The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
The shocking death by murder suicide of two London police officers earlier this month has underlined once again that no Canadians are immune to the potentially violent consequences of a breakdown in marital relations. However, the extent of spousal homicide in Canada should not be exaggerated. The fact is that such tragic and deplorable crimes are rare, and getting rarer.
In a study published last year by Statistics Canada, Melanie Kowalskir eported that there were only 74 spousal homicides in all of Canada during 2004. Moreover, the rate of spousal homicides in 2004 was just 4.3 per one million spouses, down 16 per cent from 2000.
While most of the perpetratorswere male, fully 20 per cent were female. Common law spouses are especially at risk. According to Statistics Canada, they comprised just 13 per cent of spousal relationships, yet accounted forno less than 40 per cent of all spousal homicides between 1994 and 2004.
Of course, spousal homicide is only a small, albeit extreme, part of the overall issue of spousal violence. To get an accurate understanding of the full extent of the problem, Statistics Canada conducted a massive General Social Survey (GSS) on Victimization in 1999. This study, the most definitive ever conducted on family violence in Canada, was based on arandom sample of approximately 24,000 Canadian men and women aged 15 and over.
The results were startling. Although government and the mass media concentrated then, as they continue to do now, almost exclusively on spousal violence against women, Statistics Canada found in this study that men are hardly less likely than women to be victims of spousal violence. Specifically, Statistics Canada reports: “Results from the 1999 GSS found that eight per cent of women and seven per cent of men who were married or living common-law experienced some type of spousal violence in the past five years.” A follow-up survey in 2004 produced similar results, although the number of victims had marginally declined by about 47,000 among women and 4,000 among men.
The GSS surveys have also found that men and women vary in the kind of spousal violence they experience. For example, far more men than women say they have been kicked, bitten, hit or slapped by a spouse, whereas far more women than men say they have been beaten, choked or sexually assaulted in a spousal attack.
Women are also more likely than men to use a weapon in a spousal fight. However, given the superior physical strength of men, it’s not surprising that women usually come out the worse in spousal brawls. The 2004 GSS survey found that 13 per cent of the female victims of spousal abuse, compared to only two per cent of the men, said they had sought medical attention for aninjury inflicted in a violent altercation with their spouse.
This same survey also indicated that spousal violence is more than “twice as common among homosexual couples compared with heterosexual couples.” Studies in other countries have come to similar conclusions. In 2003, the British Journal of Psychiatry reported that a representative, cross-sectional survey of men and women in England and Wales had found that “38 per cent of the gay men and 31 per cent of the lesbians admitted having been physically attacked during the preceding five years.”
Altogether, the data from Canada and elsewhere indicate that people living in common law marriages and same-sex unions are far more likely than legally married couples to become embroiled in spousal violence. Why is that?
A large part of the explanation is that common law relationships and same sex unions are much more prone to breakdown than are legally married unions.It is during the period when an intimate sexual relationship is breakingapart that tensions between the couples tend to escalate and the risks of spousal violence become the most acute.
Here, then, is one among many good reasons for Canadians to avoid informal sexual liaisons outside of marriage: There is overwhelming statistical evidence to prove that legally married husbands and wives who fulfil their wedding vows to love and cherish each other in a sexually exclusive relationship are exceedingly unlikely to experience spousal homicide or any other form of domestic violence.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
A user-pay solution to traffic congestion
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
Over the past 40 years, London, like every other city in Canada, has been on a road-building spree: Virtually every major artery has been significantlyexpanded, yet the traffic congestion is worse than ever. What can be done?
It’s evident that simply building and expanding ever more roads and streets in growing cities like London will not solve the problem. Experience from around the world suggests that no amount of road construction can keep pace with the rapidly increasing numbers of cars in countries that are blessed with sustained economic growth.
Some environmentalists contend that a hefty increase in gasoline taxes would eliminate traffic congestion, although there is no evidence to support this contention. Throughout Western Europe, many cities are plagued with massive traffic jams, despite modern roads and gasoline taxes that are more than two and three times higher than in Canada.
Many cities in Europe and North America have found that a combination of reduced fares and better service for mass transit can persuade some commuters to abandon their cars, but not nearly enough to end traffic jams. It’s a safe bet that even if mass transit were free, a large proportion of urban commuters would still prefer to travel directly to their homes,workplaces and other destinations by automobile despite the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Commuters are all the more likely to travel by automobile, when it’s not they, themselves, but the entire community that has to pay much of the costs for traffic congestion in the form of higher greenhouse gas emissions as well as expensive delays in moving people and merchandise. Moreover, these costs are not at all trivial. Transport Canada recently estimated that traffic delays cost nine large urban areas more than $3 billion annually.
What, then, can be done? Robert Lindsey, a professor of economics at the University of Alberta, commends the solution advanced by Ken Livingston, the socialist mayor of London, England, who is popularly known as “Red Ken.” In an illuminating commentary for the C. D. Howe Institute entitled “Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada,” Lindsey points out that Livingston first invested in additional transit buses during his inaugural term in office and then, in February, 2003, levied a new system of road tolls called the London Congestion Charge on motorists driving into a 21-square kilometer area in the centre of the city between 7:00 am and 6:30 pm on weekdays.
