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Homosexual activism threatens freedom of speech [catholicinsight.com]

By Rory Lieshman

Hardcopy Issue Date: July/August, 2005
Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2005, 18:28

In ruling last December on the constitutionality of same-sex �marriage,� the Supreme Court of Canada claimed that the protection of freedom of religion afforded by s. 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms �is broad and jealously guarded in our Charter jurisprudence.� If that is so, how can it be that Canada�s human rights thought police are harassing Catholic Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary and Protestant activist Bill Whatcott of Regina for nothing other than the honest expression of their Christian faith?

Bishop Henry has come under fire for upholding the teaching of the Catholic Church on homosexuality in a pastoral letter denouncing the Martin government�s bill on same-sex �marriage.� Citing this letter as evidence, Carol Johnson of Calgary has accused the Bishop of expressing views that are �likely to expose homosexuals to hatred or contempt� contrary to s. 3 of the Alberta Human Rights Code.

Marie Riddle, the director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission, could have summarily dismissed this complaint on the ground that the bishop has an undeniable right to express his views on same-sex �marriage.� Instead, she has advised that the Commission could take a year to decide on summoning Bishop Henry before a human rights panel to answer to the complaint occasioned by his pastoral letter.

Meanwhile, Bill Whatcott has been embroiled with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal over the views he expressed on homosexuality in a series of flyers that he and other members of a group known as The Christian Truth Activists distributed in Regina and Saskatoon between September 2001 and April 2002. On May 5, the chairman of the Tribunal, Prince Albert lawyer Anil Pandila, ruled that in publishing these flyers, Whatcott had violated the ban in s. 14(1) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code on the publication and distribution of anything that promotes hatred, ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of any person on the basis of sexual orientation.

In support of this finding, Pandila noted that Whatcott�s flyers included statements like the following: �Sodomites are 430 times more likely to acquire AIDS and 3 times more likely to sexually abuse children!� �Born Gay? No Way! Homosexual sex is about risky and addictive behaviour!�

In testimony before the Tribunal, Whatcott defended these statements as truthful, citing as authority Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth by Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, a former lecturer in psychiatry at Yale University and an internationally renowned expert on homosexuality. Whatcott also told Pandila that he harbours no ill-will for homosexuals. He testified that he used to engage in homosexual acts, that the Lord had set him free and that he is eager to help other homosexuals enjoy that same freedom.

Pandila rejected all of these arguments. Drawing upon precedents set by the Supreme Court of Canada, he held that the intentions of Whatcott in spreading the flyers were irrelevant; that the truthfulness of statements in the flyers was irrelevant; and that the guarantee of �freedom of conscience and religion� in s. 2(a) of the Charter does not give anyone the right to express religious convictions that expose homosexuals to hatred, ridicule or contempt.

All Christians should take note. In numerous cases like Whatcott�s, human rights tribunals and the courts have made clear that in their opinion, the equality rights of homosexuals in human rights codes and s. 15 of the Charter trump the ostensible guarantees of freedom of religion in the laws and the Constitution of Canada. Thanks to these judicial rulings, Canadians no longer have a legal right to make a public statement that is liable to expose homosexuals to hatred or contempt, even if the statement is true and reflects the Christian convictions of the speaker.

As for Whatcott, Pandila has ordered him to cease distributing his flyers and to pay $17,500 in damages to four homosexual complainants. Whatcott has refused to comply. On the weekend of May 13-14, he and some fellow Christian Truth Activists defied the Tribunal, by distributing 1,000 more flyers in Saskatoon entitled: �Sodomites and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission.�

Whatcott is on a course for jail as a Christian prisoner of conscience. Bishop Henry�s fate is less certain: It seems that human rights tribunals and the courts prefer to go after the little guys first

I can't imagine Pope Benedict ignoring this. From his past records I think the Canadian thought police are going to be sorry they are doing this. At least I hope so.

Dan L

Well, well. About 20-some years ago the Canadian laws against hate literature and inspiring people to hate each other were successfully invoked against Jack Chick Publications and his/their outrageous line of anti-Catholic comic books and reprints (this garbage comes out of California, I believe). At the time, several people tried to convince the Catholics that invoking these laws could come back to haunt the Catholic Church. That was a message that Catholic officialdom did not choose to heed.

What goes around, comes around! Jack Chick and his garbage were successfully refuted in good Christian and other publications; there was no need to invoke the secular arm. I prefer American laws defending freedom of speech.

Incognitus

Catholic Officialdom is not obliged to accord error equal rights with the truth. That has never been traditional Catholic teaching.

