Chu Lai fought against anti-Chinese discrimination and won

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

One of the early Chinese Canadian pioneers in the struggle against discrimination and racism:

After he died while asleep at home at age 59, the Chinese community in Victoria turned out in huge numbers to say goodbye to one of the country’s pioneers. Chu Lai is not much remembered today, but in his day in the late 19th and early 20th century, he was known for fighting against racism toward Chinese immigrants at a time when it wasn’t popular. He was one of the wealthiest Chinese merchants in B.C., with a net worth estimated at $500,000.

On Wednesday, June 6, 1906, the Victoria Times Colonist reported about preparations for his public funeral.

The story said ceremonies included building a temporary altar for a Taoist priest to perform last rites in front of where Lai died. Everything was arranged by the Chinese Empire Reform Association, a political party started by the Chinese reformer and exile Kang Youwei in Victoria in 1899 to establish a constitutional monarchy in China. Chu was vice-president of the Victoria chapter when he died.

“Professional mourners who will be clad in sackcloth have been engaged to weep as they walk in a funeral procession,” the story said. “Every carriage in the city has been engaged, as also the services of a local brass band.”

Chu came Canada in the 1860s. A member of the Hakka minority in Guangdong in southern China, he made his fortune trading during the Cariboo Gold Rush. By 1876, he was successful enough to open the Wing Chong Company in Victoria.

In 1885, Chu was a participant in a historic court case. A year before, the provincial legislature had passed the Chinese Regulation Act which put an annual tax of $10 on all Chinese residents over the age of 14.

Chu and another Chinese immigrant were charged and convicted of failing to pay the tax. Chu posted a bond of $250 and challenged the law in B.C. Supreme Court, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

In the precedent-setting case, the court ruled that the act was “ultra vires” — beyond the power of the provincial legislature.

Source: Chu Lai fought against anti-Chinese discrimination and won | Vancouver Sun

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Chris Selley: If the Brits can handle terrorism properly, surely we sheltered Canadians can too

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

Selley takes down Sun columnists on their alarmist calls for internment and other measures:

Brits are reacting to the latest terrorist attacks on their soil more or less as usual, though Thursday’s election adds an extra bit of urgency and drama. Conservatives, including Prime Minister Theresa May, are calling for ramped up anti-terror measures: more surveillance, more punishment, more online censorship. “Enough is enough,” May said Sunday.

A few unreconstructed lefties still bang on about Western civilization’s just desserts, but as Terry Glavin observed in the National Post after last month’s attack in Manchester, that species of urban sophisticate is less welcome at parties than ever. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used to be very much of the “Terrorist? Or freedom fighter?” set. With Labour shockingly competitive in the polls, he now accuses May of cheaping out on policing and supports a “shoot to kill” policy that he used to oppose.

Some are calling for much stronger measures indeed. Tarique Ghaffur, a former assistant commissioner for London’s Metropolitan Police, argues “special centres” should be set up where some 3,000 known Islamic extremists could be forcibly de-radicalized — i.e., internment camps. Professionally hysterical Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins, who is very un-British-ly proud of being frightened to death, is foursquare behind the idea (though she has apologized for her post-Manchester demand for a “final solution”).

“We face an unprecedented terrorist threat in Britain,” Ghaffur wrote in the Mail on Sunday. There are “way too many (potential threats) for the security services and police to monitor (otherwise).” Ghaffur conceded the precedent was not entirely compelling: the internment of nearly 2,000 Irish nationalists between 1971 and 1975 “led to hunger strikes,” he noted. “But the centres I’m proposing would be different as they would have backing from Muslim leaders.”

One rather suspects they would not. And the problem in Ireland was quite a bit larger than hunger strikes. Setting aside civil liberties and other such malarkey, it didn’t work: 1972 was the deadliest year of the Troubles. With all those suspected threats locked up, the IRA blew up pubs, hotels and army barracks across the U.K.

That took gumption and significant resources. Nowadays, it would take very little effort at all for ISIL to leverage internment as powerful inspiration for amateur jihadists who see glorious carnage to be made with a white van and kitchen knives.

Internment is a God-awful idea, but it’s at least understandable in the British context. Terrorism is hardly an existential or an unprecedented one: 2005 was the deadliest year for terrorism in the U.K. since the Troubles, and it pales by comparison. But when cars and kitchen knives become threats, the cowardly have all the more reason to hide under their beds and demand martial law so they can be comfortable going to the theatre again.

