CondomsUSA: Religious Freedom: Some Christians refuse to pay taxes (even indirect thru health-insure companies) becawz Obama régime destroys institutional religious freedom

Three vitally important news stories have appeared in Christian Post, a newsdaily online that belongs to the  publication members of the Evangelical Press Association (and is thus assumedly in conformity with its ethical guidelines for Chrsitian news-media).  The news source is very much a newshorse, and in the current Obamacare stealth-rules for employers a moment has come when this news horse is keeping up-to-date on the fast-breaking developments of the tidal wave of adverse reaction, whether a majority, or even a majority of Evangelicals or Catholics remains to be seen. The first story centers upon the figure of a political scientist of reformational philosophical background, Dr Stephen Monsma.

Monsma has studied, as a political science professor, and practiced, as a Michigan state government representative, American government for over 40 years. Recently, as senior research fellow at The Paul B. Henry Institute for the Study of Christianity andPolitics at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., and a fellow at the Center for Public Justice, Monsma has turned his attention to the study of faith-based organizations. — CP (Feb17,2k12)

Dr Monsma's latest book appeared this year under the title, Pluralism and Freedom: Faith-based organizations in a democratic society.  It had been written prior to the onslawt of the birth control mandate's headlines.   Monsma challenges the "underlying assumptions" of the Obama practice of politics with which many, perhaps most, voting Americans agree.

The crucial [assumption] is that religion is something that takes place in churches, synagogues, mosques, or in private activities, such as devotional reading or prayer, in the home. That leaves out a host of religiously based organizations that are involved in health care, education, other social services, which then are not seen as being truly religious organizations, and, therefore, they can be forced to engage in practices that go against their beliefs without really, supposedly, violating their religious consciences.

Against that political-moral view of the inherent religious neutrality of institutions functioning outside of the societal spheres of church and home Monsma offers the Obama régime and the American voting public a real alternative:  

I think the beginning point is to recognize that faith-based organizations engag[ing] in education, health care, and social services [for instance] are truly religious organizations by which individuals are living out their religious faith and therefore they are deserving of the protection based on religious freedom rights. 

The CP article, by Napp Nazworth, proceeds in question-and-answer form.  The interview proceeds with systematic delineations of government support for any proportion of a committed organization's when its program/s contribute to the common good, but not in any such activities that woud involve
direct proselytization or worship activities. "But otherwise, if the organization is providing a public good, helping to solve problems in society, they should be able to continue to do so in the manner that has helped them to be successful in the past. Monsma is especially firm when he insists that "Certainly, restrictions should not include forcing that faith-based organization to hire persons who are not in religious agreement with them, which would virtually destroy that organization as a religiously-based organization."


Read more ... click on the t+mstamp below ...

PoliticsCanada: Social conservatives: In the upcoming elections, what is the overlap between political Conservs, social conservatives, and evangelicals?

First the article "Don't dismiss the so-cons" was published in National Post,
and republished  in Activate CLPL email newsletter (Apr8,2k11)

refWrite editorial comment:  There is no such thing as a Christian vote adhering to a single party represented in the Parliament of Canada, not even an Evangelical vote, nor a Catholic vote.  Liberal Protestant voters will split their votes among the Greens, the New Democrats, and the federal Liberals; in Quebec some will vote for the separatist Bloc Québecois which trends deeply secularistic -- more than any other mainline party perhaps.

There are at least two marginal parties where religion and politics have hi correlation, parties however which have never yet elected even a single member to Parliament in any of Canada's parliamentary ridings (electoral districts).  One of these marginals will reach its 25th anniversary in Spring 2012: the Christian Heritage Party -- which acknowledges among its members both Catholics and Protestants (including Saturday-observing sabbatarians like Seventh-day Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists).  Of course, aside from official members, CHP, for all we know, may receive votes from adherents of non-
Christian religions, perhaps even some atheists.