From the classical politics of Aristotle where man�s necessity for social interaction is recognized for survival via the state�s �good regime� to the present day, it is Catholicism, in particular, Catholic philosophers and theologians, who have articulated the Church�s clear teaching in a natural law context for the attainment of man�s natural good leading ultimately to a supernatural good by traversing the metaphysical bridge from philosophy to theology.

However, the importance of Catholicism in this regard is of no consequence to a world under the influence of modernism as pointed out by a priest below who astutely observes that Descartes�s cogito ergo sum is the selfish anthem for modernity on a par with the devil�s non-serviam.


"The liberal neutralization of the Church

"Fallacious assertions that the world should be free of Church interference, that states should be separated from sectarian and narrow points of view, that religion itself gains protection from this principle, are part of the liberal program to neutralize and marginalize the Church. It is easy to see and often commented on how states without a moral compass plunge into moral license. � the world has assigned religion the task of aiding in the procurement of what man is wanting for that dollars find too slippery to grasp. Be it peace, or human rights, or donations of food, or birth control, or woman's choice to slaughter babes in wombs, the church is to champion human wants. Human wants, however, are completely restricted to the world, this life, and the body. Souls no longer exist, and "spirit" is a nice metaphor for the high concepts of humanism. Modern religious "ideals" are immanent, not transcendent; subjective, not objective; abstractions, not realities; for a time, not for ever; in this world and of this world. Lost in all of this, besides a meaning to her work, is the Church's care for each soul. As the idea of the soul is lost, souls are lost. But then again, that is a lost idea, a lost cause in modernity.

"Modernity�s anthem

"Cogito ergo sum is perhaps the most self-centered statement since Non serviam! but Descartes' "I think, therefore, I am," is the anthem of modernity. It is thinking by the self, of the self, and for the self. Such a fixation on the self cannot but lead to not thinking much of others.

"What the redefined modern Church teaches with state approval

"A good "christian" will be identical to being a good "citizen". A good citizen will be not what the church teaches, but what state preaches. What the state preaches will be the substance of what the church teaches. Thus will be accomplished the final separation of the state from the Church: the secular society will have severed all philosophical, historical, and legal ties to a received Faith ordered to and by the divine will. The separation of the state from the Church does not mean that each will have its own independent sphere; it means that the state will consume the role, the authority, and the practical identity of the Church, including assuming the power of the God whom the Church formerly served.

"The modern nation-state does not need God

"Modernity has mixed a potion consisting of subjective measures, physical comfort, materialistic philosophy, humanistic morality, and relativistic religion. The cauldron wherein the concoction bubbles and boils is the modern nation-state on the way to joining a global pan-sovereignty. Fueling the fire that keeps the broth simmering is an all-pervasive, ever faster, inescapable encroachment of technology. Man is not only making a world, he is creating a worldview, one not seen by nor looking for God. Easiest to identify as precipitates from this ongoing reaction are mankind's ubiquitous acceptance and even encouragement of divorce, sodomy, and abortion.

"The modern measure of man�s activity

"Beyond these heinous assaults on divine and natural law, there is the materialism found throughout the world. Whether capitalist, socialist, communist, or, as is actually the case in most countries, their admixture, nations claim absolute sovereignty, yielding never to God, but increasingly to the notion of world government. Human life, where it is not prevented, aborted, or abused, is now the measure of man's activity. The gauge is not an ideal revealed by God, but a consensus among men reached by science, negotiation, and compromise. Unlike an unchanging ideal, this consensus is subject to ceaseless adjustment given politics, economics, and fashion.

"What was formerly condemned is now embraced

"An important aside regarding materialism: communism sets the tone for capitalism and socialism. Although capitalists and socialists cling to certain mechanisms, they have adopted wholesale the programme of communism: atheistic states, universal child care, coercive public education, women working outside of the home, labor dependent on impersonal industry, the income tax, social security welfare, and state-owned monopolies. Each of these was seen by American citizens of the nineteenth century, when The Communist Manifesto proposed them as the basis of the workers' paradise, as blasphemous, unconstitutional, and/or un-American. They now are political entitlements, unnoticed quotidian affairs, or a human right. Speaking of human rights, a woman's "right to choose" was formally legalized in the United States before it was in Soviet Russia. This is a world in denial of papal authority. It is a world ignorant and contemptuous of the natural law. It is a world in open rebellion against God. This world exalts man to the exclusion of man's divine source and salvation. This world makes man its center, while making men increasingly subservient to machines, to economics, and to a faceless government.