Vehicles entering this core area are identified by cameras like those used on Toronto’s 407 toll road that automatically photographs the licence plates of passing vehicles. This efficient system is a considerable money maker. Under terms of the Greater London Authority Act, all of the revenues generated by the London Congestion Charge must be used to improve the city’s network of roads, streets and facilities for mass transit.
So far, Livingstone’s initiative has proven to be hugely successful. Both traffic congestion and automobile pollution have been considerably reduced. And virtually all in the city have benefited: Everyone who still drives into the heart of the city encounters fewer traffic jams, while all others enjoy the advantages of improved mass transit, including faster bus service on congestion-free roads and streets.
Of course, a system that works for a vast metropolis like London, England, might not be suitable for many smaller cities. However, Lindsey points out in his commentary that over the past 20 years, the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Trondheim – both less than half the size of London, Ontario –have also come up with systems for charging motorists entering into their downtown areas that have been successful in reducing congestion, cutting pollution and raising considerable revenues for improving urban transportation and financing environmental projects.
Lindsey makes a compelling case in his commentary for having Canada’s largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – experiment with roadtolls. Politicians and city engineers in smaller cities like London, Ontario, should also give serious consideration to this idea.
Make the polluter pay is a sound principle. And there is no better way to make car drivers pay for their pollution than through a system of road tolls that are well calculated to cut greenhouse gas emissions and ease traffic congestion.
By Rory Leishman
Over the past 40 years, London, like every other city in Canada, has been on a road-building spree: Virtually every major artery has been significantlyexpanded, yet the traffic congestion is worse than ever. What can be done?
It’s evident that simply building and expanding ever more roads and streets in growing cities like London will not solve the problem. Experience from around the world suggests that no amount of road construction can keep pace with the rapidly increasing numbers of cars in countries that are blessed with sustained economic growth.
Some environmentalists contend that a hefty increase in gasoline taxes would eliminate traffic congestion, although there is no evidence to support this contention. Throughout Western Europe, many cities are plagued with massive traffic jams, despite modern roads and gasoline taxes that are more than two and three times higher than in Canada.
Many cities in Europe and North America have found that a combination of reduced fares and better service for mass transit can persuade some commuters to abandon their cars, but not nearly enough to end traffic jams. It’s a safe bet that even if mass transit were free, a large proportion of urban commuters would still prefer to travel directly to their homes,workplaces and other destinations by automobile despite the inconvenience of traffic jams.
Commuters are all the more likely to travel by automobile, when it’s not they, themselves, but the entire community that has to pay much of the costs for traffic congestion in the form of higher greenhouse gas emissions as well as expensive delays in moving people and merchandise. Moreover, these costs are not at all trivial. Transport Canada recently estimated that traffic delays cost nine large urban areas more than $3 billion annually.
What, then, can be done? Robert Lindsey, a professor of economics at the University of Alberta, commends the solution advanced by Ken Livingston, the socialist mayor of London, England, who is popularly known as “Red Ken.” In an illuminating commentary for the C. D. Howe Institute entitled “Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada,” Lindsey points out that Livingston first invested in additional transit buses during his inaugural term in office and then, in February, 2003, levied a new system of road tolls called the London Congestion Charge on motorists driving into a 21-square kilometer area in the centre of the city between 7:00 am and 6:30 pm on weekdays.
Vehicles entering this core area are identified by cameras like those used on Toronto’s 407 toll road that automatically photographs the licence plates of passing vehicles. This efficient system is a considerable money maker. Under terms of the Greater London Authority Act, all of the revenues generated by the London Congestion Charge must be used to improve the city’s network of roads, streets and facilities for mass transit.
So far, Livingstone’s initiative has proven to be hugely successful. Both traffic congestion and automobile pollution have been considerably reduced. And virtually all in the city have benefited: Everyone who still drives into the heart of the city encounters fewer traffic jams, while all others enjoy the advantages of improved mass transit, including faster bus service on congestion-free roads and streets.
Of course, a system that works for a vast metropolis like London, England, might not be suitable for many smaller cities. However, Lindsey points out in his commentary that over the past 20 years, the Norwegian cities of Bergen and Trondheim – both less than half the size of London, Ontario –have also come up with systems for charging motorists entering into their downtown areas that have been successful in reducing congestion, cutting pollution and raising considerable revenues for improving urban transportation and financing environmental projects.
Lindsey makes a compelling case in his commentary for having Canada’s largest cities -- Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver – experiment with roadtolls. Politicians and city engineers in smaller cities like London, Ontario, should also give serious consideration to this idea.
Make the polluter pay is a sound principle. And there is no better way to make car drivers pay for their pollution than through a system of road tolls that are well calculated to cut greenhouse gas emissions and ease traffic congestion.
