On Religion, Morality and Professionalism

In my travels across the web yesterday, I found the following article that raised my ire. It took me a while to figure out exactly why this particular pharamacist's tale annoyed me so much. There's the obvious tirade about imposing one's moral values on another person, but somehow that just didn't quite capture the essence of it.

Then I thought back to another article I had read on the weekend that just made me plain furious - and I'm not normally an angry person. Michael Coren is far from my favourite columnist, but I will read him on occasion because he has made points that have been thought provoking.

Both of these two articles are fundamentally about the crossroads between religious freedoms, freedom of expression and individual rights. In both articles, the core subject is basically one where religious freedoms are used to justify marginalizing someone else. Whether it is a gay or transgender person in the workplace being marginalized because of their sexual orientation, or it is because someone - for whatever reason - had unprotected sex and realized they had made a serious mistake.

At first, my reaction to both stories was righteous indignation towards the Pharmacist and Mr. Coren - essentially, 'How dare you impose your personal morality upon others?'. Digging around in the attic of my mind, I find a few interesting tidbits.

First, both the Pharmacist and Mr. Coren make a key fundamental error in arriving at their conclusions. Rather than drawing their boundaries at the points of actual discussion, they instead project beyond the boundaries and begin to incorporate assumptions both about motives and desires that are not relevant.

In the case of the Pharmacist, it is not his job to make a moral judgement about dispensing a medication. A doctor has presumably already made that analysis as part of the decision making process. Does this mean that suddenly a patient with a prescription has to pass a second hurdle when they approach the pharmacy? Consider the case of a male with prostate cancer. Under some conditions, the doctor may prescribe estrogen as part of the treatment. The other common case where a genetic male will take estrogen is to feminize their body as part of gender identity related therapy. Using the basic logic the pharmacist used in refusing to dispense a prescription to the young woman in question, the pharmacist could choose not to dispense the estrogen to the cancer patient on the grounds that it might be used as part of something that he morally disagrees with. Arguably, the pharmacist has made a significant error in professional judgement by projecting his moral framework onto his work as a professional.

Mr. Coren's article is substantially less subtle. It simply reeks of plain ignorance on the part of the author.

Quoth Mr. Coren:

The definition of "gender identity" is "one's internal sense of being male or female." Interesting. If I feel like a woman then I am a woman. What if I feel like a lion, a mouse or the emperor of China?

At a very superficial level, Mr. Coren's secondary questions about 'feeling like a lion' a perhaps mildly humorous. In reality, they demonstrate a distinct lack of understanding of the very valid, and real feelings that a transgender person experiences. While such a cynical, sarcastic style would be considered highly inappropriate by Mr. Coren himself were he talking about the experiences of someone grieving the loss of a loved one, he seems to have no problem with being belittling about it in this context. Why? Likely because he simply has chosen not to learn or understand the human realities of those around him, regardless of the gender and sexual orientation. I had just finished reading "The Sexual Spectrum" by Olive Skene Johnson when I encountered Mr. Coren's article. It is a book that Mr. Coren - and many others who jump to conclusions where issues of sexuality and gender expression are concerned - should read. It does a lovely job of disabusing one of any assumptions about the reality for people who are different. I cannot imagine jumping to any conclusions about someone (moral or otherwise) based on the sexual or gender orientation after reading that book - to do so would be gross disservice to the individual.

In both cases, these individuals are making moral judgements, largely based on assumptions that are at best incorrect, at worst, so badly flawed that they invalidate the reasoning that follows from those assumptions. Observationally, both Coren and the Pharmacist are relying on absolutes as laid out in scripture. Given that Christian scripture is between 2000 and 4000 years of age (depending on what section you are examining), it seems to me that the moral proscriptions made in those scriptures are reflective of society and human knowledge of that era. (The same applies to the Q'ran or the Torah (Talmud? - I get confused in the names)) The world has changed vastly since then in both the structure of the world, as well as the knowledge that we possess. Those that choose to continue to interpret the world in terms of 2000+ year old assumptions will continue to find their world view at odds with current reality. To blindly apply that logic, as the Pharmacist did; or to use it to self-justify belittling other people, as Coren has done, serves no useful purpose other than to demonstrate to the world how irrelevant such positions have become.