"What must be done

"Modernity is to be rejected. It must be condemned. Modernism as a mode of thought and as a way of life must be abandoned. There is a desperate need for the Magisterium to assert its authority to teach the truth in the world, and its power to oblige the members, particularly the clergy, of the Church to conform their consciences to revealed and defined Truth. (Smith, Fr. Lawrence, New Church of the New World Order, July 22-24, 2004, Vol. 15, No. 161, Mass Confusion)"

This priest, confident in the traditional teachings of the Faith, knows that the Church has eternal, universal principles to offer man concerning the true nature of the state. She does not, however have, any specific models for men to adopt, leaving this matter to the reasoned judgment of men who find themselves living in specific circumstances at specific times in specific places. The former is due to the Church being the prime depository of the Perfect Truth, Who is her Founder.

I can directly relate to the state's attempt to get the Church to do its bidding by my former Byzantine pastor telling me that when he was on campus at Penn State, he received pressure to attend interfaith meetings with the religious liason of the Penn State president. This, Byzantine priest's reply as directly told to me, God bless him, was that he answered to the Metropolitan Archbishop of Pittsburgh, not the President of Penn State.

You must understand that at Penn State University, perversity is diversity, with some of the other denominations on campus having no problem whatsoever with supporting the entirety of a culture-of-eternal-death.

We see something in Casti Connubii that is missing in the modern Church, something that needs to be restored, i.e., the formal recognition that the Church alone must be the primary advisor to the nations of the world in order to preserve the moral order by countering the confusion of the �father-of-lies.� Where but in the Catholic Church, where there is worship of the One Triune God, is there found a consistent moral ethic that is never compromised, and clearly delineated in accord with the teachings of her Founder Who is Perfect Truth? For example, where in the non-Catholic world has there been complete consistent opposition to the contraceptive mentality of the age with all of its attendant derivatives to include sexual promiscuity, abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia to name but a few? The worship of illusory false gods, in particular the Kantian �god in the mirror,� and/or the denial of the True Faith does not lend itself to such moral clarity and confidence, which Catholicism solely enjoys as being infallibly protected by the Holy Ghost in matters of faith and morals. Nowhere is this infallible protection better evidenced than by observing that the Church has been prophetic in regard to the consequences of ignoring her moral teaching, e.g., Casti Connubii.

"But not only in regard to temporal goods, Venerable Brethren, is it the concern of the public authority to make proper provision for matrimony and the family, but also in other things which concern the good of souls. just laws must be made for the protection of chastity, for reciprocal conjugal aid, and for similar purposes, and these must be faithfully enforced, because, as history testifies, the prosperity of the State and the temporal happiness of its citizens cannot remain safe and sound where the foundation on which they are established, which is the moral order, is weakened and where the very fountainhead from which the State draws its life, namely, wedlock and the family, is obstructed by the vices of its citizens. {Para. 123}

"For the preservation of the moral order neither the laws and sanctions of the temporal power are sufficient, nor is the beauty of virtue and the expounding of its necessity. Religious authority must enter in to enlighten the mind, to direct the will, and to strengthen human frailty by the assistance of divine grace. Such an authority is found nowhere save in the Church instituted by Christ the Lord. Hence We earnestly exhort in the Lord all those who hold the reins of power that they establish and maintain firmly harmony and friendship with this Church of Christ so that through the united activity and energy of both powers the tremendous evils, fruits of those wanton liberties which assail both marriage and the family and are a menace to both Church and State, may be effectively frustrated. {Para. 124}

"Governments can assist the Church greatly in the execution of its important office, if, in laying down their ordinances, they take account of what is prescribed by divine and ecclesiastical law, and if penalties are fixed for offenders. For as it is, there are those who think that whatever is permitted by the laws of the State, or at least is not punished by them, is allowed also in the moral order, and, because they neither fear God nor see any reason to fear the laws of man, they act even against their conscience, thus often bringing ruin upon themselves and upon many others. There will be no peril to or lessening of the rights and integrity of the State from its association with the Church. Such suspicion and fear is empty and groundless, as Leo Xlll has already so clearly set forth: "It is generally agreed," he says, "that the Founder of the Church, Jesus Christ, wished the spiritual power to be distinct from the civil, and each to be free and unhampered in doing its own work, not forgetting, however, that it is expedient to both, and in the interest of everybody, that there be a harmonious relationship. . . If the civil power combines in a friendly manner with the spiritual power of the Church, it necessarily follows that both parties will greatly benefit. The dignity of the State will be enhanced, and with religion as its guide, there will never be a rule that is not just; while for the Church there will be at hand a safeguard and defense which will operate to the public good of the faithful." {Para. 125}"

The message of Catholic teachings that many reject out-of-hand

A formed conscience in accord with the natural law is the message of the truth of Casti Connubii. The natural law as an extension of the eternal law written on the hearts of mankind demands a clear interpreter with technology changing at a pace so rapid that moral concerns are subordinate to achieving anything theoretically possible in a scientific sense, e.g., the cloning of human beings. If this interpretation is left to each individual or group in society with a vested interested in the aforementioned scientific achievement, totally devoid of any moral concerns, then as a society, the common good will have given way to anarchy. Who or what will be a better moral interpreter of the natural law if not the Church founded by a God Who gave it to mankind, as we are told in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, On the Peace of Christ in His Kingdom, Encyclical of Pope Pius XI, December 23, 1922.