It’s quite ridiculous to see this nonsense crop up here in Canada, however, where the domestic death toll from Islamic terrorism stands at three people, all of them soldiers. “All people (who are) on terror watch list in Canada or are in terrorist rehab programs should be detained and in some cases deported,” Toronto Sun columnist Joe Warmington tweeted. His colleague Anthony Furey followed suit: “Get the RCMP to arrest the dozens of known jihadists now walking around freely on Canadian soil. Just do it.” Furey’s demand was all the stranger considering he wrote a column explaining how implausible it would be to build a legal case against someone for his activities in ISIL-controlled Iraq or Syria.

Sheltered as Canadians have been from these threats, there is a streak of performative unseriousness that runs through our anti-terrorism discussion. “Let ‘em go,” some chortled when Canadians were found to be heading abroad to fight for ISIL. And when they come back, what then? “Lock ‘em up,” they’ll say — but of course we can’t, or not while respecting the rule of law.

Our relative unfamiliarity with terrorism might make it understandable that we would overreact to whatever threat there is. But it’s all the more disreputable for that reason — especially considering police keep foiling plans that do exist. “Go out as you planned and enjoy yourselves,” senior U.K. anti-terrorism officer Mark Rowley advised Brits heading into last weekend — not because they had everything totally under control after Manchester, you understand, but because MI5 believed “an attack is no longer imminent.”

The Brits, by and large, went out as they planned. Overwhelmingly, Canadians seem to be doing likewise — and rightly so. The rest of us should get with the program.

Source: Chris Selley: If the Brits can handle terrorism properly, surely we sheltered Canadians can too | National Post

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Celine Cooper: The future role of indigenous languages

2017/06/08 Leave a comment

The challenges are real given the diversity of languages and the population sizes:

At a speech to the Assembly of First Nations Special Chiefs Assembly back in December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal government would be proposing a Canadian Indigenous Languages Act. While  they announced an allocation of around $90 million over the next three years to support communities seeking to revitalize indigenous languages in the 2017 budget, no actual legislation has been introduced as of yet.

Of course, there’s no denying that such legislation would be a logistical challenge. In Canada, there are more than 60 aboriginal languages, grouped into 12 distinct language families. About 20 per cent of those in Canada who report having an aboriginal mother tongue live in Quebec.

Would this mean Canada having 60 (or more) official languages? And if so, how would that mesh with existing policies and practices around French and English as Canada’s official languages? The reality is that different First Nations groups have been thinking about this for decades. One example can be found in a 2005 report titled Towards a New Beginning delivered to the minister of Canadian Heritage by the Task Force on Aboriginal Languages and Cultures. The authors concluded that while recognition of indigenous languages would be national, implementation could be regional.

Marc Miller’s Kanyen’kéha language speech to the House of Commons was a powerful symbolic gesture on behalf of the Liberal government. But keeping its promises to Canada’s indigenous peoples is going to take much more than words.

Source: Celine Cooper: The future role of indigenous languages

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Address by Minister Freeland on Canada’s foreign policy priorities: Diversity and inclusion aspects

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Given the efforts by Global Affairs Canada and others to define an international agenda for the promotion of diversity and Inclusion, these excerpts from Minister Freeland’s speech yesterday are of interest:

Likewise, by embracing multiculturalism and diversity, Canadians are embodying a way of life that works. We can say this in all humility, but also without any false self-effacement: Canadians know about living side-by side with people of diverse origins and beliefs, whose ancestors hail from the far corners of the globe, in harmony and peace. We’re good at it. Watch how we do it.

We say this in the full knowledge that we also have problems of our own to overcome—most egregiously the injustices suffered by Indigenous people in Canada. We must never flinch from acknowledging this great failure, even as we do the hard work of seeking restoration and reconciliation.

Now, it is clearly not our role to impose our values around the world, Mr. Speaker. No one appointed us the world’s policeman. But it is our role to clearly stand for these rights both in Canada and abroad.

…For we are safer and more prosperous, Mr. Speaker, when more of the world shares Canadian values.

Those values include feminism, and the promotion of the rights of women and girls.