Friday, June 01, 2007
A significant pro-life judicial victory
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy described partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small, but significant, step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this decision, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of President Bush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the states from constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that even in the Charter era, it is “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”
McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada in the McIntyre mould. None can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers.
Our judicial rulers in Canada profess to be enlightened and compassionate, yet none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion. What a shame and what a pity.
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy described partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small, but significant, step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this decision, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of President Bush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the states from constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that even in the Charter era, it is “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”
McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada in the McIntyre mould. None can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers.
Our judicial rulers in Canada profess to be enlightened and compassionate, yet none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion. What a shame and what a pity.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Barbaric abortion procedure outlawed
The London Free Press
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedydescribed partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-BirthAbortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this ruling, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of PresidentBush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the statesfrom constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that it is not for the courts, but “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to makeeffective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada who can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers. While our judicial rulers profess to be enlightened and compassionate, none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion.
What a shame.
By Rory Leishman
In a landmark, five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the United States Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act which the Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed into law in 2003.
In reasons for the majority in Carhart, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedydescribed partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation) as a procedure in which an abortion doctor typically delivers all but the head of a living baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so the head can pass through the cervix.
Kennedy agreed with the finding of the United States Congress that: “Implicitly approving such a brutal and inhumane procedure by choosing not to prohibit it will further coarsen society to the humanity of not only newborns, but all vulnerable and innocent human life, making it increasingly difficult to protect such life." On this basis, he upheld the Partial-BirthAbortion Ban Act, which makes it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for an abortion doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion, unless the procedure is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
The Parliament of Canada should take note: Thanks to the calamitous judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, Canada is the only democracy in the world that has no law governing abortion. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for an unscrupulous abortion doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy right up to just a few seconds before birth.
Granted, late-term abortions are very rare in Canada. But so is infanticide. It makes no sense for the Criminal Code to condemn the deliberate killing of a newborn infant, while doing nothing to curtail late-term abortions.
Carhart represents a small step back from the 1973 ruling of the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade that initiated abortion on demand. In a torturous attempt to justify this ruling, the majority of the Court in Roe argued that women have a right to abortion by virtue of the “right to privacy” contained in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have repudiated Roe. In a concurring opinion in Carhart, they reiterated their view “that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.”
In a future case that deals directly with Roe, Chief Justice John Roberts and Mr. Justice Samuel Alito, Jr. -– both recent appointees of PresidentBush – are likely also to agree that Roe was wrongly decided, because there is nothing in the plain language or the history of Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution that prohibits the legislatures of the statesfrom constricting abortion.
Correspondingly, there is nothing in the plain language or the history of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that authorized the Supreme Court of Canada to strike down Canada’s abortion law. In a dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, Mr. Justice William McIntyre persuasively argued that it is not for the courts, but “for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy.”McIntyre explained: “This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to makeeffective its decisions.”
In Morgentaler, McIntyre exercised judicial restraint: He fulfilled his duty as a judge to uphold the law and the Constitution, while leaving legislating to legislators.
Alas, there is today no judge on the Supreme Court of Canada who can be counted upon to uphold the separation of legislative and judicial powers. While our judicial rulers profess to be enlightened and compassionate, none shows any disposition to agree with judgment of the United States Supreme Court on the urgent need to curtail at least the horrors of partial-birth abortion.
What a shame.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Into their own hands
Mercatornet
By Rory Leishman
“[Liberty] cannot subsist long in any state, unless the administration of common justice be in some degree separated both from the legislative and also from the executive power. Were it joined with the legislative, the life, liberty, and property of the subject would be in the hands of arbitrary judges, whose decisions would be then regulated only by their own opinions, and not by any fundamental principles of law; which, though legislators may depart from, yet judges are bound to observe.” ~ Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69)
The world’s democracies have come under internal attack by an unlikely foe – rogue members of the judicial establishment. Prior to the 1950s, the great majority of judges in the democracies practised judicial restraint. In conformity with the separation of legislative and judicial powers, they understood that they had a duty to uphold duly enacted statute laws and the constitution as originally understood by elected representatives of the people in the legislative branch of government.
Today, democracies are plagued by judicial activists; that is to say, judges who have no compunction about making radical changes under the guise of judicial interpretation. Far from respecting the exclusive authority of elected legislators to amend laws and constitutions to meet the needs of a changing society, judicial activists have taken this responsibility upon themselves. Thus, judicial activists on the Supreme Court of the United States have amended the laws on evidence in criminal proceedings, abolished centuries-old laws authorizing prayers in the public schools, and defied the express will of Congress, by imposing racial and sexual preferences in hiring and promotion within both the public and private sectors.
Far from respecting the exclusive authority of elected legislators to amend laws and constitutions to meet the needs of a changing society, judicial activists have taken this responsibility upon themselves.
