Rory Leishman Like other trendy Protestant Churches, the Anglican Church of Canada has conformed its teachings over the past few decades to the current pattern of the world on everything from contraception and abortion to same-sex “marriage” (SSM). This once influential denomination has lapsed into a state of theological confusion, ecclesiastical disarray, and near-terminal decline. The chaos came to a [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell We were talking about the Ontario Human Rights Commission and how it appears to have betrayed its politically correct roots. We suspected that in warning about female dress in the workplace, the Commission violated a basic precept of feminism. “Oh, the shame of it!” my friend Dingwall said. “Not of the immodesty, let alone the [...]
Clouds as a gateway to God Red Lodge Montana I spent 20 years of my life running from God. I won’t go into the reasons here – for a long time I blamed poor religious education, but that was just an excuse – but I began my adult life in full flight from questions about God, faith and spirituality. Obviously [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I used to think that obscenity and pornography were much the same. Apparently, they’re not. In Canada, adult pornography is legal unless it’s obscene, whereas child pornography is illegal even if it’s not obscene. Although it defines and prohibits obscenity and child pornography, the Criminal Code doesn’t even mention the adult variety. Maybe our lawmakers don’t [...]
University of Western Ontario Early this summer I attended a graduation party for a small, private Catholic high school where the children of several friends were saying farewell to classmates and teachers they had known for years – some of them since kindergarten. Many of these young men and women were babies when I first met them, so this pleasant [...]
In It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies (Harper, 192 pages), Mary Eberstadt documents how faithful Christians throughout the Western world are now living in fear of escalating religious oppression. Of course, Eberstadt readily acknowledges that persecution of the faithful outside the West is vastly worse. In particular, she cites the agony of Christians in the Middle East and Africa where, [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Time and again over the past 30 years, the Supreme Court of Canada has proceeded under cover of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to violate its own precedents, amend the Constitution, and overturn long-standing laws duly enacted by elected representatives of the people within the jurisdiction of Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Now with [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell I grew up under the protection of the Hicklin rule. That’s the test for obscenity that England’s Lord Chief Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn formulated in 1868. I don’t mean that I grew up in 1868. I mean, rather, that I safely completed my formative years before Canada abandoned the rule. Chief Justice Cockburn defined published [...]
Whit Stillman, New York City August 1990. My youngest daughter is fond of asking unanswerable questions like “what’s your favorite food?” or “who’s your favorite band?” I usually answer that I’m too old to have favorite anythings anymore, but she hasn’t asked me “who’s your favorite living movie director?” yet, and that would be easy to answer: Whit Stillman. Stillman [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell He told me that we shouldn’t discuss politics because I’m on the right and he’s on the left. “I don’t enjoy talking with someone who’s on the wrong side of history,” he explained. “The wrong side?” I declared, taken aback. “You just acknowledged that I’m on the right.” “I’m on the right,” he replied, “because [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman For nearly 50 years now, Canadians have lived with a perverse legal regime that allows some hospital-based physicians to engage in the mass slaughter of perfectly healthy babies in the womb, while mandating other physicians in these same hospitals to do whatever they can to save the lives of the frailest and most vulnerable of human [...]
Amusements Rick McGinnis Facebook was launched a dozen years ago as a place for Ivy League college students to connect online and answer burning collegiate questions like “Who’s hot and who’s not?” But even before they made a movie about it, Facebook had gone from being an online distraction only potentially more interesting than World of Warcraft into something between [...]
Light is Right Joe Campbell Yes, I’ve heard the arguments against re-defining marriage to include same-sex couples. I know that, legally, it eliminates the only civil institution that unites children with their biological parents. I’m aware that it reduces marriage to the level of liaisons that lack procreative potential. I recognize that it views families as socially constructed units based [...]
Amusements Rick McGinnis As the father of daughters, I always feel a bit guilty when I find myself railing against the excesses and absurdities of contemporary feminism. I mentally prepare myself for the counterarguments my position will invite: Don’t you believe women should have the same opportunities as men? Don’t you think equal work should mean equal pay? Do you [...]
National Affairs Rory Leishman Parents of young Canadian children should beware of the potentially catastrophic advice in a Guide for Educators issued by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation on the care and treatment of children with a gender identity disorder in elementary and secondary schools. To begin with, the CTF explains: “Transgender individuals normally identify with a gender that is different [...]