It is important, and historic, that we have a prime minister and a government proud to proclaim ourselves feminists. Women’s rights are human rights. That includes sexual reproductive rights and the right to safe and accessible abortions. These rights are at the core of our foreign policy.

To that end, in the coming days, my colleague the Minister of International Development and La Francophonie will unveil Canada’s first feminist international assistance policy, which will target women’s rights and gender equality. We will put Canada at the forefront of this global effort.

This is a matter of basic justice and also basic economics. We know that empowering women, overseas and here at home, makes families and countries more prosperous. Canada’s values are informed by our historical duality of French and English; by our cooperative brand of federalism; by our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic citizenry; and by our geography—bridging Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic. Our values are informed by the traditions and aspirations of the Indigenous people in Canada. And our values include an unshakeable commitment to pluralism, human rights and the rule of law.

Source: Address by Minister Freeland on Canada’s foreign policy priorities – Canada.ca

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Countering extremism requires political honesty from Theresa May: Shaista Aziz

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

A valid critique of May who, after all, was Home Secretary for six years before becoming PM:

And what of the woman who wants to be elected Prime Minister when the U.K. goes to the polls in three days time?

Theresa May has shown that she is not interested in looking for real and meaningful solutions to deal with the new reality that terrorism poses to the lives of British people. Instead, she has hit repeat, saying there is “too much tolerance of extremism” in the U.K. – implying that British Muslims have turned a blind eye to individuals pledging allegiance to the Islamic State, trotting out the tired-out trope that British Muslims are the only ones who can stop the terrorists.

Such a claim disregards that the Manchester bomber, Salman Abeidi, was flagged to the authorities at least five times as an individual who was showing signs of radicalization. The same pattern is being repeated (so far) following the London attack, with reports that locals contacted the police two years ago to report the individual believed to be the terrorist ring leader.

After the London attack, Ms. May responded by saying “enough is enough,” and I couldn’t agree with her more: enough is enough, Ms. May.

Enough of the police cuts that have removed 20,000 officers from our streets, including community police officers. We need a properly funded police service to deal with the terrorism threats to our country.

Enough of the narrative that there is an us and them when it comes to tackling terrorism – there is only we.

The U.K. is deeply polarized, and there is a growing trust deficit between many of our politicians and the people. Empty sound bites will do nothing to heal these divisions.

Nobody in this country tolerates extremists, other than extremists.

And enough is enough of Britain’s blind support for the likes of the Saudi Arabian government, responsible for promoting extremism and its sectarian agenda around the world.

If Theresa May is serious about tackling extremism, she will ensure the long-delayed inquiry report into foreign funding and support of jihadi groups in the U.K. will be released immediately.

We are judged by the company we keep and by our actions. It is time for Ms. May to walk the walk and not just talk the talk on countering extremism.

Source: Countering extremism requires political honesty from Theresa May – The Globe and Mail

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Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Dispute among the citizenship-by-investment promoters:

On May 28, 2017, global citizenship consultants Arton Capital initiated legal proceedings for alleged defamation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) against the Investment Migration Council (IMC) and its UAE representative office CI Businessman Services (which operates under the name Citizenship Invest).

Arton Capital has partnered with the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis and Saint Lucia, along with other countries around the world, in relation to their citizenship by investment programmes, as well as advising more than 5,000 investors on investment programmes that empower global citizenship.

In December 2016, IMC, Transparency International (Hungary) and Dr Boldizsár Nagy published a report entitled “In whose interests? Shadows over the Hungarian Residency Bond Program”, which is, in Arton Capital’s view, defamatory, contains false information and has caused serious reputational damage to the firm’s business.

Arton Capital contends that the spread of this false information forms part of a broader smear campaign that it believes is intended to damage its reputation within the industry.

Arton Capital said it has spent more than a decade building a reputation of trust with governments around the world, as well as building the investment migration community.

“Arton Capital takes its reputation extremely seriously and will take all necessary steps to correct falsehoods and protect its hard-won reputation for trust and diligence. The founders of the company are committed to driving forward the highest standards of best practice, regulation, and governance for the industry,” the firm said in a press release on Monday.

IMC is a Geneva-based self-proclaimed oversight association for investor migration and citizenship-by-investment prominently backed by Henley & Partners, another consultancy firm active in the Eastern Caribbean economic citizenship programmes.