In Canada, judicial activists on the Supreme Court have likewise transformed themselves into a veritable super-legislature. Under the pretence of upholding the Constitution, they have promulgated equality rights for homosexuals, passed judgment on the wisdom of a government decision to authorize the testing of cruise missiles in the wilderness of northern Canada and, in the case that particularly outraged former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, promulgated a set of entirely non-legal, political guidelines for amending the Constitution.
For a striking illustration of the difference between judicial activism and judicial restraint, consider the contrasting majority and minority opinions of the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973. In this calamitous seven-to-two ruling, the majority swept aside long-standing state laws restricting abortion. It did this on the ground of incompatibility with a woman’s “right to privacy”, a right which the Court had found hidden in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. This ruling was entirely unprecedented. Writing in dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted: “To reach its result the [majority] has had to find within the scope of the 14th Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.” In a separate dissent, Justice Byron White likewise charged that in purporting to find a right to abortion hidden in the Constitution, “the Court engages not in constitutional interpretation, but in the unrestrained imposition of its own, extra-constitutional value preferences.”
Three years later, in 1976, much the same abortion issue came before the Supreme Court of Canada, when counsel for a convicted Canadian abortion doctor, Dr Henry Morgentaler, urged the Court to follow the Roe precedent, by finding that Canada’s abortion law violated the rights of women “to life, liberty, [and] security of the person” in section 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court rejected this argument. Chief Justice Bora Laskin, stated: “How foreign to our constitutional traditions, to our constitutional law, and to our conceptions of judicial review was any interference by a Court with the substantive content of legislation”.
In 1988, Morgentaler came back before the Supreme Court of Canada, having again been charged with unlawfully procuring an abortion. This time, his counsel asked the Court to hold that Canada’s law on abortion violated the substantive rights of women in section 7 of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms “to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” In a complete turnaround, a majority of the Court agreed with this revisionist argument. In striking contrast to the previous Morgentaler ruling, the Court evaluated the substantive content of Canada’s abortion law, arbitrarily decided that the law was ill advised, and struck it down.
In 1976, the Court exercised judicial restraint: It respected the separation of legislative and judicial powers. In 1988, the Court indulged in judicial activism: It usurped the legislative powers of Parliament to define an abortion law for Canada. As justification for this policy flip-flop, judicial activists contend that the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms mandates judges to second-guess the wisdom of laws that have been duly enacted by Parliament and the provincial legislatures.
However, these judges can cite no persuasive evidence for this claim in either the language or the history of the Charter. In a compelling dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, 1988, Mr Justice William McIntyre wrote: “The solution to this [abortion] question in this country must be left to Parliament. It is for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy. This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
It’s tragic that the majority of the judges in 1988, did not pay heed to McIntyre. As a result that Canada became then, and remains now, the only democracy in the world that has no law whatsoever to protect the lives of babies in the womb. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for a doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy up to a few seconds before birth.
Judicial activism is rampant not only in Canada and the United States, but also in democracies like the Netherlands and Australia that do not have a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights. In the Netherlands, it was the courts, and not the Dutch Parliament, that initially sanctioned physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, by arbitrarily refusing to enforce the ban on euthanasia in article 293 of the Dutch Penal Code. In Australia, judicial activists have likewise usurped legislative power by adopting a "progressive" approach to interpretation of the Australian Constitution. Greg Craven, professor of government and constitutional law at Curtin University, explains:
This is an approach to constitutional interpretation which essentially posits that the High Court should so construe Australia's constituent document as to continually up-date it in line with perceived community and social expectations, rather than according to its tenor or in conformity with the intentions of those who wrote it.This form of judicial activism, which naturally has profound social and political implications, has taken the High Court by storm over the past decade. Thus, the Court cheerfully has invented an implied freedom of political communication (along with other associated freedoms), a freedom which in reality emerges neither from the words of the Constitution themselves, nor from the wildest imaginings of the Founding Fathers.
However, things seem to be changing in the US. Judicial activists are losing their grip. In a remarkable five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the Supreme Court broke with a string of abortion judgments going back to Roe, by upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Under the terms of this federal law, it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for a doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation), in which the doctor typically delivers all but the head of a live baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so his or her head can pass through the cervix. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act absolutely forbids recourse to this brutal and gruesome procedure, unless it is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
In a concurring opinion in Carhart that was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas stated: “I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.” While Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Jr – both Bush appointees – refrained from expressing a similar opinion in Carhart, they are proponents of judicial restraint and might well also affirm that Roe has no basis in the Constitution when a directly pertinent case comes back before the Court. Consequently, there is reason to believe that the US Supreme Court might now be just one vote short of having a majority determined to uphold the laws and the Constitution of the United States as originally enacted and understood.
Sir William Blackstone would be pleased.
Rory Leishman is a freelance journalist in Canada. He is the author of Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006).
