Weekly News

November 2, 2004 will go down as a red-letter day in the annals of American history. That was the day when millions of Christian voters in that nation — Evangelical, Protestant and Catholic — stood together at the ballot box as never before, to support the core principles in which we all believe. They stood alongside yet others who do not know Christ, but who share the conviction that rock-solid, time-tested Judeo-Christian values will create a better society than so-called “progressive” Secular values, which have wrought misery and carnage wherever they have been tried.

The culture of life was affirmed. Many of these people were registered but had sat out the 2000 election. Others had not been pre-registered, but they believed strongly that Americans were at a turning point in the culture war; and in voting, they may well have shifted momentum over to the forces of life.

Still others who had voted Democrat for years now voted Republican, after coming to the realization that one’s basic beliefs cannot be divorced from one’s responsibilities in public life.

All this happened in last year’s U.S. elections. The time has come in Canada for those who believe in traditional Judeo-Christian values and in the culture of life to make a similar stand.

The elites of Canadian political life — including the media — repeatedly assert that Canada is a “socially liberal” country, and that pro-lifers and believers in the traditional family are (at best) marginal… and should not be allowed to express their views in the public square, lest they offend someone.

So what if our beliefs offend some members of society? Isn’t free, non-violent expression of dissent a fundamental right?

I, for one, am offended by semi-clad perverts parading down the streets of our cities, celebrating what ought to be kept behind closed doors. However, Canada’s self-anointed elites won’t raise a finger to protect my sensibilities. It seems free speech is good, in their eyes, only as long as we express officially-approved views — their views.

The right to life is the fundamental right on which all other rights stand or fall, and nobody should be able to force someone else to pay with their life for the “crime” of being inconvenient. Yet our government enforces policies which not only affirm one person’s right to end another’s life (thus affirming the dogma of Canada’s state-approved religion, Secularism: that a pre-born child is sub-human, or worse, just a collection of chemicals) — and those policies even compel those who are morally opposed to the killing to finance it through their taxes.

The time has come to use the electoral clout at our disposal to reclaim Canada for the people!

We must no longer buy into Paul Martin’s view that although he is “personally opposed to abortion”, he mustn’t allow his world-view (he claims to be a devout Catholic) to hold sway over public policy.

Why should Secularist views be considered legitimate, but Christians not allowed to act according to their beliefs? Why should the religion of Secular Materialism trump every other faith?

For too long, the Liberal party has held power and behaved as if they are not accountable, because of the greatest gift they ever received: the Quebec separatist movement. They play upon the fears of Quebec federalists by telling them they cannot afford to vote anything but Liberal, lest the vote be split and some “nasty separatist” win. Thus, many people are intimidated into voting Liberal, although they actually do not support the Liberals’ post-modern, Secularist world-view.

However, once the votes are counted, the Liberals spin it as if they actually had a mandate. Through this tactic, they virtually assure that other parties are shut out in Quebec — and thus the Liberals are guaranteed, at the very least, a minority government.

It’s a sad state of affairs when parties ask for your vote on the feeble grounds that they’re “not quite as bad as the other guy.”

The Conservative Party has responded (as it did in the 2004 election) by trying to move to the mushy middle — especially on moral issues — to become “Liberal lite” — a strategy that has never worked before, nor ever will.

Canada’s mainstream media are dominated by the liberal left, just like their counterparts in the USA. However, the American conservative movement has developed and utilized alternative ‘new media’: the Internet and talk radio. Canada must develop a similar ‘media underground’, and use it to the same advantage.

Possibly the biggest story of the 2004 Presidential campaign was the rise of the “blog” (web-logs: diaries of independent commentary posted on the Internet for anyone to read). Several times, the mainstream media tried to push false and unverified stories designed to derail the Bush campaign; but the bloggers turned the tables on them every time — and in record time.

The Dan Rather/60 Minutes “story” — based on what turned out to be forged documents — was exposed as a fraud by one of the “pyjama-clad” new journalists on a website called “Little Green Footballs”; and they did the same with the CBS/NYT/DNC attempt to pump the non-story of alleged “missing ammunition” at the al-Qaqaa arms cache in Iraq.

Another weapon conservatives have in the USA — which Canadians haven’t yet been able to use — is talk radio. We’ve all heard of the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager and Howie Carr. In the USA, true conservatives dominate the airwaves — and in concert with the bloggers, they’re getting their message out in a big way.

Canada has a few shows here and there, but nothing nationally syndicated that attempts to cut through the liberal spin and bring some balance to our woefully biased media. Ottawa’s CFRA has a strong line-up of conservative, no-spin talk shows (Steve Madely, Lowell Green, Michael Harris, John Counsell etc), but the worldview of many of these talk-show hosts, while fiscally conservative, is also Secularist. And CFRA is only a local bastion because its programs are not nationally syndicated. However, CFRA can be heard on the Internet at http://www.cfra.com/listen/index.asp.

Canadians owe it to themselves to cultivate the habit of reading and listening “between the lines” to what’s published by the mainstream media; of weighing it against what they know to be true; and holding it up to the light of facts and logic; and of seeking out and supporting conservative and Christian commentators and news analysts. The mainstream media’s liberal bias cannot stand up to such scrutiny, and we’ll all become better-informed voters.

Critical thinking seems to be a lost art; we must revive it. By balancing what is reported in the mainstream media with substantiated material published on the Internet, we can help cut through the spin, and overturn the liberal elites that seem to think of Canada as their private fiefdom. That’s not the Canada that our soldiers have and continue to place themselves in harm’s way to defend.

I truly believe that most Canadians want a society that defends traditional Judeo-Christian values —which, wherever they have been applied, have always brought freedom, security and order.

I believe Canadians want a government that will not leave decisions in the hands of appointed liberal judicial activists; Canadian want to have such decisions made by an accountable Parliament after open public debate that incorporates the standards of right and wrong on which our nation was founded.

I also believe Canadians want a strong, well-funded volunteer armed forces — dispatched, not under the auspices of the United Nations, but in genuine response to the values Canadians wish to defend — and only by our own elected officials.

We want a country where there is free speech: where all ideas may be presented and their merits (or lack thereof) held up to civilized public debate — the only restriction being that such ideas must never be incitements to violence. Such civilized debate will also go a long way toward convincing good people to seek public office. Who wants to be dragged through the mud with personal attacks? It is ideas that matter.

How can we achieve this? No big secret: we must decide that we will no longer allow our government to behave like enemies of the culture on which Canada and Western civilization were established and grew. We, the people, must hold them to account.

We, the citizens, must be the ones to change first, and to raise the level of public discourse. Nobody else can do it for us. We must rise up together, and decide to shed the light of truth in this country; to vote for the candidates based on what they stand for, their records, and how close they and their party come to representing what we believe in — rather than voting strategically, or following the polls.

True leadership must always follow the path of truth and righteousness, no matter what the polls say.

We have the tools at our disposal to shake Canada to its foundations; the only question is: are we willing to use them?

Dear Herm and Rose,

Thank you for taking the time to express your concern regarding this important issue. A copy of your email to Prime Minister Paul Martin is included below.

Sincerely,

Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
203, 10441 - 178 Street
Edmonton, AB T7X 4A3
780-481-7844
contact@citizenscentre.com

P.S. Be sure to tell your friends about this letter. The greater the response, the greater the impact it will have.

Ask them to go to http://www.MarriageReferendum.ca

Dear Prime Minister:

I find it totally unacceptable that you plan to ratify same-sex marriage by a quick vote in the House of Commons.

Any change as fundamental as this one, and so significant to the nation's future, cannot be legitimately instituted on the say-so of a few lawyers appointed as judges.

Nor can it be left to Parliamentarians who (like yourself) are plainly terrified of the subject, and do not even accept the constitutional principle of responsible, democratic government enshrined in section 33 of the Charter of Rights.

The Supreme Court has recently acknowledged that this is a significant constitutional change that affects Canadian governments, social institutions and individuals.

The precedent was established in 1992 that significant constitutional changes are put to a national referendum. The question at issue here may prove far more important to our future national health than anything that was in the Charlottetown Accord.

I insist that you put this question to a direct vote by the people of Canada at the earliest opportunity, and that you accept their judgement.

The Constitution does not belong to Parliament and or to the Supreme Court. It belongs to Canadians.

Sincerely,

Herm and Rose Wills
54 Trundle Cr
Lower Sackville, NS B4E 2X2

902 864 1464
h.wills@ns.sympatico.ca

cc:
Hon. Anne McLellan, Deputy Prime Minister
Hon. Irwin Cotler, Minister of Justice
Hon. Stephen Harper, Leader of the Official Opposition
Gilles Duceppe, Leader of the Bloc Quebecois
Jack Layton, Leader of the New Democratic Party
Hon. Jack Austin, Leader of the Government in the Senate
Hon. Noel Kinsella, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Vic Toews, Justice Critic for the Official Opposition Supreme Court of Canada

Marriage Collapsing Slowly In Scandanavia

According to a new report, marriage is dying in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Noted author Stanley Kurtz reviews recent trends in marriage, divorce and childrearing in the three Scandinavian states, and concludes that the institution of marriage is being abandoned in favour of cohabitation, and various other diverse family forms.

"The rise of fragile families based on cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing means that during the nineties, the total rate of family dissolution in Scandinavia significantly increased," he notes. As out-of-wedlock births skyrocket and alternate family forms become normative, marriage declines steadily.