Earlier this year, Henley & Partners came under fire for its perceived involvement in a controversial “60 Minutes” investigative programme aired by the US television network CBS on January 1, which focused on the citizenship by investment programmes (CIP) operated by three out of the five Caribbean islands that offer such programmes.

It was alleged that Henley, whose chairman Christian Kalin appeared prominently in the broadcast, was behind the production of the programme in the first place, although the firm later denounced the broadcast as “one-sided”.

However, according to one industry insider, Henley & Partners apparently forgot that they invited the 60 Minutes producers to one of their citizenship conferences in Dubai in order to initiate the report.

A number of resignations earlier this year from IMC’s advisory committee were, according to one resigning member, prompted by, amongst other things, the controversial 60 Minutes report in January that was a “PR disaster” and made the citizenship industry look ridiculous.

Furthermore, Kalin is one of the five-strong governing board of IMC and his critics now say that he is using the organisation to attack his commercial rivals. Members of the advisory committee apparently decided that they did not want to be a party to any potential lawsuits, with its involvement in attacking residency programmes such as Hungary’s going beyond its stated mission.

“The IMC is no more than a mouthpiece of Henley & Partners,” said an industry source.

IMC was established in October 2014 with the stated aim of bringing together stakeholders within the immigration and citizenship by investment industry and to give the industry a voice and, for reasons best known to itself, said it will soon be opening a representative office in Barbados.

Source: Citizenship consultants file defamation claim | Caribbean News Now

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Can Andrew Scheer fix the Conservative Party’s diversity problem?

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Former PC staffer Angela Wright on challenges facing Andrew Scheer, particularly with new Canadian and visible minority voters:

In his victory speech, Andrew Scheer touted the party’s commitment to being this big tent as well as the need to communicate conservative values to a greater number of Canadians. However, there were two statements in his speech—statements that garnered the loudest applauses in the convention—that could prove troubling for the party when it comes to minorities: echoing the dangerous threat of radical Islam and a staunch belief in withholding federal funding from universities that attempt to stifle free speech.

Across North America and Europe, political responses to Islamic terrorism have created a political arena where politicians and their supporters have justified both blatant and consequential discrimination towards Muslims. There is significant support amongst Canadians to commit ground troops to the fight against ISIS, but by framing this as a fight against radical Islam, Scheer gives ammunition to people who harbour prejudicial views towards Muslims. Although many argue that the term “radical Islam” highlights this form of terrorism is a warped strain of normal Islam, it nonetheless reminds listeners the culprits are Muslim, thus offering an excuse for people with biases against Muslims to suggest policies that target Muslims as a remedy. And for Muslims, it may give the impression that the party is using them to advance its policies on global security.

“Free speech,” meanwhile, has been used as a cloak by racists and bigots to spout rhetoric that’s harmful, hateful, and disrespectful towards racial and religious minorities. Scheer must take care to clarify his opposition to firing or silencing university professors with controversial views while maintaining an opposition to hate speech.

More than advocacy for justice and equality, this issue also has the potential to cause discord in the party between those who are advocates of unrestricted free speech and those who want the party to be more welcoming to everyone with small-c conservative values, regardless of their race, ethnicity or religion.

That’s why Scheer should rescind his position to withhold federal funding from universities. It’s imperative to be cognizant of how these issues can be used to target minorities as well as the detrimental impact this has on the party’s image—and its chances at electoral victory.

As a young politician with over a decade of political experience, an Ottawa native living in the Prairies, and a Conservative not tied to previous controversial legislation, Andrew Scheer is best-suited to lead the rejuvenation of the Conservative Party into one that will not bring forth policies and communicate them in a manner that forces racial and religious minorities to choose between their values and racism, their values and xenophobia, or their values and self-respect.

The party’s history-making membership numbers and massive voter turnout in the leadership race show an eagerness amongst Canadians to join the conservative movement and a dissatisfaction with other political choices. The Conservative Party has the money and the membership to win in 2019; all it needs is greater support amongst Canadians.

But it can’t be done without support from racial and religious minorities.

Source: Can Andrew Scheer fix the Conservative Party’s diversity problem? – Macleans.ca

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Pro-Trump Canadians Throw ‘Million Deplorable March.’ Right-Wing Media Counts 5,000. Cops Say Hundreds.

