A remarkable piece by Glenn Stanton on MercatorNet asks whether the puzzlingly high pregnancy rate among lesbians (yes, you read that correctly) doesn't call modern sexual orthodoxy into serious question.
"The mark of civilization, says [Yale professor David] Gelernter, is the shortening of the list of reasons that justify taking human life. But now footnotes are being added to the list." Richard John Neuhaus in First Things January 2004
A curious story in today's National Post says PEI's Liberal administration will start providing abortions because it doesn't believe it can defeat a court challenge claiming abortion is secretly a Charter right. Frankly it sounds like one more case of politicians using judges as a handy excuse to do something they want to do anyway without the hassle of defending it to voters. Time was ministries felt an obligation to defend existing law in court unless they were willing to stand up in the legislature and urge that it be changed or repealed, which arguably contributed to accountability in government. I'm not sure what was wrong with that system. But there's a deeper question here.
Specifically, how can the Charter mandate abortion so clearly that governments fold like cheap lawn furniture before an activists' challenge when (a) it doesn't mention it (b) many of those who wrote the Charter opposed abortion and would be both astounded and horrified to be told that without realizing they'd secretly written it in?
Alternatively, if it's that obvious, why didn't the brave politicians notice and act on it before the challenge was filed?
This sort of disingenuous legislative-judicial two-step is no way to settle important and contentious questions. Instead, it's one more reason we need a real Constitution, based on popular consent, with a real Charter of Rights that guarantees real rights in plain language even citizens can read and understand, with no invisible ink.
In an excruciatingly studied effort to show more passion on the campaign trail, Jeb Bush says he would have killed baby Hitler given the chance. Apparently the question is a thing these days thanks to New York Magazine, and Bush's response was a mild obscenity (wow, such authenticity) followed by "yeah, I would!" Phooey. If I might refer you to my Sept. 28 post on the apparent opportunity of Henry Tandey, VC, to shoot a wounded Hitler on September 28 1918, it's absurd to suppose that anyone could have known a corporal in the trenches of World War I would have turned into a successful genocidal warmongering maniac politician in the 1930s. It's not even a category into which that young soldier could fall.
As for the notion that you could identify a baby who would later certainly do great evil if you didn't slaughter it in its infant innocence, that you could determine scientifically its necessarily malignant influence on history and preemptively exterminate it with a clean conscience, let's leave that for Minority Report and stick with the fairly elementary fact that killing babies is wrong.
So is appeasing dictators, but that's a story for another decade.
As for politicians faking passion, it's always a sorry sight.
In my latest National Post column I ask why a person can change their gender but not their race.
Justin Trudeau claims God is a human rights violator. It sounds like nonsense. But the facts are plain. Click here to read the rest.
For Christians Easter Sunday is an eerie pause between Good Friday’s tumult and the even greater upheaval of Easter Monday, so quiet, C.S. Lewis says in the Narnia Chronicles, “you feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again.” For non-Christians it’s a chance to hunt coloured eggs and wonder idly whether trading a cosmic message of redemption for a bunny made of bad-tasting chocolate was quite the deal it seemed at the time. And whether there isn’t something to be said for the occasional unnaturally quiet day. Click here to read the rest.
[Correction: This column contains a stupid mistake. Christians of course believe the Resurrection occurred on Sunday not Monday. Mea culpa.]
People seem astounded the new pope is not a sexual liberal. What, were they expecting Austin Powers I? Click here to read the rest.