Archives for 2010

Ontario Premier defends sex-ed curriculum. No big surprise there. But I had to give my head a shake (or two) when I heard this on the radio:

I think I speak with an understanding of the information available to children today. They are going to get this information. We [can] provide it in a format and in a venue in which we have some control, or they can just get it entirely on their own and be informed by potentially uninformed sources like their friends at school.”

The revised curriculum, which will be implemented in Ontario schools beginning in the fall, will see Grade 3 students being taught about gender identity and sexual orientation. This is the first time this topic has been specified in the sex education curriculum.

Students in Grade 6 will learn about masturbation and wet dreams while those in Grade 7 will be taught about oral and anal sex.

I won’t argue that more sex-ed happens in school buses than I care to admit. However, there is a marked difference between a 7-grader telling her schoolmates about anal sex and learning about it in a classroom from a teacher. Being taught in school gives it a legitimacy that school-bus discussions do not. My children have heard things in the bus that I would never have taught them myself but because they had received this information from unreliable sources, they asked us parents about it.  This is where the school should not usurp the parents’ better judgment, beliefs and values. My children, my house, my spin. Or is this what Dalton really means when he says “uninformed sources?”

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Brigitte wonders: So, what’s the next logical step? If we really do care about children getting as much accurate and reliable information about sex as early as possible, why aren’t they staging live demonstrations (along with practice sessions) supervised by licensed experts right there in the classroom?

The students who do the Genocide Awareness Project on U of C’s campus are being threatened with expulsion. Here’s what one Cameron Wilson had to say about that at a press conference on Monday:

Welcome friends and members of the press.

We of Campus Pro-Life have been told countless upon countless occasions that the Genocide Awareness Project, and the pictures contained therein, are offensive and hurtful to look at. But if an action is too terrible to look at, how then can it be tolerated? Why should we leave unchallenged and undebated a practice so horrific that words alone fail to describe it? In the many times we have exhibited this display, we have opened up discussion on campus, a place where ignited and educated debate should always feel at home. Furthermore, we have watched and offered counsel to many men and women who have been hurt by abortion, and who have never openly confronted this pain. There is an immense capacity for healing inherent in this display, and that – in and of itself – makes this display, without a shadow of doubt worth the cost that the university seeks to exact from us individually.

We hold that the university campus is meant to be a place of frank discussion and debate.  A place where viewpoints are judged by their merit rather than extinguished by the use of force based on their relative unpopularity.  We of Campus Pro-Life have a long history with the University of Calgary documenting our commitment to the principle of freedom of speech which needs not be long expounded here.

We simply wish to deliver a message to the University of Calgary about their suppression of our freedoms which we but used to defend society’s weakest elements.

Our message to the University is this: do unto us whatever you desire, punish us however you wish; but our convictions shall not change, and we shall not alter our actions based on intimidation.

We shall not abandon the unborn child to be murdered.
We shall not desert the single mom in crisis.
We shall not allow the evil of abortion to remain unexposed.
We shall not be intimidated by the threat of force.
We shall not be scared by the threat of expulsion.
We shall not back down from the stand we have made.

If they are to punish us, then we are content to let history revile them for their suppression of liberty.
If they are to punish us, then let the blood of the unborn child be upon their heads.
If they are to punish us then let the pain of the suffering mom be upon their conscience.
History will not remember what illegitimate excuse they used, other than as a derogative footnote; but history will remember their transgression against freedom, and it is upon this that posterity shall judge them.
So let the university do whatever action their twisted worldview sees fit, for we fear not the judgment of tyranny.

And it is an oppressive tyranny that reigns today, all because of… silence. If I had a dollar for every person who said “I’m not personally in favour of abortion, but…” and so it goes and so it goes. It’s no small thing to forego your university education for a cause, but that speech sort of conveys that these guys don’t care. Good for them.

Local MPP seems surprised that the introduction of full-day school-based daycare will spell the end of that school’s half-day program. I’m not sure how she managed to fail to see that one coming.

Those wacky clerics!

A SENIOR Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi said.

Yes indeed. Consequently.

Doctors are working round the clock to sterilize those who disobeyed the one child policy:

In Puning county couples with illegal children and their relatives who apply for permits to build a house are rejected. Illegal children are refused residency registration, a penalty that denies them access to healthcare and education. Authorities have discovered, however, that those methods have less success than rounding up relatives.

I thought there had been a softening of the one child policy. Apparently not.

… is that somebody, somewhere, thought it was a good idea to sell padded bikini tops to 7-year-olds.

I really enjoyed this column from Leonard Stern in this morning’s Ottawa Citizen.

I always thought that the environment — in this case the development of sustainable communities that are not so car-dependent —  shouldn’t be a matter of right or left. I really get going when science gets tossed right or left. Granted, politically-motivated scientists are largely to blame for placing climate change on the political spectrum. However, in theory, the scientifically measurable effects of suburban sprawl  shouldn’t hinge on one’s political views. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that these issues are beyond debate. I just have an issue with those who hold that you can’t believe in climate change — for instance —  if you are conservative, you can’t doubt climate change if you are liberal. Wait a minute, one has nothing to do with the other except the color of the bandwagon.

It’s like abortion. Does it matter to the humanity of the fetus whether you are right or left? Does the fetus feel more or less pain if you are conservative or liberal? The fetus is alive or it isn’t. It feels pain or it doesn’t. Get your facts straight, then make a case.

Bam. The column is called “It’s been a tough week for pro-choicers.” Only gonna get harder. Think about it: Science just won’t conceal those pesky babies in the womb. Women writers fail to fall in line with feminist mantras. Laws being passed that recognise fetal pain.

Convincing people that a pregnancy does not involve two people when any two-year-old can see it does is tough work. It must be hard to be on the wrong side of history.