Kurtz posits that the countries' acceptance of same-sex marriage is perhaps the clearest symbol of the death of marriage, because it serves to "reinforce the cultural separation between marriage and parenthood." The three nations legalized de facto gay marriage between 1980 and 1994. Kurtz concludes that the evidence from the "Scandinavian experiment" demonstrates that redefining marriage to include same-sex couples undermines marriage.

The Weekly Standard - Feb. 2, 2004 * Volume 009, Issue 20
The End of Marriage in Scandinavia
The "Conservative Case" For Same-Sex Marriage Collapses.
by Stanley Kurtz

Marriage Is Slowly Dying In Scandinavia. A majority of children in Sweden and Norway are born out of wedlock. Sixty percent of first-born children in Denmark have unmarried parents. Not coincidentally, these countries have had something close to full gay marriage for a decade or more. Same-sex marriage has locked in and reinforced an existing Scandinavian trend toward the separation of marriage and parenthood. The Nordic family pattern – including gay marriage - is spreading across Europe. And by looking closely at it we can answer the key empirical question underlying the gay marriage debate. Will same-sex marriage undermine the institution of marriage? It already has.

More precisely, it has further undermined the institution. The separation of marriage from parenthood was increasing; gay marriage has widened the separation. Out-of-wedlock birthrates were rising; gay marriage has added to the factors pushing those rates higher. Instead of encouraging a society-wide return to marriage, Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated, and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.

This is not how the situation has been portrayed by prominent gay marriage advocates journalist Andrew Sullivan and Yale law professor William Eskridge, Jr. Sullivan and Eskridge have made much of an unpublished study of Danish same-sex registered partnerships by Darren Spedale, an independent researcher with an undergraduate degree who visited Denmark in 1996 on a Fulbright scholarship. In 1989, Denmark had legalized de facto gay marriage (Norway followed in 1993 and Sweden in 1994). Drawing on Spedale, Sullivan and Eskridge cite evidence that since then, marriage has strengthened. Spedale reported that in the six years following the establishment of registered partnerships in Denmark (1990-1996), heterosexual marriage rates climbed by 10%, while heterosexual divorce rates declined by 12%. Writing in the McGeorge Law Review, Eskridge claimed that Spedale's study had exposed the "hysteria and irresponsibility" of those who predicted gay marriage would undermine marriage. Andrew Sullivan's Spedale-inspired piece was subtitled, "The case against same-sex marriage crumbles."

Yet the half-page statistical analysis of heterosexual marriage in Darren Spedale's unpublished paper doesn't begin to get at the truth about the decline of marriage in Scandinavia during the nineties. Scandinavian marriage is now so weak that statistics on marriage and divorce no longer mean what they used to.

Take divorce. It's true that in Denmark, as elsewhere in Scandinavia, divorce numbers looked better in the nineties. But that's because the pool of married people has been shrinking for some time. You can't divorce without first getting married. Moreover, a closer look at Danish divorce in the post-gay marriage decade reveals disturbing trends. Many Danes have stopped holding off divorce until their kids are grown. And Denmark in the nineties saw a 25% increase in cohabiting couples with children. With fewer parents marrying, what used to show up in statistical tables, as early divorce is now the unrecorded breakup of a cohabiting couple with children.

What about Spedale's report that the Danish marriage rate increased 10% from 1990 to 1996? Again, the news only appears to be good. First, there is no trend. Eurostat's just-released marriage rates for 2001 show declines in Sweden and Denmark (Norway hasn't reported). Second, marriage statistics in societies with very low rates (Sweden registered the lowest marriage rate in recorded history in 1997) must be carefully parsed. In his study of the Norwegian family in the nineties, for example, Christer Hyggen shows that a small increase in Norway's marriage rate over the past decade has more to do with the institution's decline than with any renaissance. Much of the increase in Norway's marriage rate is driven by older couples "catching up." These couples belong to the first generation that accepts rearing the first born child out of wedlock. As they bear second children, some finally get married. (And even this tendency to marry at the birth of a second child is weakening.) As for the rest of the increase in the Norwegian marriage rate, it is largely attributable to remarriage among the large number of divorced.

Spedale's report of lower divorce rates and higher marriage rates in post-gay marriage Denmark is thus misleading. Marriage is now so weak in Scandinavia that shifts in these rates no longer mean what they would in America. In Scandinavian demography, what counts is the out-of-wedlock birthrate, and the family dissolution rate.

The family dissolution rate is different from the divorce rate. Because so many Scandinavians now rear children outside of marriage, divorce rates are unreliable measures of family weakness. Instead, we need to know the rate at which parents (married or not) split up. Precise statistics on family dissolution are unfortunately rare. Yet the studies that have been done show that throughout Scandinavia (and the West) cohabiting couples with children break up at two to three times the rate of married parents. So rising rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth stand as proxy for rising rates of family dissolution.

By that measure, Scandinavian family dissolution has only been worsening. Between 1990 and 2000, Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate rose from 39 to 50%, while Sweden's rose from 47 to 55%. In Denmark out-of- wedlock births stayed level during the nineties (beginning at 46% and ending at 45%). But the leveling off seems to be a function of a slight increase in fertility among older couples, who marry only after multiple births (if they don't break up first). That shift masks the 25% increase during the nineties in cohabitation and unmarried parenthood among Danish couples (many of them young). About 60% of first born children in Denmark now have unmarried parents. The rise of fragile families based on cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing means that during the nineties, the total rate of family dissolution in Scandinavia significantly increased.

Scandinavia's out-of-wedlock birthrates may have risen more rapidly in the seventies, when marriage began its slide. But the push of that rate past the 50% mark during the nineties was in many ways more disturbing. Growth in the out-of-wedlock birthrate is limited by the tendency of parents to marry after a couple of births, and also by the persistence of relatively conservative and religious districts. So as out-of-wedlock childbearing pushes beyond 50%, it is reaching the toughest areas of cultural resistance. The most important trend of the post-gay marriage decade may be the erosion of the tendency to marry at the birth of a second child. Once even that marker disappears, the path to the complete disappearance of marriage is open.

And now that married parenthood has become a minority phenomenon, it has lost the critical mass required to have socially normative force. As Danish sociologists Wehner, Kambskard, and Abrahamson describe it, in the wake of the changes of the nineties, "Marriage is no longer a precondition for settling a family - neither legally nor normatively. ... What defines and makes the foundation of the Danish family can be said to have moved from marriage to parenthood."

So the highly touted half-page of analysis from an unpublished paper that supposedly helps validate the "conservative case" for gay marriage - i.e., that it will encourage stable marriage for heterosexuals and homosexuals alike - does no such thing. Marriage in Scandinavia is in deep decline, with children shouldering the burden of rising rates of family dissolution. And the mainspring of the decline - an increasingly sharp separation between marriage and parenthood - can be linked to gay marriage. To see this, we need to understand why marriage is in trouble in Scandinavia to begin with.

Scandinavia has long been a bellwether of family change. Scholars take the Swedish experience as a prototype for family developments that will, or could, spread throughout the world. So let's have a look at the decline of Swedish marriage.

In Sweden, as elsewhere, the sixties brought contraception, abortion, and growing individualism. Sex was separated from procreation, reducing the need for "shotgun weddings." These changes, along with the movement of women into the workforce, enabled and encouraged people to marry at later ages. With married couples putting off parenthood, early divorce had fewer consequences for children. That weakened the taboo against divorce. Since young couples were putting off children, the next step was to dispense with marriage and cohabit until children were desired. Americans have lived through this transformation. The Swedes have simply drawn the final conclusion: If we've come so far without marriage, why marry at all? Our love is what matters, not a piece of paper. Why should children change that?

Two things prompted the Swedes to take this extra step - the welfare state and cultural attitudes. No Western economy has a higher percentage of public employees, public expenditures - or higher tax rates - than Sweden. The massive Swedish welfare state has largely displaced the family as provider. By guaranteeing jobs and income to every citizen (even children), the welfare state renders each individual independent. It's easier to divorce your spouse when the state will support you instead.

The taxes necessary to support the welfare state have had an enormous impact on the family. With taxes so high, women must work. This reduces the time available for child rearing, thus encouraging the expansion of a day-care system that takes a large part in raising nearly all Swedish children over age one. Here is at least a partial realization of Simone de Beauvoir's dream of an enforced androgyny that pushes women from the home by turning children over to the state.

Yet the Swedish welfare state may encourage traditionalism in one respect. The lone teen pregnancies common in the British and American underclass are rare in Sweden, which has no underclass to speak of. Even when Swedish couples bear a child out of wedlock, they tend to reside together when the child is born. Strong state enforcement of child support is another factor discouraging single motherhood by teens. Whatever the causes, the discouragement of lone motherhood is a short-term effect. Ultimately, mothers and fathers can get along financially alone. So children born out of wedlock are raised, initially, by two cohabiting parents, many of whom later break up.