By Rory Leishman
“[Liberty] cannot subsist long in any state, unless the administration of common justice be in some degree separated both from the legislative and also from the executive power. Were it joined with the legislative, the life, liberty, and property of the subject would be in the hands of arbitrary judges, whose decisions would be then regulated only by their own opinions, and not by any fundamental principles of law; which, though legislators may depart from, yet judges are bound to observe.” ~ Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69)
The world’s democracies have come under internal attack by an unlikely foe – rogue members of the judicial establishment. Prior to the 1950s, the great majority of judges in the democracies practised judicial restraint. In conformity with the separation of legislative and judicial powers, they understood that they had a duty to uphold duly enacted statute laws and the constitution as originally understood by elected representatives of the people in the legislative branch of government.
Today, democracies are plagued by judicial activists; that is to say, judges who have no compunction about making radical changes under the guise of judicial interpretation. Far from respecting the exclusive authority of elected legislators to amend laws and constitutions to meet the needs of a changing society, judicial activists have taken this responsibility upon themselves. Thus, judicial activists on the Supreme Court of the United States have amended the laws on evidence in criminal proceedings, abolished centuries-old laws authorizing prayers in the public schools, and defied the express will of Congress, by imposing racial and sexual preferences in hiring and promotion within both the public and private sectors.
Far from respecting the exclusive authority of elected legislators to amend laws and constitutions to meet the needs of a changing society, judicial activists have taken this responsibility upon themselves.
In Canada, judicial activists on the Supreme Court have likewise transformed themselves into a veritable super-legislature. Under the pretence of upholding the Constitution, they have promulgated equality rights for homosexuals, passed judgment on the wisdom of a government decision to authorize the testing of cruise missiles in the wilderness of northern Canada and, in the case that particularly outraged former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, promulgated a set of entirely non-legal, political guidelines for amending the Constitution.
For a striking illustration of the difference between judicial activism and judicial restraint, consider the contrasting majority and minority opinions of the US Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973. In this calamitous seven-to-two ruling, the majority swept aside long-standing state laws restricting abortion. It did this on the ground of incompatibility with a woman’s “right to privacy”, a right which the Court had found hidden in “penumbras formed by emanations” of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. This ruling was entirely unprecedented. Writing in dissent, Chief Justice William Rehnquist noted: “To reach its result the [majority] has had to find within the scope of the 14th Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.” In a separate dissent, Justice Byron White likewise charged that in purporting to find a right to abortion hidden in the Constitution, “the Court engages not in constitutional interpretation, but in the unrestrained imposition of its own, extra-constitutional value preferences.”
Three years later, in 1976, much the same abortion issue came before the Supreme Court of Canada, when counsel for a convicted Canadian abortion doctor, Dr Henry Morgentaler, urged the Court to follow the Roe precedent, by finding that Canada’s abortion law violated the rights of women “to life, liberty, [and] security of the person” in section 1 of the Canadian Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court rejected this argument. Chief Justice Bora Laskin, stated: “How foreign to our constitutional traditions, to our constitutional law, and to our conceptions of judicial review was any interference by a Court with the substantive content of legislation”.
In 1988, Morgentaler came back before the Supreme Court of Canada, having again been charged with unlawfully procuring an abortion. This time, his counsel asked the Court to hold that Canada’s law on abortion violated the substantive rights of women in section 7 of the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms “to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” In a complete turnaround, a majority of the Court agreed with this revisionist argument. In striking contrast to the previous Morgentaler ruling, the Court evaluated the substantive content of Canada’s abortion law, arbitrarily decided that the law was ill advised, and struck it down.
In 1976, the Court exercised judicial restraint: It respected the separation of legislative and judicial powers. In 1988, the Court indulged in judicial activism: It usurped the legislative powers of Parliament to define an abortion law for Canada. As justification for this policy flip-flop, judicial activists contend that the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms mandates judges to second-guess the wisdom of laws that have been duly enacted by Parliament and the provincial legislatures.
However, these judges can cite no persuasive evidence for this claim in either the language or the history of the Charter. In a compelling dissenting opinion in Morgentaler, 1988, Mr Justice William McIntyre wrote: “The solution to this [abortion] question in this country must be left to Parliament. It is for Parliament to pronounce on, and to direct, social policy. This is not because Parliament can claim all wisdom and knowledge but simply because Parliament is elected for that purpose in a free democracy and, in addition, has the facilities -- the exposure to public opinion and information -- as well as the political power to make effective its decisions.”
It’s tragic that the majority of the judges in 1988, did not pay heed to McIntyre. As a result that Canada became then, and remains now, the only democracy in the world that has no law whatsoever to protect the lives of babies in the womb. If a mother decides, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants her pre-born baby, it is lawful in Canada for a doctor to kill that baby at any time during the pregnancy up to a few seconds before birth.