The second of the non-parliamentary entities are based upon a Family-emphasis.  On the federal level, the Family-emphatic entity however is not a political party at all, rather it is a lobby aimed at federal Parliamentary members of the mainstream parties by grass-roots activists, in order to fend off forces in the society they consider to be inimical to healthy family life; they want to encourage and strengthen pro-Family politicians in all the federal parties; and consider themselves as non-partisan.  This political grouping is Canada Family Action.  On the provincial level, there is an independent party in Ontario, the provincial Family Coalition Party -- which may not strictly qualify as "social conservative" as do the grassroots lobbyists at the federal level, CFA,  becawz FPC advocates for a party platform of planks requiring a wide-range of governmental support, including funding arrangements, for families based on the 1woman-1man principle, but failing that, for all families.  It is both anti-polygamous (a dramatic case now before the Canada Supreme Court), and anti-2women or 2men parented-families, the latter stand not being at the top of its list of priorities.  Where it can't succeed in discrimination, the party ends up advocating for govt largesse to all families, even those not the centre of its focus of concern.

Similar to CFA as an independent lobby based on a grassroots membership, the Association for Reformed Political Action uses the organizational technique of periodically launching special campaigns of a programmatic kind, not least of all ARPA's campaign against human-r+ts commission of the various provinces and also of the federal government.  In its online materials, it makes no effort to give a fair and balanced account of Canada's Human R+ts Commissions, demonizing them as nothing but negative forces in the country, thus ARPA effectively erases all the good the commissions.  At the same time, it shoud be noted, the Stand Up for Freedom Canada campaign has made some valuable criticisms of these commissions, their present practices that go beyond what woud be a simply positive influence, demonizing them and stirring up its activists to spread one-sided information in order to bring them thoroly into disrepute.  Christian political action shoud not conduct itself in this way, I believe.  Further, these firebrand methods bring the Reformed Faith into disrepute among fair-minded Canadians.

Still, the preceding list of special foundational concerns typifying variously the non-mainstream parties that are favoured by some Christian voters, generating their diverse slants within the general paradigm for understanding Christian politics in Canada today, that list does not exhaust the defintion of social conservatism in all particulars.  For instance, there are some Canadian Jews who are pro-abortion and conversely those who are anti-abortion, some who are pro-family and conversely some anti-family, some who are vegetarians and some who are very much carnivores, both of these latter concerns being potentially politically-consequential for some on each side of the distinction.  And consider in the foregoing example, that the distinction between vegans and meat-eaters can be cross-referenced with the dietary distinction, so relevant to a sociology of Jews, between between kosher and non-kosher practices.

For further instance, the pro-life/anti-abortion constituency extends across all the mainline and marginal political groupings cited, whether they include not only Atheists and Christians at the same time, along with all other coordinately parallel groupings outside our focal demographic categories at the moment (Christians and Atheists in Canada), some as well who are devoted to Anti-Atheism / anti-atheism.  Likewise some devoted to Anti-Christians // anti-christianity.  [Amidst all these particulates disclosed by a fine-grained analysis of religious demographics in Canada, and political concerns that are particularly favoured and flavoured across the country, we can gather a harvest especially helpful to the sociology of religions thru-out the land.]

On the other hand, some Christians feel strongly that every woman shoud be able, ultimately, to make her own decision to abort or not (to murder-- in the context of the mother and the unborn child relationship, given the uniqueness to her  and her important r+t and responsibility to -- without coercion by family, neighors, courts, churches, media of communications --  choose to abort the human life within her, so help her God. But the same ethos can be intertwined with a moral-political choice to deny government support to agencies like Planned Parenthood; perhaps to deny tax-money to support free standing abortion clinics historically spearheaded by Dr, Henry Morgantaler (Order of Canada),  perhaps to deny funding for in-hospital abortion clinics.  While at the same time perhaps allowing rental of hospital space to freestanding abortion clinics supported by private funding for their staff and functions.   PoliticaL tendencies with such complex solutions woud seek to win a debate to distinguish the abortion industry as industry, from the women who want and sometimes receive abortions.  Supporting the women's sphere-sovereignty over their own wombs, their own reproductive organs and outcomes.