There are also cultural-ideological causes of Swedish family decline. Even more than in the United States, radical feminist and socialist ideas pervade the universities and the media. Many Scandinavian social scientists see marriage as a barrier to full equality between the sexes, and would not be sorry to see marriage replaced by unmarried cohabitation. A related cultural-ideological agent of marital decline is secularism. Sweden is probably the most secular country in the world. Secular social scientists (most of them quite radical) have largely replaced clerics as arbiters of public morality. Swedes themselves link the decline of marriage to secularism. And many studies confirm that, throughout the West, religiosity is associated with institutionally strong marriage, while heightened secularism is correlated with a weakening of marriage. Scholars have long suggested that the relatively thin Christianization of the Nordic countries explains a lot about why the decline of marriage in Scandinavia is a decade ahead of the rest of the West.

Are Scandinavians concerned about rising out-of-wedlock births, the decline of marriage, and ever-rising rates of family dissolution? No, and yes. For over 15 years, an American outsider, Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe, has played Cassandra on these issues. Popenoe's 1988 book, "Disturbing the Nest," is still the definitive treatment of Scandinavian family change and its meaning for the Western world. Popenoe is no toe-the-line conservative. He has praise for the Swedish welfare state, and criticizes American opposition to some child welfare programs. Yet Popenoe has documented the slow motion collapse of the Swedish family, and emphasized the link between Swedish family decline and welfare policy.

For years, Popenoe's was a lone voice. Yet by the end of the nineties, the problem was too obvious to ignore. In 2000, Danish sociologist Mai Heide Ottosen published a study, "Samboskab, Aegteskab og Foraeldrebrud" ("Cohabitation, Marriage and Parental Breakup"), which confirmed the increased risk of family dissolution to children of unmarried parents, and gently chided Scandinavian social scientists for ignoring the "quiet revolution" of out-of-wedlock parenting.

Despite the reluctance of Scandinavian social scientists to study the consequences of family dissolution for children, we do have an excellent study that followed the life experiences of all children born in Stockholm in 1953. (Not coincidentally, the research was conducted by a British scholar, Duncan W.G. Timms.) That study found that regardless of income or social status, parental breakup had negative effects on children's mental health. Boys living with single, separated, or divorced mothers had particularly high rates of impairment in adolescence. An important 2003 study by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, et al. found that children of single parents in Sweden have more than double the rates of mortality, severe morbidity, and injury of children in two parent households. This held true after controlling for a wide range of demographic and socioeconomic circumstances.

The Decline of Marriage and the rise of unstable cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbirth are not confined to Scandinavia. The Scandinavian welfare state aggravates these problems. Yet none of the forces weakening marriage there are unique to the region. Contraception, abortion, women in the workforce, spreading secularism, ascendant individualism, and a substantial welfare state are found in every Western country. That is why the Nordic pattern is spreading.

Yet the pattern is spreading unevenly. And scholars agree that cultural tradition plays a central role in determining whether a given country moves toward the Nordic family system. Religion is a key variable. A 2002 study by the Max Planck Institute, for example, concluded that countries with the lowest rates of family dissolution and out-of-wedlock births are "strongly dominated by the Catholic confession." The same study found that in countries with high levels of family dissolution, religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, had little influence.

British demographer Kathleen Kiernan, the acknowledged authority on the spread of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births across Europe, divides the continent into three zones. The Nordic countries are the leaders in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock births. They are followed by a middle group that includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany. Until recently, France was a member of this middle group, but France's rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has moved it into the Nordic category. North American rates of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth put the United States and Canada into this middle group. Most resistant to cohabitation, family dissolution, and out-of-wedlock births are the southern European countries of Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece, and, until recently, Switzerland and Ireland. (Ireland's rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has just pushed it into the middle group.)

These three groupings closely track the movement for gay marriage. In the early nineties, gay marriage came to the Nordic countries, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was already high. Ten years later, out-of-wedlock birth rates have risen significantly in the middle group of nations. Not coincidentally, nearly every country in that middle group has recently either legalized some form of gay marriage, or is seriously considering doing so. Only in the group with low out-of-wedlock birthrates has the gay marriage movement achieved relatively little success.

This suggests that gay marriage is both an effect and a cause of the increasing separation between marriage and parenthood. As rising out-of-wedlock birthrates disassociate heterosexual marriage from parenting, gay marriage becomes conceivable. If marriage is only about a relationship between two people, and is not intrinsically connected to parenthood, why shouldn't same-sex couples be allowed to marry? It follows that once marriage is redefined to accommodate same-sex couples, that change cannot help but lock in and reinforce the very cultural separation between marriage and parenthood that makes gay marriage conceivable to begin with.

We see this process at work in the radical separation of marriage and parenthood that swept across Scandinavia in the nineties. If Scandinavian out-of-wedlock birthrates had not already been high in the late eighties, gay marriage would have been far more difficult to imagine. More than a decade into post-gay marriage Scandinavia, out-of-wedlock birthrates have passed 50%, and the effective end of marriage as a protective shield for children has become thinkable. Gay marriage hasn't blocked the separation of marriage and parenthood; it has advanced it.

We See This most clearly in Norway. In 1989, a couple of years after Sweden broke ground by offering gay couples the first domestic partnership package in Europe, Denmark legalized de facto gay marriage. This kicked off a debate in Norway (traditionally more conservative than either Sweden or Denmark), which legalized de facto gay marriage in 1993. (Sweden expanded its benefits packages into de facto gay marriage in 1994.) In liberal Denmark, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were already very high, the public favored same-sex marriage. But in Norway, where the out-of-wedlock birthrate was lower - and religion traditionally stronger - gay marriage was imposed, against the public will, by the political elite.

Norway's gay marriage debate, which ran most intensely from 1991 through 1993, was a culture-shifting event. And once enacted, gay marriage had a decidedly unconservative impact on Norway's cultural contests, weakening marriage's defenders, and placing a weapon in the hands of those who sought to replace marriage with cohabitation. Since its adoption, gay marriage has brought division and decline to Norway's Lutheran Church. Meanwhile, Norway's fast-rising out-of-wedlock birthrate has shot past Denmark's. Particularly in Norway - once relatively conservative - gay marriage has undermined marriage's institutional standing for everyone.

Norway's Lutheran state church has been riven by conflict in the decade since the approval of de facto gay marriage, with the ordination of registered partners the most divisive issue. The church's agonies have been intensively covered in the Norwegian media, which have taken every opportunity to paint the church as hidebound and divided. The nineties began with conservative churchmen in control. By the end of the decade, liberals had seized the reins.

While the most public disputes of the nineties were over homosexuality, Norway's Lutheran church was also divided over the question of heterosexual cohabitation. Asked directly, liberal and conservative clerics alike voice a preference for marriage over cohabitation - especially for couples with children. In practice, however, conservative churchmen speak out against the trend toward unmarried cohabitation and childbirth, while liberals acquiesce.

This division over heterosexual cohabitation broke into the open in 2000, at the height of the church's split over gay partnerships, when Prince Haakon, heir to Norway's throne, began to live with his lover, a single mother. From the start of the prince's controversial relationship to its eventual culmination in marriage, the future head of the Norwegian state church received tokens of public support or understanding from the very same bishops who were leading the fight to permit the ordination of homosexual partners.

So rather than strengthening Norwegian marriage against the rise of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birth, same-sex marriage had the opposite effect. Gay marriage lessened the church's authority by splitting it into warring factions and providing the secular media with occasions to mock and expose divisions. Gay marriage also elevated the church's openly rebellious minority liberal faction to national visibility, allowing Norwegians to feel that their proclivity for unmarried parenthood, if not fully approved by the church, was at least not strongly condemned. If the "conservative case" for gay marriage had been valid, clergy who were supportive of gay marriage would have taken a strong public stand against unmarried heterosexual parenthood. This didn't happen. It was the conservative clergy who criticized the prince, while the liberal supporters of gay marriage tolerated his decisions. The message was not lost on ordinary Norwegians, who continued their flight to unmarried parenthood.

Gay marriage is both an effect and a reinforcing cause of the separation of marriage and parenthood. In states like Sweden and Denmark, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were already very high, and the public favored gay marriage, gay unions were an effect of earlier changes. Once in place, gay marriage symbolically ratified the separation of marriage and parenthood. And once established, gay marriage became one of several factors contributing to further increases in cohabitation and out-of-wedlock birthrates, as well as to early divorce. But in Norway, where out-of-wedlock birthrates were lower, religion stronger, and the public opposed same-sex unions, gay marriage had an even greater role in precipitating marital decline.

Sweden's Position as the world leader in family decline is associated with a weak clergy, and the prominence of secular and left-leaning social scientists. In the post-gay marriage nineties, as Norway's once relatively low out-of-wedlock birthrate was climbing to unprecedented heights, and as the gay marriage controversy weakened and split the once respected Lutheran state church, secular social scientists took center stage.

Kari Moxnes, a feminist sociologist specializing in divorce, is one of the most prominent of Norway's newly emerging group of public social scientists. As a scholar who sees both marriage and at-home motherhood as inherently oppressive to women, Moxnes is a proponent of nonmarital cohabitation and parenthood. In 1993, as the Norwegian legislature was debating gay marriage, Moxnes published an article, "Det tomme ekteskap" ("Empty Marriage"); in the influential liberal paper Dagbladet. She argued that Norwegian gay marriage was a sign of marriage's growing emptiness, not its strength. Although Moxnes spoke in favor of gay marriage, she treated its creation as a (welcome) death knell for marriage itself. Moxnes identified homosexuals - with their experience in forging relationships unencumbered by children – as social pioneers in the separation of marriage from parenthood. In recognizing homosexual relationships, Moxnes said, society was ratifying the division of marriage from parenthood that had spurred the rise of out-of-wedlock births to begin with.

