University of Western Ontario Early this summer I attended a graduation party for a small, private Catholic high school where the children of several friends were saying farewell to classmates and teachers they had known for years – some of them since kindergarten. Many of these young men and women were babies when I first met them, so this pleasant [...]
In It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (Harper, 192 pages), Mary Eberstadt documents how faithful Christians throughout the Western world are now living in fear of escalating religious oppression. Of course, Eberstadt readily acknowledges that persecution of the faithful outside the West is vastly worse. In particular, she cites the agony of Christians in the Middle East and Africa where, [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Time and again over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court of Canada has proceeded under cover of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to violate its own precedents, amend the Constitution, and overturn long-standing laws duly enacted by elected representatives of the people within the jurisdiction of Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Now with [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I grew up under the protection of the Hicklin rule. That’s the test for obscenity that England’s Lord Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn formulated in 1868. I don’t mean that I grew up in 1868. I mean, rather, that I safely completed my formative years before Canada abandoned the rule. Chief Justice Cockburn defined published [...]
Whit Stillman, New York City August 1990. My youngest daughter is fond of asking unanswerable questions like “what’s your favorite food?” or “who’s your favorite band?” I usually answer that I’m too old to have favorite anythings anymore, but she hasn’t asked me “who’s your favorite living movie director?” yet, and that would be easy to answer: Whit Stillman. Stillman [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell He told me that we shouldn’t discuss politics because I’m on the right and he’s on the left. “I don’t enjoy talking with someone who’s on the wrong side of history,” he explained. “The wrong side?” I declared, taken aback. “You just acknowledged that I’m on the right.” “I’m on the right,” he replied, “because [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman For nearly 50 years now, Canadians have lived with a perverse legal regime that allows some hospital-based physicians to engage in the mass slaughter of perfectly healthy babies in the womb, while mandating other physicians in these same hospitals to do whatever they can to save the lives of the frailest and most vulnerable of human [...]
Amusements Rick McGinnis Facebook was launched a dozen years ago as a place for Ivy League college students to connect online and answer burning collegiate questions like “Who’s hot and who’s not?” But even before they made a movie about it, Facebook had gone from being an online distraction only potentially more interesting than World of Warcraft into something between [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Yes, I’ve heard the arguments against re-defining marriage to include same-sex couples. I know that, legally, it eliminates the only civil institution that unites children with their biological parents. I’m aware that it reduces marriage to the level of liaisons that lack procreative potential. I recognize that it views families as socially constructed units based [...]
Amusements Rick McGinnis As the father of daughters, I always feel a bit guilty when I find myself railing against the excesses and absurdities of contemporary feminism. I mentally prepare myself for the counterarguments my position will invite: Don’t you believe women should have the same opportunities as men? Don’t you think equal work should mean equal pay? Do you [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Parents of young Canadian children should beware of the potentially catastrophic advice in a Guide for Educators issued by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation on the care and treatment of children with a gender identity disorder in elementary and secondary schools. To begin with, the CTF explains: “Transgender individuals normally identify with a gender that is different [...]
Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the Conservative Party The Interim has learned that a last minute intervention by interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose will prevent any debate on the party’s abortion policy at the upcoming convention in Vancouver May 26-28. This past Thursday, at Ambrose’s request, the National Policy Committee of the CPC voted to block a resolution that would have [...]
"The children are our future” is probably among the most sententious phrases you can utter in politics, a sure tell that the person using it has no plan that will immediately have an impact on the children – yours or anyone else’s – or the future. So it’s reasonable to raise an eyebrow at a book that makes some dire claims about [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Church attendance of Britons has been falling for decades. The news is not all negative, however. Church attendance of bats is rising. Bats, it seems, are more committed to Christian churches than Britons are faithful to Christianity. Bats go to church because modernization has reduced their natural habitats. Britons don’t go because modernism has undermined [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman What do Church leaders in Canada think about the legalization of physician-assisted death (PAD)? Not so long ago, the answer was clear. At Christmas in 1996, the Canadian Council of Churches (CCC), a group which includes every major Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant denomination in the country, issued a Statement of Convergence of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide [...]