Mary Zwicker
Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) has responded to charges from a left-wing group – and repeated in the corporate media – that has labelled the pro-life organization a “hate group” for its pro-life, pro-family stance, specifically regarding LGBTQ ideology.
In recent months, Campaign Life Coalition has been targeted by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), which released multiple articles calling CLC a “reactionary far-right” group for endorsing pro-family candidates in Ontario’s school board elections. Following this accusation from the CAHN, other media sources such as CTV jumped on this bandwagon, amplifying what they considered “hatred” on CLC’s part and bashing them for their pro-family, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage views.
“Campaign Life Coalition, a reactionary far-right anti-2SLGBTQ+, anti-abortion lobbying group, has formally endorsed seven Catholic school board and two public school board candidates across the Halton region,” CAHN wrote in October.
Working with this message, CTV expanded on the definition of “far-right,” suggesting that CLC is one such example of far-right groups which “often have a heavy focus on nationalism and may see different marginalized groups as threats, such as women, racial minorities, and those in the LGBTQ2S+ community.”
However, while the left-wing activists at CAHN and supposedly neutral journalists at CTV may want to portray CLC as an organization based on hate, representatives from CLC have told The Interim that its positions on matters such as LGBTQ ideology are based on nothing other than love.
“Our opposition to the homosexual and transgender lifestyle is borne out of total love for the individuals involved,” Jack Fonseca, CLC’s director of political operations told The Interim. “We want to protect them from the medical, emotional, and psychological harms that are endemic to homosexual sex, puberty blockers for children, cross-sex hormone “therapy”, and transgender mutilation surgery.”
Fonseca explained that the nature of a gay lifestyle has serious risks, including a heightened risk of HIV and AIDS. Likewise, Fonseca also explained that many who undergo transgender surgery end up “mutilated for life” and “regret the irreversible changes they made to their bodies.”
Fonseca explained: “CLC really cares about these people, so we warn them of the health risks. That’s true love. That’s real compassion” He also said that CLC’s stance on the LGBTQ does not stem merely from a concern over the physical well-being of such individuals, but that they are primarily concerned with every individual’s salvation.
Fonseca said the CAHN’s attack on CLC are motivated by a hatred of Christianity, and the Left’s desire to “marginalize and silence (the) Christian and conservative voices” of those who stand against their woke ideology. “The pro-life movement is one of those voices, and CLC is the biggest target because we work to elect men and women who will stand against the culture of death and against tyranny, the weapons of communism,” Fonseca explained.
Josie Luetke, director of education and advocacy at Campaign Life Coalition, told The Interim that these attacks are motivated by a fear of opposing viewpoints. “CLC is attacked for many (related) reasons,” Luetke said. “Some blame us as scapegoats for their personal pain. Some resort to ad hominem attacks because they can’t bear the truth.”
However, Luetke said that this attack on CLC is part of a “a calculated, strategic move to avoid debate on important issues like transgenderism and abortion.”
She said the hate “label dissuades the public from considering our arguments too closely, and provides a good cover for censorship,” she said. “They care so much because we threaten their professions, their (malformed) sense of identity – really, their entire (misaligned) worldview.”
Fonseca warned that CLC being viewed as a “hate-group” could have dire consequences, including violence. “Political violence is a possible consequence of their despicable actions, and I believe, one of their goals,” he said. “The CAHN is fomenting so much hatred against traditionally principled Canadians that I fear it cannot but end in political violence against their targets.”
To prove his point, Fonseca cited an example of one of CLC’s endorsed candidates, who was attacked for his political views. “In fact, one of the candidates we endorsed in Ontario’s municipal elections had the windows of his house and his car smashed, not so coincidentally after one of CAHN’s hit pieces on CLC and other conservative leaning groups who were involved in the municipal elections,” Fonseca stated.
Luetke agreed that there are damaging consequences to CLC being labelled a hate-group. “The view that we are a hate group, if widely shared, becomes an existential threat,” she said.
Luetke said that in order to avoid the possibility of labels becoming a threat, pro-lifers and those who are pro-family must “come out” in order to be “visibly identifiable and counted.” She said, “Just as the LGBTQ lobby normalized their agenda through visibility (as an increasing percentage of the population claimed gay uncles or cousins), so too can we make it more difficult for the public to label us as hateful if everyone can fondly recall their reasonable and not-at-all bigoted pro-life/pro-family relative.”
Luetke reminded supporters of the importance of love, truth, and prayer in fighting against evil. “Our response must be to persevere in love and truth (and prayer!),” she said.
