Off the Topic, Just for a Moment

While researching the Christian Heritage Party I found references to Bill C-250, sometimes referred to as "the gag bill".

The bill added the words "sexual orientation" to a piece of legislation that previously said you couldn't reccomend committing genocide against anyone based on race,creed, or colour.

If you put "bill c-250" into Google, the five of the first seven sites are "Christian" sites basically expressing these sentiments.

Are all Christians somehow compelled to be dour and bitter? What about that "Make a joyful noise" business? And why is this the third hit?

This morning, the Archbishop of my occasional Church sent out a letter that essentially urged us to vote against the current government on the grounds that it had flouted morality by allowing stem-cell research, permitting Canadian women the choice of abortion, and promoting gay marriage.

This is why I only attend about half the available Sundays. I'll never make a good Catholic again.

1) Abortion is a lousy choice to have to make, and I'm sure most women would prefer not to choose it, much less use it as birth control. But better that a nine-week blob of parasitic tissue is excised than another kid grows up unwanted. I do have issues with abortion generally, but its availability isn't one of them.

2) Embryonic stem cell research has the potential to extend lives, revolutionize the field of organ transplants, and alleviate huge measures of human suffering. Since the embryos used are usually no good for anything else and would be thrown out anyway, who's being harmed? Again--there are legitimate concerns about it--particularly the idea that someone might create an embryo specifically for this purpose. But the process itself isn't harming anyone.

{Peter Quinn is a friend--somewhat out of touch nowadays--who had a quadruple bypass at something approaching age 45. Ask him about transplants sometime--you can do that, because he's still alive.}

3) Gay marriage. Perhaps we should return to the times when a Native Indian required permission to marry a White person? Or a "Chinaman" needed to pay head tax? How is that different?

Anyway--to get back to Bill C-250. All it does is add a ban on the specific promotion of murdering people for the specific reason of their sexuality--to a piece of law which is already in force for ethnicity etc.

And regrettably appears to continue to be needed.

"I used to be a Catholic--until I reached the age of reason."
--George Carlin

More on the election in a bit. . .