Now, social conservatism also includes the parameter (not affirmed by all its varieties, but very configurative within the overall paradigm) of fiscal conservatism -- in regard to taxation levels, spending cuts, and national-debt levels.  Fiscal conservatism is less likely to be articulated among Christians in Canada in Libertarian terms than it is in the United States.  As we pointed out above regarding Ontario, the as-yet non-parliamentary Family Coalition Party excels the Conservative Party on both provincial and federal levels, in providing rationale and advocacy for govt generosity in financial support for families, while perhaps being more stingy in regard to other soceital spheres.    

-- materials below and editorial comment above by Politicarp

Here's the analysis of some of these matters, by leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada:

Don’t dismiss the so-cons

Posted: 08 Apr 2011 08:12 AM PDT

As published in the National Post, April 8, 2011


Social conservatives “have become a spent political force in [Canadian] national politics,” according to Queen’s University political-science scholar James Farney. “We’re now just seen as eccentric,” suggested Link Byfield, a prominent Canadian “so-con” himself. On the front page of the April 5National Post, a story by reporter Charles Lewis was headlined “Social conservatives watch campaign from sidelines.”

Wikipedia tells us that social conservatives “believe that government has a role in encouraging or enforcing what they consider traditional values or behaviours.” But Wikipedia also offers this important caveat: “the accepted meaning of traditional morality often differs from group to group.” Not all social conservatives are the same. It’s worth emphasizing that the term “social conservative” is spelled with a lower case “c,” not the upper case “C” of the Conservative party. Social conservatism is much broader than any one political party.

If social conservatives were interested only in an active debate about abortion or gay marriage, then it is true, as noted by Lewis, that we would be disappointed by the current campaign: No major party has distinguished itself on these issues. But that doesn’t mean these issues are not in play.

In the last Parliament, there were more MPs in the non-partisan Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus than in either the Bloc Québécois or the NDP. Yet, neither the death of the Bloc nor the NDP has been proclaimed [due to presumed irrelevance].  Moreover, social conservatives are interested in a wider variety of public-policy issues than abortion and gay marriage.

Take a good look at the activists and politicians who are involved in policy concerning the protection of children. Read over the list of witnesses before Commons and Senate committees in regard to raising the age of consent to sexual activity with an adult from age 14 to 16 in 2008 and you’ll see so-cons. Consider those advocating for the law that now requires internet service providers to report child porn being transmitted or hosted on their platforms and you’ll see so-cons.

While these initiatives took place under the Conservative government of the last five years, so-con influence extends back further. The 1993 introduction of child-pornography crimes into the Criminal Code and the 2004 introduction of laws against human trafficking crimes both were sparked by so-cons.

Cut across party lines and examine the faces standing with Senators and MPs in support of all-party reports about poverty in Canada, issued in 2009 and 2010 respectively, and you’ll see the presence of so-cons again. Poverty and homelessness aren’t typically identified as socially conservative issues in the media. But we don’t let the media define us.

For some commentators, the term so-cons isn’t adequately marginalizing. So instead, they call us “theo-cons” — theological conservatives — who are guided in our policy and political efforts by our religious beliefs. Theo-cons have been presented by some as strange and scary. Yet Statistics Canada informs that in 2001 (the last long-form census) 84% of Canadians self-identified as having a personal religious affiliation, with 77% self-identifying as Christian and [within that total percentage] 12% [further identify] as Evangelical. And it would be foolish to think that the views of these people aren’t, in some way, guided by their religious convictions. Check your neighbour to your left and your right, because we “theo-cons” walk among you.

Along with Rick Hiemstra, director of research and media relations at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, I recently wrote a report on evangelical voting trends in Canada between 1996 and 2008. The paper drew a lot of attention on Parliament Hill because it revealed the fluidity of the evangelical vote as it shifted from predominately Liberal support in 1996 to the Conservative Party in 2008. What many found particularly surprising was the increase in the vote that went to the NDP during that 12-year period [which is consonant with the relative de-Labourization of the NDP and the rise of the Yuppie Middleclass as powerbrokers within it, as well as the loss of some Jews in the NDP and Liberal parties becaws of their increase in support of the Palestinians against the State of Israel in the same period]. The supposedly theo-coniest of the theo-cons appear to exhibit voting patterns not too different from the rest of Canadians.

