investment, so to speak, which follows with great regularity from the simple form of heterosexual marriage, no two people who love each other, regardless of their genders, should receive favours or protections extracted by law from anyone else. To put it bluntly: the only kind of law-abiding private love that should be of any public concern whatsoever, is the love that occurs between two people who choose to unite under the four conditions mentioned above.
And I hasten to add that in addition to diminishing the value of the institution of marriage we are also busily undoing a distinction our civilization has been at pains to teach us for a couple of thousand years between good love and bad love. For it is clear that human beings are capable of loving almost anything whatsoever, good or bad (just as they may hate almost anything). In order for them to love the good instead of the bad, however, the former must be publicly recognized and encouraged by all in morality and in law, and the latter as clearly discouraged. Traditionally, we discourage things like self-love in the narcissistic sense; and a crass love of money; and sexual love of children; and a love of doing hundreds of other bad things. Psychiatric manuals carry descriptions of many kinds of bad love, usually with the tag philia at the end of them (Greek for love), such as necrophilia.
Until very recently, homosexual love was considered a form of bad love (and still is by many psychiatrists and citizens gutsy enough to say so), because it rests on two errors: the wrong love object, and the wrong organ, or orifice. And that plain truth cannot be changed by any number of judges or “equality” clauses. I mention these things just to say that “love” is a rather loaded term, and though it is our deepest emotion, it cannot reasonably be used to justify getting something just because we happen to feel love. Needless to say, in this context the suggestion is especially weak that a feeling of love qualifies us to lay a claim on other people’s tax dollars in the form of social or economic benefits.
We Must Honour Even the Form of Natural Marriage
Okay, Bill. But what about infertile couples, or old people who marry but can no longer have children? Why should they have such rights? First of all, because they have met all four of the qualifying conditions for marriage with respect to number, gender, age, and incest. That is sufficient in itself. But I would add that they also deserve them simply because in choosing the traditional form of marital partnership they continue to honour and perpetuate the only form of human union that (again) can be a sexual union (has procreative potential) and thus the only kind that is absolutely essential to the preservation and continuation of civilization. Any other kind of relationship may be interesting, cute, compassionate, whatever. But from the point of view of the state it is unimportant. It is nobody’s business, and therefore ought to be of no public concern. To repeat, citizens, simply in choosing a natural sexual union over any other form, publicly honour and acknowledged the high public value that is the foundation for this act and in so doing they teach this value. That is why traditional marriage, in practice and in its very form must be given a respect higher than that given to any other human partnership or friendship. A society that voluntarily generalizes, demystifies, desacralizes, or simply demotes this special form of human union by offering the same privileges to “any two persons” can expect to see this once vital institution further dishonoured and mocked as trivial.
The Role of the State in Marriage Demolition
Citizens must beware the insidious reputation of the modern state in relation to the special role, influence, and survival of the natural family. Empires, principalities, and states, however defined, have always had one thing in common: a natural antipathy to any other human organization or association within their jurisdiction that competes with the state for the loyalty of citizens. Principal among such associations have been religion and the family, the two social entities – the first spiritual, the second biological – to which people have always given a private allegiance more powerful than their public feeling for country or rulers.
This sort of tension was visible in ancient Rome, where the law of the family and the law of mighty Rome itself were often in conflict, the state as often giving way. Indeed, in many European nations, even today, no monarch or ruler, no matter how absolute the power has ever had the unfettered or capricious right to enter a private home without permission of the family. But the most insidious incursions of state power into family relations and property rights have been felt since the advent of the mighty tax-harvesting social-welfare states of modern times, many of which have declared an open or covert war against the private family, seeing it as a cradle of social privilege and inequality. Accordingly, they have specifically sought to weaken the natural biological bonds of marriage as the family’s foundation. Marx and Engels based much of their disastrous communist social program on a deep distrust of the private family. That was socialism with machine guns. But the softer social-welfare states that arose in the 20th century – of which Sweden and Canada are the most ideologically fervent examples – have at their foundation the very same animus against the family and indeed against all biologically-based distinctions, privileges, or differences between citizens that might pose a threat to the only claim of such states to a quasi-moral authority: the guarantee of citizen equality in all things. Aware as they are that the family has a deep and powerful blood-grip on its members for life, such states take the softer, less visible approach. They weaken the grip of the family and its privileges not by eliminating the latter, but rather by dissolving their unique value and prestige by removing all qualifications for receiving them; that is, by showering them without discrimination on everyone alike. Just so, a deeply biologically-rooted institution such as marriage can be gradually transformed into yet another vehicle for political equalization. For this, citizens who have not seen what is really at work bow down and give thanks to the state.