A frequent public presence, Moxnes enjoyed her big moment in 1999, when she was embroiled in a dispute with Valgerd Svarstad Haugland, minister of children and family affairs in Norway's Christian Democrat government. Moxnes had criticized Christian marriage classes for teaching children the importance of wedding vows. This brought a sharp public rebuke from Haugland. Responding to Haugland's criticisms, Moxnes invoked homosexual families as proof that "relationships" were now more important than institutional marriage.

This is not what proponents of the conservative case for gay marriage had in mind. In Norway, gay marriage has given ammunition to those who wish to put an end to marriage. And the steady rise of Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate during the nineties proves that the opponents of marriage are succeeding. Nor is Kari Moxnes an isolated case.

Months before Moxnes clashed with Haugland, social historian Kari Melby had a very public quarrel with a leader of the Christian Democratic party over the conduct of Norway's energy minister, Marit Arnstad. Arnstad had gotten pregnant in office and had declined to name the father. Melby defended Arnstad, and publicly challenged the claim that children do best with both a mother and a father. In making her case, Melby praised gay parenting, along with voluntary single motherhood, as equally worthy alternatives to the traditional family. So instead of noting that an expectant mother might want to follow the example of marriage that even gays were now setting, Melby invoked homosexual families as proof that a child can do as well with one parent as two.

Finally, consider a case that made even more news in Norway, that of handball star Mia Hundvin (yes, handball prowess makes for celebrity in Norway). Hundvin had been in a registered gay partnership with fellow handballer Camilla Andersen. These days, however, having publicly announced her bisexuality, Hundvin is linked with Norwegian snowboarder Terje Haakonsen. Inspired by her time with Haakonsen's son, Hundvin decided to have a child. The father of Hundvin's child may well be Haakonsen, but neither Hundvin nor Haakonsen is saying.

Did Hundvin divorce her registered partner before deciding to become a single mother by (probably) her new boyfriend? The story in Norway's premiere paper, Aftenposten, doesn't bother to mention. After noting that Hundvin and Andersen were registered partners, the paper simply says that the two women are no longer "romantically involved." Hundvin has only been with Haakonsen about a year. She obviously decided to become a single mother without bothering to see whether she and Haakonsen might someday marry. Nor has Hundvin appeared to consider that her affection for Haakonsen's child (also apparently born out of wedlock) might better be expressed by marrying Haakonsen and becoming his son's new mother.

Certainly, you can chalk up more than a little of this saga to celebrity culture. But celebrity culture is both a product and influencer of the larger culture that gives rise to it. Clearly, the idea of parenthood here has been radically individualized, and utterly detached from marriage. Registered partnerships have reinforced existing trends. The press treats gay partnerships more as relationships than as marriages. The symbolic message of registered partnerships - for social scientists, handball players, and bishops alike - has been that most any nontraditional family is just fine. Gay marriage has served to validate the belief that individual choice trumps family form.

The Scandinavian experience rebuts the so-called conservative case for gay marriage in more than one way. Noteworthy, too, is the lack of a movement toward marriage and monogamy among gays. Take-up rates on gay marriage are exceedingly small. Yale's William Eskridge acknowledged this when he reported in 2000 that 2,372 couples had registered after nine years of the Danish law, 674 after four years of the Norwegian law, and 749 after four years of the Swedish law.

Danish social theorist Henning Bech and Norwegian sociologist Rune Halvorsen offer excellent accounts of the gay marriage debates in Denmark and Norway. Despite the regnant social liberalism in these countries, proposals to recognize gay unions generated tremendous controversy, and have reshaped the meaning of marriage in the years since. Both Bech and Halvorsen stress that the conservative case for gay marriage, while put forward by a few, was rejected by many in the gay community. Bech, perhaps Scandinavia's most prominent gay thinker, dismisses as an "implausible" claim the idea that gay marriage promotes monogamy. He treats the "conservative case" as something that served chiefly tactical purposes during a difficult political debate. According to Halvorsen, many of Norway's gays imposed self-censorship during the marriage debate, so as to hide their opposition to marriage itself. The goal of the gay marriage movements in both Norway and Denmark, say Halvorsen and Bech, was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality. Halvorsen suggests that the low numbers of registered gay couples may be understood as a collective protest against the expectations (presumably, monogamy) embodied in marriage.

Since Liberalizing Divorce in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Nordic countries have been the leading edge of marital change. Drawing on the Swedish experience, Kathleen Kiernan, the British demographer, uses a four-stage model by which to gauge a country's movement toward Swedish levels of out-of-wedlock births.

In stage one, cohabitation is seen as a deviant or avant-garde practice, and the vast majority of the population produces children within marriage. Italy is at this first stage. In the second stage, cohabitation serves as a testing period before marriage, and is generally a childless phase. Bracketing the problem of underclass single parenthood, America is largely at this second stage. In stage three, cohabitation becomes increasingly acceptable, and parenting is no longer automatically associated with marriage. Norway was at this third stage, but with recent demographic and legal changes has entered stage four. In the fourth stage (Sweden and Denmark), marriage and cohabitation become practically indistinguishable, with many, perhaps even most, children born and raised outside of marriage. According to Kiernan, these stages may vary in duration, yet once a country has reached a stage; return to an earlier phase is unlikely. (She offers no examples of stage reversal.) Yet once a stage has been reached, earlier phases coexist.

The forces pushing nations toward the Nordic model are almost universal. True, by preserving legal distinctions between marriage and cohabitation, reining in the welfare state, and preserving at least some traditional values, a given country might forestall or prevent the normalization of nonmarital parenthood. Yet every Western country is susceptible to the pull of the Nordic model. Nor does Catholicism guarantee immunity. Ireland, perhaps because of its geographic, linguistic, and cultural proximity to England, is now suffering from out-of-wedlock birthrates far in excess of the rest of Catholic Europe. Without deeming a shift inevitable, Kiernan openly wonders how long America can resist the pull of stages three and four.

Although Sweden leads the world in family decline, the United States is runner-up. Swedes marry less, and bear more children out of wedlock, than any other industrialized nation. But Americans lead the world in single parenthood and divorce. If we bracket the crisis of single parenthood among African-Americans, the picture is somewhat different. Yet even among non-Hispanic whites, the American divorce rate is extremely high by world standards.

The American mix of family traditionalism and family instability is unusual. In comparison to Europe, Americans are more religious and more likely to turn to the family than the state for a wide array of needs - from childcare, to financial support, to care for the elderly. Yet America's individualism cuts two ways. Our cultural libertarianism protects the family as a bulwark against the state, yet it also breaks individuals loose from the family. The danger we face is a combination of America's divorce rate with unstable, Scandinavian-style out-of-wedlock parenthood. With a growing tendency for cohabiting couples to have children outside of marriage, America is headed in that direction.

Young Americans are more likely to favor gay marriage than their elders. That oft-noted fact is directly related to another. Less than half of America's twentysomethings consider it wrong to bear children outside marriage. There is a growing tendency for even middle class cohabiting couples to have children without marrying.

Nonetheless, although cohabiting parenthood is growing in America, levels here are still far short of those in Europe. America's situation is not unlike Norway's in the early nineties, with religiosity relatively strong, the out-of-wedlock birthrate still relatively low (yet rising), and the public opposed to gay marriage. If, as in Norway, gay marriage were imposed here by a socially liberal cultural elite, it would likely speed us on the way toward the classic Nordic pattern of less frequent marriage, more frequent out-of-wedlock birth, and skyrocketing family dissolution.

In the American context, this would be a disaster. Beyond raising rates of middle class family dissolution, a further separation of marriage from parenthood would reverse the healthy turn away from single-parenting that we have begun to see since welfare reform. And cross-class family decline would bring intense pressure for a new expansion of the American welfare state.

All this is happening in Britain. With the Nordic pattern's spread across Europe, Britain's out-of-wedlock birthrate has risen to 40%. Most of that increase is among cohabiting couples. Yet a significant number of out-of-wedlock births in Britain are to lone teenage mothers. This is a function of Britain's class divisions. Remember that although the Scandinavian welfare state encourages family dissolution in the long term, in the short term, Scandinavian parents giving birth out of wedlock tend to stay together. But given the presence of a substantial underclass in Britain, the spread of Nordic cohabitation there has sent lone teen parenting rates way up. As Britain's rates of single parenting and family dissolution have grown, so has pressure to expand the welfare state to compensate for economic help that families can no longer provide. But of course, an expansion of the welfare state would only lock the weakening of Britain's family system into place.

If America is to avoid being forced into a similar choice, we'll have to resist the separation of marriage from parenthood. Yet even now we are being pushed in the Scandinavian direction. Stimulated by rising rates of unmarried parenthood, the influential American Law Institute (ALI) has proposed a series of legal reforms ("Principles of Family Dissolution") designed to equalize marriage and cohabitation. Adoption of the ALI principles would be a giant step toward the Scandinavian system.

Americans take it for granted that, despite its recent troubles, marriage will always exist. This is a mistake. Marriage is disappearing in Scandinavia, and the forces undermining it there are active throughout the West. Perhaps the most disturbing sign for the future is the collapse of the Scandinavian tendency to marry after the second child. At the start of the nineties, 60% of unmarried Norwegian parents who lived together had only one child. By 2001, 56% of unmarried, cohabiting parents in Norway had two or more children. This suggests that someday, Scandinavian parents might simply stop getting married altogether, no matter how many children they have.

