Chastity Challenge tour underway

MONTREAL – The Chastity Challenge team, a group of two dozen young people who present chastity as a positive, life-affirming alternative to premarital sex, began its cross Canada tour in Montreal 5-9. Over the next six weeks, the team is scheduled to present the chastity message to students from British Columbia to Newfoundland. The team will perform in southwestern Ontario June 2-10. Monica Raso, one of the coordinators of the Chastity Challenge, said team members are building for a tour of Ireland this November. It will be a follow-up to a successful tour of Irish schools last fall.

Manning’s abortion dilemma

OTTAWA – Reform party leader Preston Manning reiterated his opposition to abortion but said he would be bound to vote for it if a majority of constituents supported abortion in a referendum. In an April 25 interview in The Ottawa Citizen, Manning said he would represent constituents in the matter even if their views differed from his own. He also said there should be constitutional protection for unborn children and that the state should do all in its power to protect rather than terminate life.

Violence a ‘male-only’ creation

KINGSTON – A “walk against male violence,” April 22 in Kingston raised alarm bells with some parents’ groups. Proceeds from the walk, which was promoted at Catholic and public high schools, will go in support of a rape crisis centre and a shelter for abused women. While parents’ groups in theory support programs to reduce violence and the existence of emergency shelters for women, they question the motives of walk organizers. Parents’ groups believe incidents of domestic violence are being exaggerated by feminists and lesbians to promote an anti-male attitude and to encourage the view that the traditional family is near collapse.

Six more months for Gibbons

TORONTO – Linda Gibbons was sentenced to a further six months in prison April 28 for witnessing for life outside the Scott abortion clinic in Toronto. The sentence imposed by Judge D.A. Fairgrieve, is in addition to the three months she has already served at the Toronto West Detention Centre. The latest sentence brings to almost three years the amount of time Gibbons has served since a 1994 injunction against pro-life activity. She has been imprisoned nine times during that period. The Crown continues to charge Gibbons with breaking a probation order rather than violating the injunction for fear that a jury trial and constitutional challenge would overturn the injunction.