However, its seems to me that states that abandon all things spiritual and biological as the natural basis for civilization eventually find their official ideology reduced to a demoralizing and depressing concern for the mere material success and equality of all citizens. They are destined to founder through endlessly dispiriting wars over “rights”. But equality, taken this far, is always a social and moral solvent because it is forced to take aim at all formerly useful social and moral distinctions and privileges. At such a point, the old idea of justice as embodied in what is natural and biological – with all the essential and necessary distinctions, glorious human differences, and essential social privileges this implies – will always lose in a war against the new idea of justice as … simply making everyone administratively equal by providing all without distinction with the same privileges and benefits (for which the only qualification will now be simple citizenship – and often not even that). In short, a fully developed egalitarian ideology must, by its own internal logic, oppose any and all natural human differences and distinctions that may threaten its only remaining, and very narrow claim to provide justice-as-equality for all. I say narrow, because even the ancient Greeks, for example, did not fall for simplistic idea that equality means justice. They did argue that one soldier must be treated like any other; and one general like another. But they never believed that a soldier and a general, a man and a boy, a boy and a girl, or a fool and a wise man, a hero and a coward, ought to be treated the same or valued or honoured in the same way.
The key difference between modern America and Canada on issues such as gay marriage – the reason three quarters of American states have banned it, but we embrace it – is that America has not abandoned as entirely as Canada its traditional belief that justice must be rooted in a spiritual and natural reality. Since the Trudeau era, however, Canada has wholly surrendered itself to the crassly materialistic and egalitarian mentality of the welfare state, where all public debate is reduced to a kind of internal civil war over equality and rights; it is only very rarely (and with embarrassment) a debate over the good, the natural, the morally obligatory, and the true. Needless to say, one of the last barriers to this frankly socialistic program – as any class on radical feminism will attest – has been the traditional definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, with all its historical privileges and protections (of late said to be patriarchal or the origin of class hatreds). In this exact sense we must realize that a “right” to homosexual “marriage” is not really aimed at elevating the status of homosexuality as much as it is aimed at dissolving the deep historical sense of privilege and status of true marriage and the heterosexuality that has always been one of its four conditions.
Well, civilizations rise, and then they fall. One of the reasons they fall is that they blind themselves, first morally and then intellectually to the natural sources of their own founding energy and success, gradually substituting for this a myriad of laws and policies intended to extend the reach of the state into every corner of private life by eliminating all natural differences between citizens and their customs and valued institutions that might constitute a threat to the official ideology of justice as equality. We have asked for it, and we are getting it. There is hardly a better, more effective way to efface the primordial public value of marriage than to remove the words “a man and a woman” wherever they occur on the hundreds of thousands of computers and legal documents…
8. Ontario Premier Declares War On The Lord’s Prayer – April 15, 2008
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9. Pope 2008 Dot Com – April 11, 2008
As Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the States draws closer, the National Catholic Register’s special Pope2008.com web site is poised to provide optimum coverage for readers, listeners, and viewers.
New York, NY. April 11, 2008. The National Catholic Register’s Pope2008.com web site is becoming a top reference for information on the Pope’s upcoming visit, including a mention in the New York Times Topics page. Several Register reporters will be commenting on live radio on the Catholic Channel in the upcoming days. Meanwhile, the web site will air all of the EWTN live streaming video coverage of the event.
A Top Resource for Readers
The www.Pope2008.com web site is fully engaged, with Tim Drake’s ground-level blogs capturing the events as they unfold, with all of the details and anecdotes that come only from firsthand experience. Other Catholic newsmakers and communicators are taking note.
Amy Welborn told her readers, “Keep your eye on Pope2008.com. No one else is even approaching what Tim Drake is doing.”