As the evangelist John Wesley lay on his deathbed in 1791, he sent a note to British MP William Wilberforce, who was then leading the political battle to end the slave trade. Wesley, with an Evangelical eye to the long game (the Slave Trade Act didn’t pass until 1807 and the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act passed in 1833 as Wilberforce lay in his own deathbed) wrote simply, and inspirationally, about the significance of standing contra mundum, “against the world.” Sometimes it is necessary for the benefit of those around you to stand seemingly against everyone else, for the world’s sake. What is good is not always immediately obvious or popular.

By the way, William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a theo-con. And, like Wilberforce, contemporary theo-cons are committed, not eccentric. And we’re not a spent force yet.

National Post article by
Don Hutchinson, Vice-President of The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
and director of the Centre for Faith and Public Life located in Ottawa.

PoliticsCanada: Abortion: Conservs permit Roxanne's Law to be debated

Association for Reformed Political Action has done a remarkable job in refocussing the attention of the Canadian Parliament's House of Commons on the fact that there is no Federal law in Canada that's been voted on by the proper representatives of the people, to permit or disallow the w+dspread practice of abortion here. There is, of course, an abortion industry, and there is demonstrably a coercive trend to cut the life out of young mothers at the behest of abortion counsellors.

But, it seemed, everywhere there was a streak of political cowardice which prevented even discussing the matter, especially when the Pro-Life movement was riven by purists who coud be satisfied only with the Aristotelian-based dictates of the Roman Catholic Church, which long ago had abandoned any desire to discuss its biotistic absolutizations of the "consistent ethic of life." You know, the zany position that condoms were nasty, becawz human sexual intercourse coud only have the purpose of reproduction. That the most devout and church-obedient Catholics are happy to impose such nonsense on our society has led to an impasse that extended r+t into the ranks of Parliament.

The proposed law is not des+nd to prevent all abortions. The origin of this approach, a rejection of the purist all-or-nothing approach sponsored by the pro-Life movement in a longterm self-defeating stance on the issue, is to be found in a tragic death of a teenage mother, Roxanne.

When it comes to politics and abortion, Canadians should be given a gigantic F on our moral report card. Of all countries in the world, we seem to be the only one that can't have a reasonable discussion about abortion or make any laws on the matter. So when Member of Parliament, Rod Bruinooge, introduced a bill in the House of Commons this spring that would make it a crime to coerce a woman to have an abortion, one might have expected a good number of people to shout forth a collective and joyful HURRAY! The reality is quite the opposite.

You may remember Rod Bruinooge from ... a couple of years ago when he became the new chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus. With a Metis-Dutch heritage and a previous life devoted to computer game and film productions, he isn't exactly a stereotypical pro-life leader. But he has made it clear that he wants to challenge the status-quo when it comes to abortion.

Providentially, Bruinooge will get the opportunity to have an item of Private Members Business (a bill or a motion of his choice) debated and voted on this fall, as a result of the "lottery" system that determines at the start of each Parliament the order in which Parliament will deal with each MP's chosen item.

Bruinooge chose a bill to address an issue that touched his heart. The bill was inspired by a fellow Winnipegite, Roxanne Fernando, who was brutally murdered for refusing to have an abortion. It was therefore fitting to call Bill C-510 "Roxanne's Law" in her memory and to put a face to the reality of the pressure that women face to "get rid of the problem" of a pregnancy that is unwanted by an upset boyfriend or family member.

