Our editorial on homosexuality (October) has drawn some fire. It has been read as lacking in compassion and understanding for the individual, and some who wrote or called in are puzzled as to why a pro-life newspaper should tackle the matter at all. We regret that our editorial did not clearly address these points.
There is a world of difference between attacking a style (of life) and attacking a person. It is our belief that while the practice of homosexuality is a moral disorder and should not be approved, nevertheless, those who struggle to subdue homosexual tendencies deserve all possible understanding and support. The Interim did not – and does not – wish to demean those who face such difficulties. Our duty to “love the sinner but loathe the sin” applies to more than abortion.
It is never comfortable to hold opinions that are derided as being out of step with the current climate of public opinion. However, there are some absolutes. Some things are right and others are wrong, and whim or fashion have no bearing on the matter. Many of you who have struggled tirelessly for so many years in the pro-life movement have experienced your words being taken out of context and made to seem needlessly harsh, or have regretted writing or saying something which seemed appropriate at the time, only to realize on reflection that the statements did not present your true feelings.
Beyond abortion
Since The Interim began, nearly three years ago, we have attempted to look at many social issues from a pro-life perspective. Sometimes we have expressed ourselves well, sometimes we have been awkward or tentative. In some instances, when we have moved beyond the basic abortion issue, I think our clumsiness has reflected the difficulty of many pro-lifers: we thought we were fighting a single, clearly-delineated battle, but as we delved more deeply we discovered that nearly every potentially-divisive social issue is strongly linked to our basic values. Disdain for the value of human life has spread throughout our society like a cancer spreading before it consumes the body.
Our approach to all the issues we tackle is essential simple: we are concerned that basic human regard and rights should be extended to all. Equality for women should not be achieved at the expense of the rights of the unborn, nor should such measures as affirmative-action programmes be instituted to give women special protection at the expense of men. Current attempts to end discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” are, however, secretly designed to achieve not merely equality but special regard and protection.
Marriage as cornerstone
The activist homosexual organizations want legal protection as well as social approval for their relationships. They want the same rights and sanctions and social approval as are accorded to Norman heterosexual marriages. In fact, they are working to suppress homosexuality by using the Charter to outlaw norms altogether. The easiest way to achieve such a goal is to ridicule and demean the practice of monogamous, life-long marriage as the cornerstone of society. It is to dismiss the long and widely-held view that such marriages are the ideal atmosphere for bringing up children. Today, we have almost reached the point that, as one witness said at the equal rights hearings, the majority of Canadians feel ashamed of their values and consider themselves “closet-heterosexuals.”
The link between the homosexual-rights movement and the pro-abortion movement is not easy to see but it is no less present or real. Both hard-line feminists and the homosexual activists have long identified the family as enemy number one, so it is not surprising that many of them comfortably support and work for the goals of the pro-abortion movement.
Try this simple test. Watch carefully for the next homosexual or feminist march for your town. I’m prepared to bet that you won’t see any pro-life or pro-family banners. Nor will you see feminist or “gay rights” banners on the pro-life march – they’re all on the pro-abortion side of the fence. I know there are thousands of individual feminists in the pro-life movement, as there are hundreds of individual homosexuals who support our values and I, for one, would not show them the door because they don’t fit a pre-conceived notion of the stereotypical pro-lifer. None of us is perfect, we share a common, fundamental goal and we all have much to learn from each other by both word and example.
What pro-life people should clearly understand is that activist, pro-abortion, feminist and homosexual groups will only reach their goals when breakdown and removal of traditional values – the norms – is complete. This is their first objective. A society that endorses the killing of is youngest members for convenience or perceived mental or physical difference is a society which cannot logically disapprove of same-sex “marriage” and of “family.” That such an effect is desired was made clear in activists’ testimony at the equal rights hearings. Indeed, that was the whole point of our report on them.
Single-issue?
So, directly or indirectly, these groups are dedicated to attacking and overthrowing all moral and social norms, including “life,” “marriage,” “family,” and discrimination of right from wrong.
It often seems to me that pro-lifers make up the majority of those who still question whether such trendy concepts are valid. They are also the only ones who seem to be willing to look at such issues through a wide lens. And yet, w e are consistently caricatured as single-issue, narrowly-focused people. Our critics charge that we have neither concern for those who disagree with of differ from us, nor compassion for those facing difficult decisions. Well, then, just who is extending aid and compassion?
The fast-expanding pro-life movement to provide women with practical, non-judgmental help to care for their babies proves the falsehood of such accusations. It is pro-lifers who are running the organizations to comfort women who now bitterly regret their decision to abort. What are the abortion-pushers doing to aid mothers and sustain families?
The growing concern for homosexuals among all Christian denominations shows that this same compassion extends to those outside the heterosexual mainstream. Many churches are supporting self-help groups for those sincerely struggling to live within the Judeo-Christian tradition on which Canada was founded. Such assistance is clearly compassionate to the individual, though not tolerant or approving of or promoting deviant behaviour.
Discrimination in disguise
Pro-lifers are the leaders of the pro-family movement, and they are leaders in trying to formulate proper education programmes for teenagers – programmes that will teach premarital chastity, and that will teach the children that all actions have consequences.
I hope I have cleared the air rather than fuelled the fires of misunderstanding. Changing the law so as to protect the unborn would also require that we extend increased compassion and assistance for women and children. As it is, therefore, the current law only erodes existing levels of compassion and assistance fir women and children. It assumed that a “simple operation” is the solution to a problem pregnancy; it allows us to bypass the positive alternative of providing more long-term support to help all the individuals involved.
Any legislative moves to grant special status to homosexuals will equally serve to erode marriage and family and the status of all merely “normal” individuals. Such laws are really forms of discrimination in disguise – discrimination against the majority, against the normal and commonsense arrangements of people in our society. Those arrangements may not be perfect, but new laws would cause far more damage than they remove.