The death of marriage is not inevitable. In a given country, public policy decisions and cultural values could slow, and perhaps halt, the process of marital decline. Nor are we faced with an all-or-nothing choice between the marital system of, say, the 1950s and marriage's disappearance. Kiernan's model posits stopping points. So repealing no-fault divorce, or even eliminating premarital cohabitation, are not what's at issue. With no-fault divorce, Americans traded away some of the marital stability that protects children to gain more freedom for adults. Yet we can accept that trade-off, while still drawing a line against descent into a Nordic-style system. And cohabitation as a premarital testing phase is not the same as unmarried parenting. Potentially, a line between the two can hold.

Developments in the last half-century have surely weakened the links between American marriage and parenthood. Yet to a remarkable degree, Americans still take it for granted that parents should marry. Scandinavia shocks us. Still, who can deny that gay marriage will accustom us to a more Scandinavian-style separation of marriage and parenthood? And with our underclass, the social pathologies this produces in America are bound to be more severe than they already are in wealthy and socially homogeneous Scandinavia.

All of these considerations suggest that the gay marriage debate in America is too important to duck. Kiernan maintains that as societies progressively detach marriage from parenthood, stage reversal is impossible. That makes sense. The association between marriage and parenthood is partly a mystique. Disenchanted mystiques cannot be restored on demand.

What about a patchwork in which some American states have gay marriage while others do not? A state-by-state patchwork would practically guarantee a shift toward the Nordic family system. Movies and television, which do not respect state borders, would embrace gay marriage. The cultural effects would be national.

What about Vermont-style civil unions? Would that be a workable compromise? Clearly not. Scandinavian registered partnerships are Vermont-style civil unions. They are not called marriage; yet resemble marriage in almost every other respect. The key differences are that registered partnerships do not permit adoption or artificial insemination, and cannot be celebrated in state-affiliated churches. These limitations are gradually being repealed. The lesson of the Scandinavian experience is that even de facto same-sex marriage undermines marriage.

The Scandinavian example also proves that gay marriage is not interracial marriage in a new guise. The miscegenation analogy was never convincing. There are plenty of reasons to think that, in contrast to race, sexual orientation will have profound effects on marriage. But with Scandinavia, we are well beyond the realm of even educated speculation. The post-gay marriage changes in the Scandinavian family are significant. This is not like the fantasy about interracial birth defects. There is a serious scholarly debate about the spread of the Nordic family pattern. Since gay marriage is a part of that pattern, it needs to be part of that debate.

Conservative advocates of gay marriage want to test it in a few states. The implication is that, should the experiment go bad, we can call it off. Yet the effects, even in a few American states, will be neither containable nor revocable. It took about 15 years after the change hit Sweden and Denmark for Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate to begin to move from "European" to "Nordic" levels. It took another 15 years (and the advent of gay marriage) for Norway's out-of-wedlock birthrate to shoot past even Denmark's. By the time we see the effects of gay marriage in America, it will be too late to do anything about it. Yet we needn't wait that long. In effect, Scandinavia has run our experiment for us. The results are in.

URGENT! -- January 5, 2005

WITHOUT YOUR INPUT, THE DEMISE OF THE CANADIAN FAMILY
MAY BE IRRETRIEVABLY DECIDED IN A FEW SHORT WEEKS.

PLEASE IMMEDIATELY FORWARD THIS E-MAIL
TO THOSE WHOSE JUDGEMENT YOU TRUST.

Dear Friend;

With a view to equality, the Liberal government plans to introduce legislation next month to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide. They see this as a basic human-rights issue, and nothing Canada can’t handle.

But what if they’re wrong?

Pro-family groups and cultural experts across the nation and around the world warn that redefining marriage will have profound, far-reaching, and even drastic effects on the family. They say this is a decision that mustn’t be rushed through Parliament or foisted upon the people without their consent; that Canada’s children will pay a devastating price for it; that future generations of Canadians deserve better.

What if they’re right?

Consider this commentary, co-written by two McGill University experts on civilization (one of whom is gay).

“Most people like to consider their society a tolerant one, and this is certainly laudable. But no society could endure if tolerance were taken to its ultimate conclusion: the belief that ‘anything goes.’ In addition to tolerance - otherwise known as ‘love,’ ‘caring’ or ‘compassion’ – every society must be guided by wisdom. And that requires citizens to be as reasonable as they are tolerant. Canadians should think twice, therefore, before redefining marriage.” Katherine Young and Paul Nathanson, “The Future of An Experiment” in Divorcing Marriage: Unveiling the Dangers in Canada’s New Social Experiment (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004).

These are sobering words. More excerpts from Young and Nathanson’s discussion on how same-sex-marriage could hurt children, men, women, singles, society, religious communities, education, and even democracy are available here.

If Young, Nathanson, and the multitudes that share their concerns are correct, same-sex marriage must not go ahead without the consent of the people, after exhaustive public debate. There is much, much more at stake than just minority rights!

Why, although the Supreme Court of Canada refused to rule against traditional marriage, is the government rushing ahead with same-sex marriage?

Why, when Prime Minister Paul Martin promised a free vote on the issue, is he ordering all 39 Cabinet Ministers and 28 Parliamentary Secretaries to support the same-sex bill, even though some of those government MPs campaigned in defense of traditional marriage?

Why does the debate rage over the rights of adults, despite evidence from Scandinavia that same-sex marriage interferes with the needs of children?

Why, when the latest poll shows supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage almost evenly split, with fully 24% of Canadian voters undecided, are Canadians being denied a national referendum which would open the doors to full public debate?

These are pressing questions. They ought to be answered, along with a multitude of other questions about how redefining marriage could affect our society, our religious freedoms, and especially our children, for generations to come.

Whatever your personal leanings on same-sex marriage may be, we ask that you join us in calling upon Prime Minister Martin to put his legislation on hold, in the absence of a consensus. Pushing ahead with it now, in the present climate, could divide our country and undermine our democracy. Please ask him instead to enable the discussion that must take place by calling a referendum on the issue.

If we delay or do nothing, same-sex marriage will soon be entrenched in law, with all its attendant consequences, for good or ill. If even a fraction of the dire results predicted by social scientists and family advocates then come to pass, that could be devastating. Surely the issue deserves sober second thought – for the sake of our kids.

Please click here to send an easy e-mail to the Prime Minister.

Please click here to learn more about the issue.

Please urge your Member of Parliament to represent the interests of future generations of Canadians on this issue. Click here for contact information.

And please forward this message to every Canadian on your list who cares about the future we pass on to our children.

Thank you for taking action on this critical issue!

Sincerely,

Rebecca Hudson,
Defend Marriage Canada Project,
United Families Canada

Two-page letter sent to my MP and to several pastors in Sackville Eastern Shore riding.

Having read responses from various MP’s, who are adamant about supporting this promised bill yet to come before the house, what is it that our MP’s see that a large majority of constituents do not?

First, the issue they claim is one of human rights (individual). This is with disregard of history or the nature of human sexuality, procreation and what is natural law, if so, then the attitude of these MPs seems justified. Is it party policy and/or ideology or are consciences being suppressed for the perception of solidarity? One should ask where does homosexuality fit into the grand scheme of human sexuality, nature and the common good?

Human rights legislation is to protect the well being of individuals but not behaviors contrary to the public good i.e., alcoholism, addictions, pedophilia etc. It might be assumed that homosexuality is an acquired condition, possibly even by chance. Well that is partly true and I would refer you to the works and materials by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, who has worked with homosexual males for over 30 years and author of “Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Dr. Judith Reisman, who has exposed the fraudulent research by Alfred Kinsey and has written papers and extensively interviewed on the subject. Dr. Gerard Van den Aardweg, a renowned Dutch psychologist who has worked extensively with homosexuals for decades. While there is no silver bullet to the cause or stimuli for homosexuality, there are a variety of factors, none of which are genetic or unchangeable.

You no doubt have heard arguments about children, i.e., that they need families and that marriage and family are synonymous and are the core element that binds society together for as ‘the family goes, so goes the nation”. It is obvious that none of these arguments are gaining political support, or the media support, two mains sources of framing public opinion. You’ve heard arguments from religious leaders, philosophers, family advocates but yet parliamentarians just don’t seem to understand what is at stake for our country.

Historically, one has to look at what has happened since the “no fault divorce”, acceptance of “common-law relationships”, and now “sexual orientation” (which was only introduced to stop “queer bashing”) and now we are on the threshold of “same-sex or homosexual marriages, adoption and proselytizing today’s youth”.

The acceptance of homosexual unions equated with marriages will lead to “common law homosexual arrangements” to be recognized in law with separation property rights as already been suggested in NS. We have seen already the call for “no fault divorce for homosexual marriages”. This will nullify the meaning and strength of traditional marriage and the definition of family.

If Parliament accepts “homosexual union like marriages” which is an oxymoron at best, then will it allow two brothers who are living together the same rights? If not, then on what grounds would it be refused? Why not a father son relationship, where one is fully supporting the other? Could companies and governments be forced to extend pension benefits to the survivor in these undeniable loving relationships? If not, why not, and could this be made retroactive by the courts? I submit to you that these are loving and caring relationships with much spiritual value.