Judicial activism is rampant not only in Canada and the United States, but also in democracies like the Netherlands and Australia that do not have a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights. In the Netherlands, it was the courts, and not the Dutch Parliament, that initially sanctioned physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, by arbitrarily refusing to enforce the ban on euthanasia in article 293 of the Dutch Penal Code. In Australia, judicial activists have likewise usurped legislative power by adopting a "progressive" approach to interpretation of the Australian Constitution. Greg Craven, professor of government and constitutional law at Curtin University, explains:
This is an approach to constitutional interpretation which essentially posits that the High Court should so construe Australia's constituent document as to continually up-date it in line with perceived community and social expectations, rather than according to its tenor or in conformity with the intentions of those who wrote it.This form of judicial activism, which naturally has profound social and political implications, has taken the High Court by storm over the past decade. Thus, the Court cheerfully has invented an implied freedom of political communication (along with other associated freedoms), a freedom which in reality emerges neither from the words of the Constitution themselves, nor from the wildest imaginings of the Founding Fathers.
However, things seem to be changing in the US. Judicial activists are losing their grip. In a remarkable five-to-four ruling in Gonzalez v. Carhart on April 18, the Supreme Court broke with a string of abortion judgments going back to Roe, by upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003. Under the terms of this federal law, it is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years imprisonment for a doctor to perform a partial-birth abortion (also known as intact dilation and evacuation), in which the doctor typically delivers all but the head of a live baby from the womb, before piercing or crushing the baby’s skull so his or her head can pass through the cervix. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act absolutely forbids recourse to this brutal and gruesome procedure, unless it is “necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury.”
In a concurring opinion in Carhart that was joined by Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Clarence Thomas stated: “I write separately to reiterate my view that the Court's abortion jurisprudence, including Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution.” While Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Jr – both Bush appointees – refrained from expressing a similar opinion in Carhart, they are proponents of judicial restraint and might well also affirm that Roe has no basis in the Constitution when a directly pertinent case comes back before the Court. Consequently, there is reason to believe that the US Supreme Court might now be just one vote short of having a majority determined to uphold the laws and the Constitution of the United States as originally enacted and understood.
Sir William Blackstone would be pleased.
Rory Leishman is a freelance journalist in Canada. He is the author of Against Judicial Activism: The Decline of Freedom and Democracy in Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006).
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Good News for Pro-Lifers
The Interim
By Rory Leishman
Former prime minister John Diefenbaker was nothing, if not steadfast in his resolve. “When the going gets tough,” he used to exclaim, “the tough get going.”
It’s an adage that Canadian pro-lifers would do well to remember. For those who stand up in Canada and proclaim their support of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death in Canada, the going is sometimes tough.
In many respects, our pro-life counterparts in the United States are more fortunate. For the past seven years, they have had the outspoken support of President George W. Bush. In proclaiming “National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2007” on January 19, he said: “I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not felt able to offer any such encouragement to pro-lifers in Canada. During the last federal election, he pledged that his government “won't be initiating or supporting abortion legislation, and I'll use whatever influence I have in Parliament to be sure that such a matter doesn't come to a vote."
Harper, alas, has been true to these words. Under his leadership, as for the past 30 years, Parliament has enacted no law whatsoever to curtail abortion.
During this same period, pro-life legislators in the United States have been making significant gains. With the backing of the Bush administration, the United States Congress has enacted the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002," the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003," and the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004."
More than half the state legislatures in the United States have enacted laws prohibiting partial-birth abortions. Granted, these laws have all been struck down by the courts. However, these rulings might themselves soon be overturned. Thanks to the judicial appointments of President Bush, the United States Supreme Court could be just one vote short of having a reliable pro-life majority.
In contrast, there does not appear to be a single pro-lifer among the nine justices currently serving on the Supreme Court of Canada. Our top court is so in thrall to the culture of death that it could soon legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as abortion on demand.
Given all the bad news for the pro-life movement in Canada, what should Canadian pro-lifers do? Give up in despair and retreat into silence? Most certainly not.
We should strive all the harder to speak out and act as best we can in defence of the imperilled lives of the unborn, the sick and the handicapped. And in doing so, we should take heart from some encouraging signs of a rebirth in respect for the sanctity of human life in Canada.
One of those positive signs is the feebleness of Canadians for Choice, a successor to the defunct Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. Over the past two years, Canadians for Choice has managed to publish just two press releases on its meagre website, both deploring the growing strength and achievements of the Canadian pro-life movement.
Specifically, Canadians for Choice laments that “only one in every six hospitals in Canada offers accessible abortion services.” The pro-abortion agency is especially concerned that the death-dealing procedure was made available in only 17 per cent of the hospitals in Ontario during 2006, down from 23 per cent just three years earlier.
Correspondingly, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), the political arm of the pro-abortion movement, is alarmed over the number of pro-lifers in Parliament. ARCC claims that “at least 63 per cent of Conservative MPs and 21 per cent of Liberal MPs” are publicly pro-life, and warns that the proportion of MPS who would favour a ban on at least partial-birth abortions is probably much higher.
For pro-lifers, this is exceedingly good news. With the Harper Conservatives poised to form a majority government in the next federal election, it’s essential for pro-lifers to put partisanship aside and make a concerted effort to support whichever pro-life candidate in their constituency stands the best chance of getting elected.
