It was, for all intents and purposes, a hit list and had it not targeted pro-lifers, they wouldn’t have gotten away with it.
In April, a free “entertainment” paper available on the streets of Montreal called the Mirror, (similar to Now Magazine in Toronto) printed an article with the banner headline “HLI’s top 10 extremists.”
The article was an attempt to discredit the pro-life organization Human Life International and steal thunder from its successful April conference in Montreal.
Filled with vague generalities and out-of-context quotes backed up with libelous statements, the article gave information on the “gay-bashers, Nazi sympathizers and religious zealots” who attended the conference.
Poor research and shoddy journalism aside, the article’s clear aim was to provoke hatred through an all-out character defamation and perhaps scare those named from future activism.
Number one on the list was HLI’s founder Fr. Paul Marx. The Mirror accused him of being an anti-Semitic and a white supremacist. Others of note on the list included Randall Terry, Bishop Austin Vaughn, Theresa Bell, Bernard Nathanson and past Interim and present Catholic Insight editor, Fr. Alphonse de Valk.
Fr. De Valk discounted the article as “a scurrilous piece in a meaningless newspaper.” He also pointed out that nothing in the piece made him out to be an extremist.
Despite constantly accusing HLI of anti-semitism, the article did not see the irony in the fact that they named two Jews on their hit list.
One did not have to look far to determine where the Mirror falls in the political spectrum. Beside the article on the “pro-life extremists” appeared an ad depicting a woman dressed in scanty leather clothing, holding a chain to promote “Fetish Night” at a local Montreal nightclub.
“Fetish wear obligatory,” read the advertisement.