"We have already seen and come to the conclusion that the principal cause of the confusion, restlessness, and dangers which are so prominent a characteristic of false peace is the weakening of the binding force of law and lack of respect for authority, effects which logically follow upon denial of the truth that authority comes from God, the Creator and Universal Law-giver. {Para. 39}

"The only remedy for such state of affairs is the peace of Christ since the peace of Christ is the peace of God, which could not exist if it did not enjoin respect for law, order, and the rights of authority. In the Holy Scriptures We read: "My children, keep discipline in peace." (Ecclesiasticus xli, 17) "Much peace have they that love the law, O Lord." (Psalms cxviii, 165) "He that feareth the commandment, shall dwell in peace." (Proverbs xiii, 13) Jesus Christ very expressly states: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." (Matt. xxii, 21) He even recognized that Pilate possessed authority from on High (John xiv, 11) as he acknowledged that the scribes and Pharisees who though unworthy sat in the chair of Moses (Matt. xxiii, 2) were not without a like authority. In Joseph and Mary, Jesus respected the natural authority of parents and was subject to them for the greater part of His life. (Luke ii, 51) He also taught, by the voice of His Apostle, the same important doctrine: "Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God." (Romans xiii, 1; cf. also 1 Peter ii, 13, 18) {Para. 40}

"If we stop to reflect for a moment that these ideals and doctrines of Jesus Christ, for example, his teachings on the necessity and value of the spiritual life, on the dignity and sanctity of human life, on the duty of obedience, on the divine basis of human government, on the sacramental character of matrimony and by consequence the sanctity of family life -- if we stop to reflect, let us repeat, that these ideals and doctrines of Christ (which are in fact but a portion of the treasury of truth which He left to mankind) were confided by Him to His Church and to her alone for safekeeping, and that He has promised that His aid will never fail her at any time for she is the infallible teacher of His doctrines in every century and before all nations, there is no one who cannot clearly see what a singularly important role the Catholic Church is able to play, and is even called upon to assume, in providing a remedy for the ills which afflict the world today and in leading mankind toward a universal peace. {Para. 41}

"Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God. {Para. 42}

"Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11){Para. 43}"

An answer to the confusion of those who seek a geopolitical utopia solely via natural means and institutions is given in the following sections of Ubi Arcano. (Hint, it is not found in the UN, contrary to some prominent voices in the Vatican today).

"Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual. {Para. 44}

"When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road. {Para. 45}

"There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail. {Para. 46}

"It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace. Pius X in taking as his motto "To restore all things in Christ" was inspired from on High to lay the foundations of that "work of peace" which became the program and principal task of Benedict XV. These two programs of Our Predecessors We desire to unite in one -- the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Christ by peace in Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." With might and main We shall ever strive to bring about this peace, putting Our trust in God, Who when He called Us to the Chair of Peter, promised that the divine assistance would never fail Us. We ask that all assist and co-operate with Us in this Our mission. Particularly We ask you to aid us, Venerable Brothers, you, His sheep, whom Our leader and Lord, Jesus Christ, has called to feed and to watch over as the most precious portion of His flock, which comprises all mankind. For, it is you whom the "Holy Ghost hath placed to rule the Church of God" (Acts xx, 28), you to whom above all, and principally, God "hath given the ministry of reconciliation, and who for Christ therefore are ambassadors." (II Cor. v, 18, 20) You participate in His teaching power and are "the dispensers of the mysteries of God." (I Cor. iv, 1) You have been called by Him "the salt of the earth," "the light of the world" (Matt. v, 13, 14), fathers and teachers of Christian peoples, "a pattern of the flock from the heart" (I Peter v, 3), and "you shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. v, 19) In fine, you are the links of gold, as it were, by which "the whole body of Christ, which is the Church, is held compacted and fitly joined together" (Ephesians iv, 15, 16), built as it is on the solid rock of Peter. {Para. 49}"

The duty of Catholic philosophy is to present to the world arguments from reason that reinforce faith to underscore the truth of the traditional teaching of the Church in regard to the earthly reign of Christ the King leading ultimately to a Kingdom not of this world.