Sooner, perhaps, than later, the happy day will come when Canada will once again have a pro-life majority in Parliament.
By Rory Leishman
Former prime minister John Diefenbaker was nothing, if not steadfast in his resolve. “When the going gets tough,” he used to exclaim, “the tough get going.”
It’s an adage that Canadian pro-lifers would do well to remember. For those who stand up in Canada and proclaim their support of the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death in Canada, the going is sometimes tough.
In many respects, our pro-life counterparts in the United States are more fortunate. For the past seven years, they have had the outspoken support of President George W. Bush. In proclaiming “National Sanctity of Human Life Day, 2007” on January 19, he said: “I call upon all Americans to recognize this day with appropriate ceremonies and to underscore our commitment to respecting and protecting the life and dignity of every human being.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has not felt able to offer any such encouragement to pro-lifers in Canada. During the last federal election, he pledged that his government “won't be initiating or supporting abortion legislation, and I'll use whatever influence I have in Parliament to be sure that such a matter doesn't come to a vote."
Harper, alas, has been true to these words. Under his leadership, as for the past 30 years, Parliament has enacted no law whatsoever to curtail abortion.
During this same period, pro-life legislators in the United States have been making significant gains. With the backing of the Bush administration, the United States Congress has enacted the “Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002," the "Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003," and the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004."
More than half the state legislatures in the United States have enacted laws prohibiting partial-birth abortions. Granted, these laws have all been struck down by the courts. However, these rulings might themselves soon be overturned. Thanks to the judicial appointments of President Bush, the United States Supreme Court could be just one vote short of having a reliable pro-life majority.
In contrast, there does not appear to be a single pro-lifer among the nine justices currently serving on the Supreme Court of Canada. Our top court is so in thrall to the culture of death that it could soon legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide as well as abortion on demand.
Given all the bad news for the pro-life movement in Canada, what should Canadian pro-lifers do? Give up in despair and retreat into silence? Most certainly not.
We should strive all the harder to speak out and act as best we can in defence of the imperilled lives of the unborn, the sick and the handicapped. And in doing so, we should take heart from some encouraging signs of a rebirth in respect for the sanctity of human life in Canada.
One of those positive signs is the feebleness of Canadians for Choice, a successor to the defunct Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. Over the past two years, Canadians for Choice has managed to publish just two press releases on its meagre website, both deploring the growing strength and achievements of the Canadian pro-life movement.
Specifically, Canadians for Choice laments that “only one in every six hospitals in Canada offers accessible abortion services.” The pro-abortion agency is especially concerned that the death-dealing procedure was made available in only 17 per cent of the hospitals in Ontario during 2006, down from 23 per cent just three years earlier.
Correspondingly, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), the political arm of the pro-abortion movement, is alarmed over the number of pro-lifers in Parliament. ARCC claims that “at least 63 per cent of Conservative MPs and 21 per cent of Liberal MPs” are publicly pro-life, and warns that the proportion of MPS who would favour a ban on at least partial-birth abortions is probably much higher.
For pro-lifers, this is exceedingly good news. With the Harper Conservatives poised to form a majority government in the next federal election, it’s essential for pro-lifers to put partisanship aside and make a concerted effort to support whichever pro-life candidate in their constituency stands the best chance of getting elected.
Sooner, perhaps, than later, the happy day will come when Canada will once again have a pro-life majority in Parliament.
Freedom of religion under attack
Catholic Insight
By RoryLeishman
In a public lecture at London, England, on March 28, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, observed that “the freedom of religion is much more than the freedom to worship; it is the freedom to act according to that belief in the service of others.”
In Britain, as in Canada, freedom of religion has recently come under systematic attack by the state. In Britain, the latest excess occurred on March 22, when Parliament enacted sweeping regulations under the Equality Act that forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. There is no provision in the law to exempt religious institutions.
Both Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative Opposition Leader David Cameron backed the new regulations despite a warning from Murphy-O’Connor that they could force Catholic adoption agencies to shut down, because Catholic social workers cannot in good conscience arrange for the adoption of vulnerable children by same-sex couples. The new regulations could also force private Catholic schools in Britain to subject their pupils to gay rights propaganda.
Throughout the 20th century, Britain maintained an exemplary record of respect for the free exercise of religion. As Murphy-O’Connor noted in his lecture, both the Abortion Act 1967 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 include “conscientious objection” provisions that exempt physicians who uphold the sanctity of human life from any legal obligation to perform abortions or death-dealing fertility treatments. For faithful Christians, the lack of any comparable “conscientious objection” clause in the Equality Act is downright ominous.
In Canada, freedom of religion has also come under attack, but here, the main threat comes not so much from equality-obsessed legislators as out-of control judges in the courts. Thus, despite the lack of any authority in law or precedent, the Supreme Court of Canada held in Trinity Western, 2001, that the “freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them.” Just a few months later, Mr. Justice Robert McKinnon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice cited this judicial decree in Trinity Western as justification for holding in the Hall case that the staff at an Ontario Catholic secondary school can inform students about the Church's teachings on the sinfulness of sodomy, but cannot act upon this religious belief, by barring a student from bringing a homosexual date to a school dance.