I respectfully ask you as my representative to consider the future of Canada and that of our grandchildren as you are asked to vote on this issue. I respectfully ask you to vote against it as it will truly change not only the Canadian Rights Charter, but will essential lead us where we do not want to go, especially without the consent of the majority of the public at large. It will be another Charlottetown accord where politicians and the media favored the “Yes” but the people said “No”, if the people of Canada do not have a say in this matter then the government of the day will be ousted at the polls and so too will be any politician who votes in favor of such a motion.

The role of government is to balance the communal and individual good. This is only possible when society is governed by the principles of morality and justice, law and order, under God – The Rebbe

PS: Resource material available, Marriage, Homosexuality, Human Sexuality, Reparation Therapy, Statistics, Homosexual Manifesto and demise of societies. Collection of data dates back to 1988 with references to earlier history and studies.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville-Musquodoboit Valley-Eastern Shore, NDP) Mr. Speaker, yesterday in Nova Scotia another landmark decision was set in the country for human rights.

Mr. Wilson Hodder and Mr. Paul Boulais after a four year struggle finally won the right to spousal benefits under the Canadian pension plan after the death of their partners, Mr. Terry Martin in 1994 and Mr. Grant MacNeil in 1995.

Last May, Nova Scotia was the first province to allow same sex benefits for employees. Now it appears that the federal government is prepared to honour the commitment of section 15 of the Canadian human rights charter that each and every one of us is treated legally and equally before the law.

We all know that the loss of a loved one is a tragic event. The grace and dignity displayed by Mr. Hodder and Mr. Boulais show each and every one of us in the House the grace, quality and dignity of these two fine men.

We in the NDP wish to say congratulations to Mr. Hodder and Mr. Boulais and to their legal team of Ms. Lynn Reierson and Ms. Lara Morris for a job well done.

Events in Canada are providing more proof that changing the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples will impact far more people than just the couples themselves.

The homosexual partners whose lawsuit led to the legalization of same-sex civil marriage in British Columbia have now turned their sights on the education curriculum in British Columbia schools. Homosexual activists Murray and Peter Corren (formerly known as Murray Warren and Peter Cook) have filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal concerning the Social Studies curriculum for grades eight to ten. According to the Vancouver Sun, "Although there are no explicitly homophobic lessons prescribed by the provincial curriculum, Corren said the absence of positive lessons about homosexuals is equally discriminatory." Murray Corren is demanding that the curriculum be amended to include: "Queer history and historical figures, the presences of positive queer role models--past and present, the contributions made by queers to various epochs, societies and civilizations, and legal issues relating to . . . same-sex marriage and adoption."

If the tribunal does not rule in their favor to allow for a new pro-homosexual curriculum, the Correns have already decided on the next step. Murray has pledged to seek his political party's nomination to the British Columbia Provincial Legislative Assembly, which controls the development of the education curriculum.

The Correns' activist history and background testify further to their desire to impose a pro-homosexual agenda on the younger generation. In 1997, Peter and Murray (who is an elementary school teacher) sued the local school board for banning several pro-homosexual children's books.

Five years later, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in their favor. The two are foster parents to several teenage boys, including one who is "gay," and they successfully lobbied to change the adoption laws in British Columbia to allow homosexuals to adopt children.

The story of the Correns provides yet more proof that if the definition of marriage is changed, children (and parents who do not want their children indoctrinated with pro-homosexual propaganda) may have the most to lose.

Are The Red Tories Ready To Take Over The Conservative Party Of Canada? Another "joe clark" party all over again? Pro-abortion, anti-faith, anti-family...?

TORONTO, January 10, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - "The grassroots of the party should be very careful because it sounds like the Red Tories are attempting to gain the upper hand." That was the reaction of Jim Hughes the leader of the political arm of Canada's pro-life movement to the decision by a conference of 32 Greater Toronto Conservative Party ridings to adopt a policy to support abortion. Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), also told LifeSiteNews.com he was concerned about the other resolutions put forward which undercut social conservative and democratic priorities.

Some 250 delegates representing Conservative ridings in downtown Toronto, York, Scarborough, Pickering, Mississauga, Etobicoke, Barrie, Bramalea and Brampton held a meeting last month at which they adopted resolutions to go forward for consideration at the Party's National Convention in March.

The Toronto Star reported that Bret Snider, president of the Toronto area riding presidents' council, who convened the meeting, used typical social leftist code words in saying the overall message "was one of moderation. ... It was one of tolerance." He admitted however that the measures were "hotly" debated.

Social Conservatives within the party scoffed at calling a pro-abortion party stance "moderation." "Even the Liberal Party doesn't have an officially pro-abortion party platform," said one disaffected Conservative who wished to remain anonymous. "The Conservative party believes that a woman has the right to make choices about her own reproduction," reads the resolution which passed narrowly.

Another resolution, which passed within this party which has been the only alternative to the social liberal hegemony in Canadian politics, would not permit the party to use the notwithstanding clause against a Supreme Court decision to force homosexual 'marriage'.

The resolution reads: "A Conservative government would not support the use of the `notwithstanding clause' in section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to override any decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which provides that the equality rights in section 15 of the Charter require that marriage, for civil purposes, be available to same-sex couples, provided that the decision also upholds the freedom of officials of religious groups to refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs."

Why "Conservatives" would want to emulate the Liberals' fanatical opposition to use of the Charter's legitimate notwithstanding clause raises serious questions about who is controlling the party right now, at least in the Toronto region. For one, it appears that gay activists are having a new and large influence on the party, as they have had for the past several years on the Ontario provincial Conservative Party. Sketchy reports from Quebec indicate that the same thing is happening in Conservative riding associations there.

Another resolution that passed even went so far as to limit free votes for Conservative MPs in Parliament. The resolution going forward to the national convention states that no Conservative MP "will vote in Parliament, nor vote to put any procedure in place (including a referendum) to amend, overturn or limit any existing Charter right or freedom" unless both the specific amendment or limitation were included in the party's platform. For a party born from the Reform/Alliance emphasis on democratic reform, the GTA resolutions are a heretical rejection of the earlier movement.

CLC's Hughes stressed that social conservative grassroots members will have to wake up to what is going on and get heavily involved in order to maintain a Conservative party which gives voice to their concerns.

Conservative MP John Cummins, thought of as a social conservative within the Party, although not thrilled with the pro-abortion resolution, oddly seemed to find little cause for concern. "I think that those issues are best left up to the members and their constituents and I don't think folks are interested in the party taking positions on that," Cummins told LifeSiteNews.com. "They can pass all the resolutions they want, and more power to them. In the end we've got to leave it to the member and constituents."

The social liberals, however, appear to be working very hard to play a major role at the March policy convention and pass resolutions which, unlike Cummins, they believe will force the party to follow their dramatically different Red Tory agenda.

Updated: Mon. Jan. 10 2005 6:01 PM ET
OTTAWA - A bill to legalize gay marriage from coast to coast will come before Parliament in early February and should be law by summer, says Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.

"It will be introduced and there will be the customary debate,'' Cotler said Monday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"I'd like to think that it would pass . . . before the House rises in June.''

But even if he's wrong and the bill can't muster support from a majority of MPs, it won't stop the inevitable march toward gay marriage, said Cotler.

He noted that courts in seven provinces and one territory have already struck down the traditional definition of marriage as an institution restricted to opposite-sex couples.

Judges in other jurisdictions would eventually follow suit, with or without the blessing of elected politicians, Cotler suggested.

"If the bill does not pass, the likelihood is that the constitutional development will continue in the other provinces, and we will likely see this issue being arrived at one by one in the courts.

The only way to thwart the legal evolution, said Cotler, would be to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to override the Charter of Rights.

The Liberal government, in response to earlier judicial rulings in several provinces, drafted legislation more than a year ago to legalize same-sex marriage everywhere.

But it held off introducing the bill until it could get further legal advice from the Supreme Court of Canada.

In a unanimous verdict in early December, the high court cleared the way for the government to proceed, saying its proposed law complies with the Charter.

The only caveat was that churches can't be forced to perform religious ceremonies against their beliefs - a provision the government has always agreed with.

"This has nothing to do with religious marriage,'' said Cotler. "We're talking only about civil marriage.''

Cotler said the new marriage legislation will be accompanied by amendments to the federal Divorce Act, modifying the definition of spouse in that statute to include same-sex couples.

Justice Department lawyers are still working on similar changes that may be needed in the wording of a handful of other laws.

The issue has sharply divided the Liberal caucus, and Martin has promised to loosen party discipline to let backbench MPs vote their consciences.

The 38 members of cabinet, however, will be expected to toe the government line and support the bill. There has been speculation that some who personally oppose gay marriage could break ranks, even if they have to quit cabinet to do so. But Cotler shrugged off the possibility, saying he hopes all his fellow ministers will be onside.

"My own appreciation of cabinet is that they are very solid on this, and that the discussion within cabinet has reflected that solidarity.''

Cotler also predicted a "strong majority''of Liberal backbenchers will support the bill, along with the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois.

"Even among the Conservative party I think you will find that there are members who are voting in favour.''

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has said he will press for amendments that would somehow preserve the traditional definition of marriage while also recognizing the rights of gay couples.

He hasn't explained exactly how he would square that circle. Nor has he said explicitly whether he would resort to the notwithstanding clause, but legal experts believe that would be the only solution.

