A new organization, the Catholic Civil Rights League, is concerned with countering evidence of anti-religious bias in three areas: the media; the schools; and the legal-political arena.
The fledgling group received its first publicity from the Catholic Register which covered its first meeting in a front page story (March 16). The editor, Larry Henderson, also devoted an editorial to the League. He mentioned a number of particular incidents showing bias or attack upon Catholics spokesman indicated that one of the more cogent reasons for this development was the Church’s stand on behalf of the unborn. Surely, he is correct in this assessment.
Secularism
At it’s first meeting, League members agreed that anti-religious sentiments were most visible in three areas: media, education and politics. We also realize that, underneath specific incidents, whether against Catholic or other denominations, there is a much larger issue: that of aggressive secularism claims which attempts to deny the civil rights of all Christians, indeed, of religion in general. This secularism claims, that public morality should only represent secular values. It argues that all religious principles are purely private, that they have no legitimate social or political bearing and are of no concern to anyone, except to the person who holds them. It is based on the erroneous premise that moral and civil law can radically be separated.
Currently, aggressive secularism finds its strength in the morally permissive society. By solely emphasizing the presumed rights and liberties of the individual, it is undermining the traditional religious basis of law, education and politics and, thereby the rights and liberties of society in general.
Schools
Among rights being attacked are rights such as those of the Catholic school system, which in Canada is legally-established and publicly-funded. It is the league’s opinions that it should not merely help defend the continuance of the corporate rights of Catholic schools, but also support the rights of Jewish and Protestant schools, while not denying those of public schools.
Over the last 15 years there have been series of legal challenges to the corporate rights of Catholic institutions. Most often these challenges are based on the idea that these challenges are based on the idea that these corporate rights and obligations are “discriminatory” because they restrict so-called individual liberties, such as for example, the newly presumed freedom of sexual orientation, or the notion that a person’s private life has no bearing on his or her public activity. A 1977 Ontario Divisional Court ruling upholding a Catholic School Board’s right to dismiss teachers for a lifestyle contrary to the Church’s teaching, led for example, to an angry editorial in the Globe (June 21,1997) arguing that: what constitutes a denominational school in 1977… is the curriculum. Separate schools ought not to have power to limit the civil rights of teachers, which certainly include the right to be married in a civil ceremony.
Thus we have the Globe telling the public what these schools should be all about, or, looking at it from another angle, demanding that the lifestyle of the permissive society had better be accepted by everybody, or else. The Globe recommended an appeal and appealed it was. Fortunately, the Ontario Supreme Court ruled that it was “obvious that if a school board can dismiss for cause.”
Nine years later, in 1985, the outgoing president of the 35 000 member Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Association reported telling his fellow teachers that interviewing teachers on life-style and “moral habits” would “march us back to he Dark Ages as far as human rights are concerned” (Star, March 11, 1985). Not content with living their own lives, the Teacher’s Association voted to set aside a one million dollar war chest and use a $19.5 million contingency fund to see if they can destroy the Catholic system.
Abortion
Currently, the best example of aggressive secularism is Henry Morgentaler’s crusade for abortion on demand. Morgentaler and his supporters have been attacking religion in general (and Catholicism in particular) over a period of 17 years. At first sight this may appear suprising, because the question of whether or not the unborn are tiny human beings, is not a religious but a scientific question. The abortion issue is in the first place a civil rights issue.
In the mind of Morgentaler, who is a professed atheist, this is very much a question of religion. The fact is that Christianity is the prime source for the idea that every living human being, born or unborn has an immortal soul. It is this idea that made Christians in the time of the Romans 2000 years ago, the defenders of the dignity of every human being, no matter what his or her status or condition. It is the theological foundation, supporting the dignity of human life, which Morgentaler rejects outright.
In Canada, Christians are the most determined defenders of the unborn. Similarly, atheists like Morgentaler, Scott, Rebick, following radical feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett and Gloria Steinem elsewhere, are the most determined to assert the absolute freedom of women and men to do what they like with newly created life. One way of reducing their opponents to impotence is to deny the the right to influence law, while they themselves busily remove as many Christian principles from public life as is possible under the circumstances.
Globe and Mail
It is not surprising that the first newspaper to take editorial offence at the formation of the League is the Toronto Globe and Mail. In its March 13, 1984 editorial it solemnly warned the League and its present or prospective supporters, “not to confuse debate with descrimination.” One would wish the Globe had kept this in mind over the years.
What for example are Catholics to think of the editorial of March 11, 1968, seventeen years ago, in which the Globe attacked opposition to so-called abortion “reform” as follows: In the light of opposition to reform from Quebec’s liberal caucus, one wonders if, once again, the conscience of some Roman Catholic Canadians will be allowed to violate that of millions of other Canadians.
Needless to say the Globe did not explain on what other occasions the “conscience” of Canadians had been violated. It went boldly on to state that: this issue first concerns the right of any group of citizens to violate through law the conscience of other citizens. For that is precisely what abortion laws do.
The editorial then pursued the theme which the Globe had followed for five years or more namely, that abortion was not forbidden by law because it was harmful to society, but that it was harmful to society because it was forbidden by law. It then renewed the attack on the Catholic Church saying:
The Bishops are now opposing abortion reform not because it threatends public order or the common good. They oppose it on essentially moral and theological grounds…
Thus after conveniently separating the common good from God’s commandments, implying not merely that the one has nothing to do with the other but that they are in actual opposition to one another, the editorial closed with the following flourish: At Stake here is… a certain high conception of liberal democracy, that means a tolerant respect for the conscience of all not just the conscience of the most dogmatic.
The entire legalization of abortion debate in the late sixties was fought on the grounds that the Criminal Code was supposed to be neutral and that no one had the right to “impose” their “private” morality upon the nation. The results we know. Today matters have deteriorated so much that churchgoers can be deliberately excluded from a jury without protests from any public figure against this blatant denial of civil rights.
Members of the new Catholics for Civil Rights League are tired of hearing politicians say: “I am privately opposed to abortion but I have no right to impose my views…” We are even more tired of being told that in nation which (according to the 1981 census is overe 90% Christian, Christians may not utter or defend or represent in law, the views which they believe to be central for the common good of society without being accused of imposing bigotry.