With rulings like these, the courts and human rights tribunals in Canada have trampled upon the historic rights of Canadians to the free exercise of religion. And now the Parliament of Britain is doing the same. Currently in both countries, it’s an offence for a social worker in an adoption agency to decline to help a homosexual couple adopt a child or for a musician who offers services to the public to refuse to play at a same-sex wedding.
Sooner or later, some resolute Christians in Britain and Canada are going to end up as prisoners of conscience for refusing to divorce their actions from their beliefs. These faithful Christians will be incarcerated for heeding the admonition in the Epistle of James that followers of Christ should “be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
The suppression of freedom of religion does not just threaten individual Christians. It also undermines the moral foundations of democracy. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recalled in his lecture how several European countries in the last century also came under the control of arrogant politicians and judges who constricted religion to the purely private sphere and declared themselves to be a law unto themselves, subject to no higher moral authority.
Murphy-O’Connor argued that it is no coincidence that some of these European countries easily slipped from a liberal to a totalitarian state. He noted: “In stark contrast, Britain resisted this trend by its continued inclusion of religion in the public sphere, and we remained democratic.”
It would be reckless for Canadians to assume that our country could never lapse into totalitarian oppression. We should heed Murphy-O’Connor’s warning: “When an essential core of our democratic freedom risks being undermined, subsequent generations will hold to account those who were able to raise their voices yet stayed silent. Christian witness does not permit us to be silent on the fundamental importance of the free exercise of religious belief.”
By RoryLeishman
In a public lecture at London, England, on March 28, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, observed that “the freedom of religion is much more than the freedom to worship; it is the freedom to act according to that belief in the service of others.”
In Britain, as in Canada, freedom of religion has recently come under systematic attack by the state. In Britain, the latest excess occurred on March 22, when Parliament enacted sweeping regulations under the Equality Act that forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. There is no provision in the law to exempt religious institutions.
Both Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative Opposition Leader David Cameron backed the new regulations despite a warning from Murphy-O’Connor that they could force Catholic adoption agencies to shut down, because Catholic social workers cannot in good conscience arrange for the adoption of vulnerable children by same-sex couples. The new regulations could also force private Catholic schools in Britain to subject their pupils to gay rights propaganda.
Throughout the 20th century, Britain maintained an exemplary record of respect for the free exercise of religion. As Murphy-O’Connor noted in his lecture, both the Abortion Act 1967 and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 include “conscientious objection” provisions that exempt physicians who uphold the sanctity of human life from any legal obligation to perform abortions or death-dealing fertility treatments. For faithful Christians, the lack of any comparable “conscientious objection” clause in the Equality Act is downright ominous.
In Canada, freedom of religion has also come under attack, but here, the main threat comes not so much from equality-obsessed legislators as out-of control judges in the courts. Thus, despite the lack of any authority in law or precedent, the Supreme Court of Canada held in Trinity Western, 2001, that the “freedom to hold beliefs is broader than the freedom to act on them.” Just a few months later, Mr. Justice Robert McKinnon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice cited this judicial decree in Trinity Western as justification for holding in the Hall case that the staff at an Ontario Catholic secondary school can inform students about the Church's teachings on the sinfulness of sodomy, but cannot act upon this religious belief, by barring a student from bringing a homosexual date to a school dance.
With rulings like these, the courts and human rights tribunals in Canada have trampled upon the historic rights of Canadians to the free exercise of religion. And now the Parliament of Britain is doing the same. Currently in both countries, it’s an offence for a social worker in an adoption agency to decline to help a homosexual couple adopt a child or for a musician who offers services to the public to refuse to play at a same-sex wedding.
Sooner or later, some resolute Christians in Britain and Canada are going to end up as prisoners of conscience for refusing to divorce their actions from their beliefs. These faithful Christians will be incarcerated for heeding the admonition in the Epistle of James that followers of Christ should “be doers of the word, and not hearers only.”
The suppression of freedom of religion does not just threaten individual Christians. It also undermines the moral foundations of democracy. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recalled in his lecture how several European countries in the last century also came under the control of arrogant politicians and judges who constricted religion to the purely private sphere and declared themselves to be a law unto themselves, subject to no higher moral authority.
Murphy-O’Connor argued that it is no coincidence that some of these European countries easily slipped from a liberal to a totalitarian state. He noted: “In stark contrast, Britain resisted this trend by its continued inclusion of religion in the public sphere, and we remained democratic.”
It would be reckless for Canadians to assume that our country could never lapse into totalitarian oppression. We should heed Murphy-O’Connor’s warning: “When an essential core of our democratic freedom risks being undermined, subsequent generations will hold to account those who were able to raise their voices yet stayed silent. Christian witness does not permit us to be silent on the fundamental importance of the free exercise of religious belief.”
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