Judges in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Yukon have overturned the traditional definition of marriage.

Opinion polls indicate Canadians are split nearly 50-50 on the issue, but Cotler expressed confidence that most will eventually be swayed by respect for the Charter of Rights.

That document guarantees not only the equality rights of gays, but also of religious, racial and other minorities, he noted.

Legislators shouldn't be in the business of selecting whose rights to uphold and whose to overturn, said Cotler.

"We can't pick and choose... This is part of the Constitution of Canada.'' (the constitution does not even mention "sexual orientation" or "same-sex marriage". But the constitution does mention "Supremacy of God" and religious rights. I mean, our Minister of "Justice" has the unmitigated gall to lie through his teeth to Canadians - RJ)

Last Chance To Save Marriage

The Liberal government plans to fast-track legislation to approve same-sex marriage when they begin sitting in late January. The homosexual community has been actively lobbying their MPs in favour of this legislation.

Please pray about this very important issue that has far reaching consequences. Please also make an appointment (by yourself or in a group) with your Member of Parliament to voice your opinion on this issue. To find out who your MP is and how to reach them go to: www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/PostalCode.asp

The Edmonton Journal
Wed 05 Jan 2005 - Page: A9
Byline: Bob Harvey
Source: Ottawa Citizen; CanWest News Service

OTTAWA - Ontario's Catholic bishops are enlisting parishioners in a campaign against gay marriage.

"This is a very important issue to the bishops. They want to remind Catholics of the meaning of marriage and suggest they should make their feelings known," said Tom Reilly, spokesman for the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops.

He said a group has also been established to press for a constitutional amendment that will enshrine the historical definition of marriage.

The executive of the bishops' conference has suggested the province's 16 dioceses send letters to parishioners, spelling out Catholic opposition to gay marriage and urging them to do their civic duty and tell MPs and the prime minister they oppose it.

Pastors will be asked to include inserts on gay marriage in their weekly bulletins, and include prayers about marriage at all Sunday masses until Easter.

The dioceses have also been requested to have married couples speak at weekend masses about the federal government's plan to change the definition of marriage and urge parishioners to make their opposition known.

Gilles Ouellette, the spokesman for the archdiocese of Ottawa, said Tuesday Archbishop Marcel Gervais "has already established a plan of action concerning the request from the Ontario bishops. He will present it to the English and French pastoral councils, and issue his plans and a press release after that."

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has urged all Canadians to participate in the debate over the definition of marriage and called on married Catholics to speak out.

The Supreme Court ruled in December the federal government has exclusive authority to define marriage.

Gay marriage has become an international issue for the Vatican.

Belgium and the Netherlands have legalized it, and, on Dec. 30, Spain became the third European country to approve it.

Seven of Canada's provinces have opened the door to it, as has the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

Pope John Paul II has called on Catholics to reject what he says is an attempt to legally undermine the family. Two weeks ago he said: "Who destroys this fundamental fabric causes a profound injury to society and provokes often irreparable damage."

Whether you support or oppose licensing homosexual marriage, one thing is clear. Canadians have strong opinions on both sides of this issue, yet the Bill coming into Parliament next month is a cynical farce which will not change anything.

If MPs approve the Martin government's Bill, gay marriage will then be legal in all 10 provinces. If it is defeated or withdrawn, gay marriage will remain legal in all provinces (except, for now at least, Alberta and New Brunswick) where it has already been approved and implemented by judges.

Stopping this Bill will not end same-sex marriage.

What is going on in Parliament on this issue is a cynical exercise in election-posturing by all parties, including the Conservatives.

The Citizens Centre is launching a national campaign to have the question put to a referendum.

The prime minister's stance that elected legislators must NEVER overrule judges on a matter of rights is legally false, politically treacherous, and democratically outrageous. He has repudiated Canada's constitution.

Regardless of which side in this debate you support, and regardless of which side you think would win a national referendum, you must surely agree with the principle of "government by consent of the governed."

Our politicians are about to set a destructive precedent that will set Canadian democracy back for generations.

Please use this link (www.marriagereferendum.ca) to tell Paul Martin, other party leaders, and the Supreme Court that it's time to ask Canadians whether they want to institute same-sex marriage.

If they do, Parliament should proceed.

If they don't, Parliament can and must to put a stop to it.

Either way, a national referendum is the only way to settle the question properly.

Please be sure to forward this message to everyone you know who may be interested.

Sincerely,

Link Byfield
Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy
www.citizenscentre.com

Happy New Year from LifeIssues.net Newsletter #209

We all wish you a very Happy New Year and ask for your strong support during 2005 to promote the Value and Dignity of Human Life from fertilization to natural death. We also ask for your continual prayers for people suffering in tsunami-hit countries of Asia. Thank you.

Dr. Bert P. Dorenbos, President of Schreeuw om Leven (Cry for Life) a leading Dutch pro-life organization is calling the world together for the abolition of abortion and euthanasia with the theme "Give me your heart".

With recent Dutch plans to euthanize handicapped infants, the way of the slippery slope in death's direction is making this country darker and darker, he states. Parents who are already suffering because of the handicap of their born children, will suffer more through the euthanasia protocol because now they must decide to end the life of their handicapped baby. Why should the government deny the parent's right to mourn and the baby's right to life, even when it is just for a short time?

Adding to this cruel plan is the recent report of the Organization of Dutch Physicians which proposes that anyone who is fed up with life" should have the right to ask for euthanasia. This practice expands the practice of euthanasia, which is already so wide that the UN commission on human rights is questioning the Dutch government whether every person's right is equally protected under the Dutch Euthanasia law.

Dorenbos states that it is a shame for Holland and for the world that Holland is the biggest donor to the UN department, UNFPA that promotes abortion rights around the globe.

"There is no element of the common good, no morally good practice that a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the innocent, abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, human cloning or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as legal marriage." (Archbishop Burke).

Lifeissues.net (www.lifeissues.net) Newsletter #209
January 9, 2005

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Officials from the Dutch Ministry of Justice say the legislature of the Netherlands is preparing a new protocol designed to protect doctors who euthanize newborns with severe disabilities, according to Dr. Eduard Verhagen, the head of pediatrics at Groningen Hospital. Verhagen is an outspoken advocate for killing seriously deformed babies, a procedure he admits he's performed four times in the past 16 months.

"There is a small group of children for whom no treatment is possible for the congenital disease and malformations they are born with," Verhagen told the London Telegraph, explaining why he had chosen to break the law. "Asking doctors to take away the pain easily and allow the child to die quietly is the natural reaction.

"For the incurable to die early requires that we do this or they enter a starvation phase and what suffering is more unbearable than a minor left to die from natural causes such as these."

While prosecutors have declined to take action against the doctor, various pro-life groups have condemned him. The Vatican labeled Verhagen and other physicians involved in medical killings of infants as little better than the Nazi medical workers who killed defective newborns to create Hitler's master race.

The country of 70 million has more than 5 million orphans, their parents lost to famine, disease, war and AIDS -- a catastrophe which the government has said is "tearing apart the social fabric" of the east African nation.

Caring for the orphans’ costs $115 million a month in a country whose annual health budget is only $140 million.

So Ethiopia has gone out of its way to make adoption easier, and the numbers reached a record in 2003 with 1,400 children taken abroad, more than double the number in the previous year. The number of adoption agencies in Addis Ababa, the capital, has doubled in the past year to 30.

Read full article at MSNBC News:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6742558/

ITEM #3. Japan: '04 fourth year to set record for the fewest birth

About 1.107 million babies were born in Japan in 2004, roughly 17,000 fewer than the previous year and the fourth straight year in which a record low was set, government estimates showed Friday.

According to figures released by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, natural population growth, which is gained by subtracting the number of deaths from births, came to 83,000, the lowest figure since the end of World War II.

The government has already predicted that Japan's population will start to shrink in 2007, and the latest figures prove the nation is indeed on the threshold of contraction.

The ministry's estimates showed that 1.024 million people died during the year, the second-largest number in the postwar era after 1947 and the second consecutive year deaths have exceeded 1 million.

The statistics were calculated based on birth registrations and death notifications reported by local governments, and other figures. Officials used the data from January to October to draw up an estimate for the full year.

Officials at the health ministry's Vital and Health Statistics Division said it was possible the total fertility rate for Japanese women, which sank to an all-time low of 1.29 in 2003, could drop further in later calculations for the year.

Friday's figures also showed that about 725,000 couples got married in 2004, down some 15,000 from the previous year.

Tama New Town -- a bedroom community in Tokyo's western suburbs – is no longer new.

It was booming when it opened in 1971 in a hilly area cleared of its trees. The town was designed to provide apartment and other inexpensive housing for a flood of young couples while land and houses in central parts of the capital were increasingly becoming too costly.

But Tama New Town's population is now rapidly aging. Fewer kids are being born and fewer young couples have settled in the area.

The decline appears steeper regarding children. The total number of pupils at Tama's public schools has halved from a peak of 16,779 in 1988 to 7,487 in 2002, prompting local authorities to close six out of 37 schools over the past decade.

ONE of the last announcements Cardinal George Pell made before taking his annual leave this week was to introduce a program, new to Australia and only the third of its kind in the world, to provide support to pregnant women who are contemplating abortion.