Dr. Jim Coyle, Associate Professor of Communication Arts at Steubenville University said, “I think Tim’s intriguing breadth of material has allowed the Pope2008.com blog to not only give a reader a broad picture of the upcoming papal visit, but it is also very in-depth. Tim draws from many sources and condenses it into an unfiltered form in a very timely manner. I see it as an “information hub” in relation to the events surrounding the papal visit.”
Dr. Coyle also stated, “A great strength of Pope2008.com is that Tim is not only reporting a wide range of information, he’s providing a context for the many facets of the US papal visit and World Youth Day in Australia. This is a great service to the reader.”
The immediacy of the Internet has allowed the National Catholic Register to break several stories using www.Pope2008.com. The new Register site was the first news source to verify Kelly Clarkson’s (“American Idol” winner) appearance at the youth festival. It was the first to break the news of Harry Connick Jr.’s appearance at “The Concert of Hope.”
Pope2008.com was the first site to provide the music list for the liturgical events in New York (which resulted in quite a conversation on The New Liturgical Movement blog), and was the first to provide a look at what the stage at Yankee Stadium and the youth festival at St. Joseph’s Seminary will look like.
Other news outlets are using Pope2008.com as their “go-to” source for information on the upcoming trip, including the New York Times, which references Pope2008.com in the “Other Coverage” sidebar of the Times Topics page.
To date, the web site has already received over 45,000 visits from readers around the world.
Register editor and writer Tom Hoopes will be on the air with Gus Lloyd, whose program “Seize the Day” is aired on weekdays from 6:00 – 8:00 a.m. and from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time).
Tom Wehner, John Burger and Tim Drake will be talking with “The Catholic Guy” host, Lino Rulli, whose show airs weekdays from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. (EST).
Pope2008.com Providing EWTN’s Video Coverage Online
In addition, thanks to an agreement between the Eternal Word Television Network and the National Catholic Register, Pope2008.com will be providing EWTN’s wall-to-wall live, streaming video coverage of the Pope’s journey from touchdown to departure. 
Stay tuned as the events of this historic visit continue to unfold. For those who like to plan ahead, the web site will also provide coverage for World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia this July.
For additional information visit www.Pope2008.com or email Tim Drake at tdrake@tdrake.clearwire.net
10. Pope Benedict On Marriage, Key To "World Peace" – April 17, 2008
A new analysis entitled "Pope Benedict XVI on Marriage: A Compendium" and published by the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy on the eve of Benedict's historic U.S. visit, finds that in less than three years of his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI has spoken publicly about marriage on 111 occasions, connecting marriage to such overarching themes as human rights, world peace, and the conversation between faith and reason.
"Over and over again he has made it clear that the marriage and family debate is central – not peripheral – to understanding the human person, and defending our human dignity," says Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.
For example, when receiving the credentials of the new U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his appreciation for America's recognition of the important of a dialogue of faith and faiths in the public square and linked this to respect not only for religious freedom but for marriage as the union of husband and wife:
I cannot fail to note with gratitude the importance, which the United States has attributed to inter-religious and intercultural dialogue as a positive force for peacemaking... The American people's historic appreciation of the role of religion in shaping public discourse and in shedding light on the inherent moral dimension of social issues-a role at times contested in the name of a straitened understanding of political life and public discourse-is reflected in the efforts of so many of your fellow-citizens and government leaders to ensure legal protection for God's gift of life from conception to natural death, and the safeguarding of the institution of marriage, acknowledged as a stable union between a man and a woman, and that of the family.
Pope Benedict devoted about half of his message for the January 1 World Day of Peace to the significance of marriage in developing a culture of peace:
Consequently, whoever, even unknowingly, circumvents the institution of the family undermines peace in the entire community, national and international, since he weakens what is in effect the primary agency of peace. This point merits special reflection: everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an objective obstacle on the road to peace.
Marriage essential to world peace? This may strike American ears as an oddity. If so Benedict has made clear it is not an unintentional one. On September 21, 2007, in an address to participants in a conference of the Executive Committee of Centrist Democratic International, Pope Benedict prefigured the same theme:
There are those who maintain that human reason is incapable of grasping the truth, and therefore of pursuing the good that corresponds to personal dignity. There are some who believe that it is legitimate to destroy human life in its earliest or final stages. Equally troubling is the growing crisis of the family, which is the fundamental nucleus of society based on the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman. Experience has shown that when the truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the family undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence.