2017/06/07 Leave a comment

Getting noticed in US media with usual inflation of crowd claims:

Although it was dubbed the “Million Canadian Deplorables March,” both The Daily Caller and Breitbart claimed about 5,000 people showed up in Ottawa to protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and to show favor for Donald Trump, whom protest organizer Mike Waine called a “smart man.”

“Most Canadians are asleep because fake news is telling them stories that just aren’t true,” Waine told The Daily Caller in its article “Thousands Of Canadian ‘Deplorables’ March To Support Trump And Oppose Trudeau.”

Ironically, Ottawa police now say there weren’t thousands, let alone 5,000 or a million, protesters at the March at all.

“We average about two or three (demonstrations) a day. It would be like Washington D.C. for you guys,” said Ottawa Police Constable Marc Soucy. “This one would be on the small side for sure.”

Soucy said that, while the Ottawa Police doesn’t officially provide crowd estimates, there were not 5,000 people at the rally’s “gathering point” in Ottawa’s Confederation Park.

“There were less than 100 [at the park],” he said.

A spokesperson for the Parliamentary Protection Services estimated to Canada’s iPolicy, who first reported on the discrepancy, that 300 to 400 people in total went to the rally in at the Canadian capital.

Still, a Breitbart headline blared “5,000 Canadians March in Support of Trump, Against Liberal Trudeau Administration” on Saturday. Meanwhile, 504 people RSVP’d to the event on Facebook, where the protest was labeled as a “march against Trudope and his tyranny.”

This isn’t the first time Breitbart has inflated crowd sizes of pro-Trump events. The website, whose former CEO Steve Bannon is now a Senior Advisor to President Trump, posted a photo of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ NBA Championship victory parade in a story titled “Trump’s Jacksonville Rally draws 15,000” last August.

And in March, The Daily Caller published an article arguing in favor of Donald Trump’s incorrect claim that the media had downplayed the size of the crowd at his January inauguration, arguing that “context has been severely lacking.”

The Daily Caller article about the Candian march, written by David Krayden, quoted organizer Waine saying a recent motion in Canada could “lead to the implementation of Sharia Law in Canada.” The text of that motion, M-103, condemns Islamophobia and “all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.”

Waine appeared happy with the turnout, according to the Caller.

Source: Pro-Trump Canadians Throw ‘Million Deplorable March.’ Right-Wing Media Counts 5,000. Cops Say Hundreds.

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Yes, Donald Trump is making xenophobia acceptable: Cass Sunstein and “preference falsification”

2017/06/06 Leave a comment

Good piece and interesting study cited by Sunstein:

In the U.S. and Europe, many people worry that if prominent politicians signal that they dislike and fear immigrants, foreigners and people of minority religions, they will unleash people’s basest impulses and fuel violence. In their view, social norms of civility, tolerance and respect are fragile. If national leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump flout those norms, they might unravel.

The most careful work on this general subject comes from Duke University economist Timur Kuran, who has studied the topic of “preference falsification.” In Kuran’s view, there is a big difference between what people say they think and what they actually think. Sometimes for better or sometimes for worse, people’s statements and actions are inhibited by prevailing social norms. When norms start to disintegrate, we can see startlingly fast alterations in what people say and do.

Kuran’s leading example is the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, which, he says, was long sustained by the widespread misconception that other people supported communism. Once prominent citizens started to announce, in public, that they abhorred communism, others felt freer to say that they abhorred it too, and regimes were bound to collapse.

Kuran’s theory can be applied broadly. Writing in the late 1990s, he predicted the backlash against affirmative action programs, contending that a lot of people opposed such programs even though they weren’t saying so. Millions of people favoured same-sex marriage before they felt free to announce that they did. When professors keep quiet after left-wing students shut down conservative speakers, it may not be because they approve; they might be capitulating to social norms on campus. There is a strong taboo on anti-Semitism, which limits its public expression.

It’s hard to test these kinds of ideas rigorously, but in an ingenious new paper, a team of economists has done exactly that.

Leonardo Bursztyn of the University of Chicago, Georgy Egorov of Northwestern University and Stefano Fiorin of the University of California at Los Angeles designed an elaborate experiment to test whether Trump’s political success affects Americans’ willingness to support, in public, a xenophobic organization. They find that it does — big-time. It’s a little finding with big implications.