"We want to respond to the needs of women facing an unexpected or difficult pregnancy by providing them with life-affirming options," he said.

"Through the program, expectant mothers and, if required, their families, will be provided with social, emotional and practical support to enable them to continue with their pregnancy to full term. Women need real alternatives to abortion, and this new program is targeted to meet the specific needs of women contemplating abortion."

View article at news.com.au:
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11822845%5E421,00.html

ITEM #6. Mothers feel let down on physicians' attitude to infants with Down Syndrome

A survey of mothers in the January issue of Pediatrics found that physicians remain overwhelmingly negative in communicating a diagnosis of Down syndrome in newborn infants. Mothers reported that the majority of physicians were uninformed about the positive potential for children with Down syndrome, and rarely provided an adequate, up-to-date description of the children, printed information, or telephone numbers of other parents. By nearly all ratings – including explaining Down syndrome, the timing and setting of the news, and the language that was used – physicians fell far short of making the birth a positive experience.

COMMENT: The attitude of doctors and nurses can even be fatal, as in the 1982 Baby Doe case and the "option" of refusing heart surgery that was offered to me by the cardiologist after my daughter with DS was born. I can relate to the mothers in this study. For example, even though my husband was a doctor and I was a nurse, my OB/GYN almost couldn't have handled the situation worse, especially by not even seeing me or my daughter for days after the C-section delivery.

When I was on the board of my local DS association, I often heard the terrible stories from other mothers and eventually we developed an educational program for hospital maternity unit medical personnel. Even though we offered this program for free, some hospitals were very resistant and felt they handled the situation of a child born with a disability very well. However, we were persistent and eventually were able to present the program at most hospitals in the St. Louis area. Later on, my friend Dr. Mary Ann Price developed a great program for medical students on this issue and all these efforts seemed to really make a difference.

This all happened back in the 1980s and I am so disappointed to see that the same problems are still occurring. In my opinion, the acceptance of abortion as a kind of "mercy killing" for unborn babies with disabilities along with an often pervasive "search and destroy" mentality in prenatal testing are the primary reasons that the situation for new parents has apparently not improved substantially. (Nancy Valko, RN)

While Japan's aging population is usually talked of in terms of rising welfare expenditures and the financial burden it will impose on future generations, recently a new problem has emerged: abuse of the elderly.

Lawyers and other experts handling the issue say that compared with child or spouse abuse, abuse of the elderly tends to take longer to surface, in part because the elderly feel responsible when the violence is inflicted by their offspring, and also because the government and local administrators have so far failed to address the problem.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations submitted a proposal to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in October with an eye to obliging authorities to get tough on abuse.

Its 54-page recommendation refers to the need to help not only victims but also the perpetrators – in most cases, a member of the victims' family experiencing mental, physical and economic hardship as a result of caring for their elderly relative.

See The Japan Times:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050106f2.htm

ITEM #8. Repeat After Me: Pregnancy is Not a Disease

Well, the Washington Post has done it again. The resident Chicken Littles of the Culture of Death are flailing away, alarmed and aghast that more American women have decided to just say no to drugs.

What? Rejecting drugs is a good thing, isn't it? Well, not if you're the Washington Post, and not if the drug is the birth control pill. You see, a new government study shows that fewer women are using contraception. In a front page article this week, the Post trotted out the usual gang of suspects to admonish the foolish females who've opted to give their bodies a break from the steroids and side effects that are part and parcel of life on the pill.

Reporter Ceci Connolly offers as uncontested fact the statement that in the United States there are "34 million women in need of contraceptive services - those who are not sterilized, pregnant or trying to conceive." Define "need," please, Ms. Connolly. One needs oxygen. One needs fruits and vegetables. One needs clothing and shelter. But how is it that one needs a chemical whose sole purpose is repression of a perfectly normal physical function?

Granted, reporter Connolly trots out one spokesman for the opposition, if you will. "Pregnancy is not a disease," said Leslee J. Unruh, president of the Abstinence Clearinghouse. "The women making these choices are making a conscious choice. They are not stupid." But the rest of the people quoted in the article undermine, demean and flat out ridicule her assertions.

Paul J. Cella writes, "What Science has forgotten is that it is fundamentally an instrumental entity: it does not choose its own ends. It takes orders and carries them out; it does not formulate its own. Philosophy precedes Science, and its authority over it, adjudicated through a political process, is final; thus also, of course, politics precedes Science. In practice, this means that one need not be a trained scientist to speak to its uses, and speak against its abuses. It is absurd to exclude the non-specialist from judgments about how we ought to use this instrument, just as it is absurd to restrict the driving of automobiles only to mechanics. One need not be a railroad engineer to identify a train wreck; nor to conclude that conducting a train blindfolded is criminal negligence. Yet many of our practitioners of Science declare presumptuously that none can say anything against their wild rush, because they know not how a train works."

(LifeSiteNews.com) - The two possible sources of stem cells, "adult" or post-natal stem cells and those derived from living embryos, have caused a conflict in the scientific community, setting ethics against hoped-for scientific advancement.

Now a group of Taiwanese researchers has isolated stem cells from human placenta tissue and has found that their flexibility may be the equal of embryonic cells. The scientists, from National Health Research Institutes and Cathay General Hospital, Taipei, have isolated stem cells from placentas left after full term pregnancy and offer them as a solution to the ethical impasse.

The researchers have developed bone marrow and other cells from the stem cells extracted from the placenta and say that there may be future applications for brain damage or bone fractures.

The newly discovered cells, called placenta-derived multipotent cells (PDMCs), are available from an organ that is normally discarded after birth. "Unlike embryonic stem cells, PDMCs are free from ethical considerations," said Chen Yao-chang, head of the National Health Research Institutes' Stem Cell Research Center, told reporters.

Much like cord blood, this source of stem cells may be applicable in a variety therapies without the dangers of tissue rejection common to embryonic and fetal cell transplants. The cells are also available without the painful and difficult surgery necessary to extract stem cells from bone marrow.

ITEM #11. UNFPA Calls for US $28m in Funding to Supply Condoms to Victims of Tsunami

(LifeSiteNews.com) - The United Nations Population Fund, the UNFPA, is calling for US $28 million in donations to re-establish "reproductive health services," in the Tsunami-stricken regions of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives, according to a UNFPA press release published Thursday.

The Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute Friday Fax further clarified that "According to UNFPA's Reproductive Health in Emergency Situations manual, the 'reproductive health needs' of refugees include 'guaranteeing the availability of free condoms.' Indeed," the C-FAM Friday Fax continues, "UNFPA's website says that 'Free condoms are among the first reproductive health supplies to reach people caught in a crisis situation...UNFPA provides both male and female condoms in emergencies.'"

The UNFPA has developed "reproductive health kits," developed for "the initial acute phase of the emergency," according to C-FAM. The kits include: "'condoms,' 'oral and injectable contraceptives' including the abortifacient morning-after pill, and 'IUD[s].'"

UNFPA, which claims to not be providing or promoting abortion services, also provides "manual vacuum aspirators, portable abortion devices that are easily used in primitive conditions such as refugee areas," in its kits.

Permit me to digress for the purpose of illumination. A fetus by definition is an unborn or unhatched vertebrate; especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically a developing human form usually 3 months after conception to birth.

One medical dictionary defines it as a term for an unborn baby from the end of the 8th week of conception until birth.

The crime of this intentional mendacity is it reduces the unborn child from a vision of a baby being nurtured and loved to a substance or a foreign body.

(1) pray that all may have the courage to be God's presence in society and support those who have been deemed "unworthy of life".

(1) online: http://www.lifeissues.net/help_us.html
(2) or by mail donation: Saint Kolbe Foundation, 25108 Marguerite Parkway, #B-250, Mission Viejo, CA 92692-2400, U.S.A. (or directly to Fr. Jerry Novotny OMI.)

CONTACT EDITOR

Please pass on this information to everyone in your entire network. We are looking for this boy’s family.

He is about two years of age and was found in Khoa Lak without his parents. Nobody knows what country he comes from. If anyone known who this child is, please contact us by phone at 076-249400-4 Ext. 1336, Ext. 1339 or by E-Mail:

This link will be made available under the Links button under http://www.chninternational.com.

This link will be moved to the Links button under http://www.charlieosburn.com for next update.

The Halifax West meeting will be January 22nd, at 2PM at the Community Center, across from Tim Horton's on the Bedford Highway, just past Mount St. Vincent's.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Kings-Hants Electoral District Association will be held at the Kings-Edgehill Library, Windsor, NS on January 22, 2005. Registration will start at 1:00 p.m. The AGM portion of the meeting will select a slate of officers to serve on the 2005 Board of Directors.

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Sackville Eastern Shore Electoral District Association will be held at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Cobequid Road, across from Tim Hortons, Lr. Sackville, on January 29th. For more information contact Sackville-Eastern ShorePresident Rob Batherson at batherrk@gov.ns.ca

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the Dartmouth Electoral District Association will be held on January 24 at " The Cole Harbour Place ". Registration starts at 6:30 pm. I hope you can attend .

If you currently a member or a member during the year 2004 and haven't paid your dues, you may pay your dues and be eligible to vote at this evening's meeting. Listen to the Radio for any cancellation or postponements.

It is time for Canadian Value voters to take up the challenge and not let our political system further erode to those who are bent on destroying our Judeo-Christian roots and our families.

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