"The short pontificate of Benedict XVI is already a standing rebuke to those voices of our time who seek to make us ashamed or embarrassed of caring about marriage and sexual issues, who try to get us to view the contemporary marriage debate as merely a distraction from more important issues," notes Gallagher, "Pope Benedict clearly connects life and marriage, the human person in the human family, with the most fundamental international issues of peace and human rights facing our times."
For Media Interviews Contact: Maggie Gallagher (914) 522-5310
Download the full report at: www.marriagedebate.com
11. PRI Weekly Briefing – April 15, 2008
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12. REAL Women Demands Canadian Taxpayer Funding of Obscene Films Must Stop – April 14, 2008
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
OTTAWA, April 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Bill C-10, an omnibus bill of amendments to the Income Tax Act, contains a government proposal to amend the Income Tax Act that would allow the Heritage Ministry to withhold federal tax credits to Canadian film and television projects it deems offensive.
It has been passed by the House of Commons and is now before the Senate, where Canadian film industry representatives are arguing that the amendments should be scrapped because they would restrict the kinds of movies and TV shows that can be made in the country, and would be a form of government censorship.
Conservative Heritage Minister Josée Verner has denied the accusation of censorship, saying the bill is meant simply to ensure Canadians aren't funding graphic violence and pornography. Producers are still free to make whatever films they want, just not to expect taxpayer funding for certain types of films.
"Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system. The goal is to ensure public trust in how tax dollars are spent," she said.
Verner has also pointed out that the proposed bill is similar to Liberal legislation tabled back in 2003 by then heritage minister Sheila Copps.
Supporters of the amendments, including REAL Women of Canada, the Canada Family Action Coalition and Canadians Concerned about Violence in Entertainment, say that Bill C-10 is not about censorship but rather it is an issue of whether all Canadians should have to pay towards the production of films and shows they may find offensive.
"If they want to make films, as long as it is not contrary to the Criminal Code, fine, that's their business," said Gwen Landolt, national vice-president of REAL Women, "but they shouldn't get pubic funds to do so. It has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with using taxpayers' money."
A brief submitted to the Senate by REAL Women of Canada observes, "The appropriation for cultural purposes has now been increased to $5 billion annually. The purpose of these grants is to encourage Canadian cultural content so as 'to develop Canadians' sense of belonging' and 'building the country's national identity.' Regretfully, the material created by the culture industry in Canada, by way of these grants, has rarely achieved these objectives. Instead, these grants have had the opposite effect, in that they have resulted in works that alienate and offend Canadians. This is because the producers represent in many cases, the views of very few Canadians."
The brief concludes, "Other industries have to meet strict requirements and regulations to gain tax credits, so why not those undertaking artistic endeavours? Why should 'artists' claim to have the right to operate freely by way of taxpayer funding, yet not be held responsible for their work? If their works are detrimental to society, and/or do not appeal to the public because of their subject matter or content, why should the taxpayers support them – especially since such works only alienate or offend them, which defeats the major objective of the program? In short, the government has a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer and this proposed amendment in Bill C-10, S.120 (3)(b) is merely an attempt to carry out this responsibility."
Diane Watts, a researcher with REAL Women, said, "No films are banned or destroyed under this provision. Film producers can represent whatever perspective or depictions of violence or sex they wish that are not contrary to the Criminal Code - but not via taxpayers' money."
Rose Anne Dyson, a representative of Canadians Concerned about Violence in Entertainment, said this legislation is long overdue.
"No other industry has ever enjoyed such carte blanche immunity from corporate responsibility and public accountability," she said in a Globe and Mail report.
She explained that the film American Psycho, based on the book of the same name that "was considered a how-to manual for convicted serial killer Paul Bernardo, received $120,000 in Canadian tax credits."
In a report by the Hill Times, Rev. Charles McVety of the Canada Family Action Coalition warned the Conservative government that it will "pay a price", in the way of a grassroots rebellion, if it gives in to pressure from the film and television industry and amends or waters down its provision to deny government tax credits for offensive screen productions.
"If they want to capitulate to David Cronenberg so that he can make a few hundred more million dollars, then they don't des