The experiment is pretty complicated, so please bear with me. Two weeks before the election, Bursztyn and his colleagues recruited 458 people from eight states that the website Predictwise said that Trump was certain to win (Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Mississippi, West Virginia and Wyoming). Half the participants were told that Trump would win. The other half received no information about Trump’s projected victory.

All participants were then asked an assortment of questions, including whether they would authorize the researchers to donate $1 to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, accurately described as an anti-immigrant organization whose founder has written, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.” If participants agreed to authorize the donation, they were told that they would be paid an additional $1.

Here’s where things get interesting. Half the participants were assured that their decision to authorize a donation would be anonymous. The other half were given no such assurance. On the contrary, they were told that members of the research team might contact them, thus suggesting that their willingness to authorize the donation could become public.

For those who were not informed about Trump’s expected victory in their state, giving to the anti-immigration group was a lot more attractive when anonymity was assured: 54 per cent authorized the donation under cover of secrecy as opposed to 34 per cent when the authorization might become public. But for those who were informed that Trump would win, anonymity didn’t matter at all. When so informed, about half the participants were willing to authorize the donation regardless of whether they received a promise of anonymity.

As an additional test, Bursztyn and his colleagues repeated their experiment in the same states during the first week after Trump’s election. They found that Trump’s victory also eliminated the effects of anonymity — again, about half the participants authorized the donation regardless of whether the authorization would be public.

The upshot is that if Trump had not come on the scene, a lot of Americans would refuse to authorize a donation to an anti-immigrant organization unless they were promised anonymity. But with Trump as president, people feel liberated. Anonymity no longer matters, apparently because Trump’s election weakened the social norm against supporting anti-immigrant groups. It’s now OK to be known to agree “that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Nothing in these findings demonstrates that Trump’s election is leading to an erosion of social norms against incivility and hatred, let alone against violence. But they’re suggestive. Sometimes people don’t say what they think, or do as they like, because of their beliefs about the beliefs of their fellow citizens. A nation’s leader can give strong signals about those beliefs — and so diminish the effects of social norms that constrain ugly impulses.

Source: Yes, Donald Trump is making xenophobia acceptable | Toronto Star

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More faith, not fanaticism, needed in politics: Coren

2017/06/06 Leave a comment

Michael Coren on Christianity and politics:

Within moments of Andrew Scheer being elected as the new leader of Canada’s Conservative Party his opponents began to criticize his opinions. That’s politics of course. But this time the analysis went a little deeper.

Scheer may have said that he will not reopen debates around equal marriage or abortion, it was argued, but he doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage or a woman’s right to choose and that matters a great deal. And on issues such as euthanasia and trans rights, it was claimed, he will certainly be politically involved.

But his defenders responded that this was an “anti-Christian” attack and that the new champion of the Tories was being condemned for his religious beliefs.

Now just hold on one Bible-believing moment.

Contrary to what social conservatives have tried to tell us, there is nothing especially Christian about these issues. Jesus didn’t mention homosexuality, abortion, or euthanasia but He did speak a great deal about peace, love, justice, the dangers of wealth, the sin of materialism, and a preferential regard for the poor.

So Mr. Scheer and his friends, with all due respect and humility let me take you on a magical mystery tour of what that Jesus fellow actually did say.

There was the worryingly egalitarian, “Servants are not greater than their master”, and the snowflake nonsense of, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged, and “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?”

Then we have the lefty silliness of, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God”, and “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone,” and “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

Moving on there is, “In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”

Not very conservative at all! Even worse there is, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Or the nastily socialistic, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

So in a way we could say that every time someone on the right attacks a Liberal or New Democrat calling for a higher minimum wage, stronger welfare, increased funding of socialized medicine or an end to war, it is they who are being attacked for promoting Christian ideas.

In other words, Christianity is not what politicians who wear their faith on their sleeve have led us to believe. Both Old and New Testament scream for social and economic fairness and the story of the Christian God is a seamless garment of care, not for some, but for all, especially those least able to look after themselves.

Roman Catholic nun Sister Joan Chittister said it so well: “I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

I’m one of those odd, unfashionable people who want more and not less mingling of church and state, but a church informed by the authentic teachings of its founder and not the sex-obsessed monomania of the new Catholic and evangelical right.

Sorry Mr. Scheer, but the criticism of you had nothing to do with your faith and everything to do with your fanaticism. God bless you.

Source: More faith, not fanaticism, needed in politics: Coren | Toronto Star

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