ARPA's animator, Mark Penninga, has written-up the new approach among even some conservative Reformed folk, mostly of the Canadian Reformed denomination (to a large extent followers of the Dutch theologian, newspaperman, and controversialist Klaas Schilder). Penninga unravels the sad history of overweening zeolots who controlled the anti-abortion movement, not least of all in parliament. For the longest t+m, Prime Minister Steven Harper restrained these folks from launching a political suic+d mission. But now due to the strange phenom of the private-members lottery, the rules make the Bruinooge move qu+t an end-run move. "Ho humn? Roxanne's Law is soething to be excited about!," Penninga entitles his piece. He says forthr+tly that "No abortions are actually prohibited by C-510 (so all unborn children are still treated equally" under its provisions. But sadly, he says, "no babies are directly protected by this legiaslatiohn (as they were with the Unborn Victims of Creime Act), but at least their mothers are given additonal protection in order to help the choose life." I l+k that.

I don't have the wit or the pretension to solve the problem, but I do think that there are t+ms when we can't just prohibit women who so choose, to end the new life within the uterus. Some pregnant really do have an awful existential problem where having an unwanted ch+ld woud reduce them to penury and slavery. With a ch+ld some women cannot escape abusive husbands who suck the l+fe out of them and keep them in poverty from which they can't escape. I haven't the foggiest notion how to overcome this aspect of the des+r of some women for an abortion, in a safe and t+mly way. The Pope and his Protestant parodies can preach about the glorious sacrifice of women, all they want; but if that sacrifice is not the woman's choice, what good is the whole imposing edifice of neo-scholastic moral theorizing and magisterial dicta? Not even condoms, you say?

I do hate the very idea of late-term abortions. And I do hate the practice of pulling late-term ch+ldren from the womb, only to leave them on the clinical table to die. Doctors who practice their dubious "medicine" this way are in fact criminals, in my opinion. They shoud be lockd up for ch+ld slawter, again, in my opinion. But I don't claim to have wizdom on the matter, only strong feelings of repulsion to what I regard as an abuse of medicine. On the other hand, I want to be able to work with a merciful doctor when I become physically disabled. I don't want to fall into the hands of the "caregivers" of the elderly in my coming state of enfeeblement. Again, I don't know how gov can accomodate, or others l+k me, when the t+m comes. I have no immediate family for whose interests I m+t otherw+z want to just vegetate and suffer, wh+l receiving their presumably ben+n ministrations.

PoliticsCanada: Abort: support pregnant woman by father of child, her family and society

The Primate of Canada's Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec, called fire down on his head by sharply contrasting govt's funding of abortion clinics, while not funding agencies for care of women ambiguous regarding their pregnancies and the prospect of childbirth. The fire descended two weeks ago, when the Primate welcomed the Prime Minister Stephen Harper in regard to a then-recent move. Ouellet praised Harper for cancellation of the govt's "funding abortions in the developing world." But Harper did not acknowledge a symmetry of attitudes (a govt can always claim that a particular cancellation of funding is exclusively a budgetary consideration).

Be that as it may, today the Cardinal made additional comment: "Governments are funding clinics for abortion," said Marc Cardinal Ouellet, according to Canadian News via Evri (May 26,2k10).

"I would like equity for organi[zations] that are defending also life."

On Wednesday, Ouellet urged the federal government to take concrete actions at home, such as supporting women who decide to keep their child.

"If they do not want to fund abortion abroad and they do not bring at home more help to women to keep their child, I think they are incoherent," he said.

Ouellet said the ultimate responsibility for deciding to have an abortion is a matter of personal conscience.

He insisted he is not judging women who have abortions and said he would help them afterward.

"If we have equity in funding those instances to help women I think we would make lots of progress in Canada.

The Quebec govt quickly moved to oppose the French-speaking prelate, not least of all because he advocates for completing pregnancy to birth even in cases of rape. For that single deliberated remark perhaps, the pastoral Ouellet had to pay dearly. Not only Quebec's political establishment (Liberal Party) flamed the Roman Catholic leader, but so did the wide range of Quebec editorialists, pundits, and intellectuals. They put the nonplussed Ouellet in Quebec's political Hot Seat. He wants a renewed debate on abortion and care for stranded women who do not choose to abort, even were they to give the newborn to adoption. That procedure shoud be a civil r+t, with at least equal standing to a woman's freedom to choose death for her unborn baby (oops!, unwanted fetus).

-- Politicarp