Michael Coren: Adding New Depth To Sexism

I don't care much for Michael Coren has to say on good days. Most days, I just try to ignore him.

Then he writes something as utterly offensive as this.

So Canada sacrifices another victim on the altar of equality.

Last week a young girl dressed up as a soldier died in the increasingly futile and pointless war in Afghanistan. She was 21 years old, had been in the country for two weeks on her first tour of duty and probably weighed a little over 100 pounds.

Let's start with the basic offensiveness of Coren's wording. Karine Blais was not "playing" at being a soldier, so the phrase "dressed up as" is not only wrong, it's denigrating. The implication being that a woman can never be a soldier. Never mind that Ms. Blais had to go through the same Basic Training that everyone of her male counterparts had to, and probably could have quite cheerfully laid Mr. Coren's flabby, middle-aged paunchiness out in about 2 seconds - unarmed.

Yes, yes, yes, I know it's fundamentally anti-Canadian to say this but I'd prefer to articulate the views of the silent majority than hide behind some modernist fetish that places more importance on the myth of absolute equality than the safety of a girl who should be laughing with college friends rather than fighting theocratic madmen.

You know, Mr. Coren? You aren't part of any "silent majority" here. You are part of a very small minority that still pines for some idealized notion of the nuclear family, and in particular women's role in that. You want someone who is waiting at home for you after a hard day at work, ready to soothe whatever ails you.

It is beyond insulting to Ms. Blais' memory for you to insist that she should be at college. Remember, she chose to join the army (just I chose not to years ago). Whether she had plans to go to college after a few years in the military or not, only she and her family know that - and it's irrelevant to you anyways.

What Mr. Coren doesn't recognize here is that Karine had the right to make the choice to join the military. It wasn't so long ago that she wouldn't have had such a choice at all.

On the "altar of equality", as Mr. Coren puts it, we have but one word - choice. Gender equality is about having the right to choose one's own path in the world, regardless of being born male or female. If that means the right for women to choose to take on combat roles in the military, so be it - just as it also grants the right for men to choose to become stay-at-home parents.

If captured, of course, such a woman would be repeatedly raped. And tortured. Again, I'm not meant to say this. Not Canadian, not CBC, not Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Not the sort of thing we're supposed to feel, so we pretend that men and women in the army, police and fire service are given the same tests and have to fulfil the same requirements. Yet truth still breaks through.

Oh, how nice of Mr. Coren. He's trying to protect Ms. Blais from the horrible fate that would await her should she be captured by the enemy. Is he really so thick between the ears that he believes she didn't think about that risk? The risk of rape and sexual assault is everywhere, Mr. Coren. Women know about it, and live with it every day of their lives.

Mr. Coren has only demonstrated his complete ignorance of what has happened since WWII in this part of the world. That he takes such a snide, paternal tone in his article serves but to reinforce the impression that he lusts after a social ideal that never has, and never will exist.

Michael Coren: The Misogynist Chronicles Ctd

I really should know better than to read Coren's rantings - they are inevitably so full of idiocy it's amazing that he continues to be publishable.

His latest piece is another "get back in the kitchen, woman" column, in which he not only tries to claim that women shouldn't be working, but that the world's problems with parenting are entirely the fault of feminism.

There is more to this case and judgment than just this one passage of Cunningham's ruling, but at first sight it does seem rather strange.

Truth is truth, lies are lies and unless MacLeod's lifestyle goes directly to character it has no influence on the credibility of her evidence. It does, however, say something about her decisions and choices and about how the contemporary world regards motherhood.

We're not supposed to say it anymore but motherhood is pretty important. There are, of course, many women who are forced by economic circumstances to work outside of the home. But there are others who seem to believe that raising a child is less significant than alleged self-fulfilment or even political ambition. Ms. MacLeod, do you seriously believe you can be both an exemplary mother and a full-time politician?

The arrogance of Coren's close to that last paragraph is beyond words. In that one sentence, he has belittled the efforts of every working mother and father in this nation. I know far too many couples who struggle daily with keeping work, finances and raising their families in balance to accept Coren's blithe inference that you can't be both a good mother and a career woman. (or for that matter, a successful career man and single father)

Yes, I know people will say the father can do the job just as well and that it's all about quality time but this is nonsense and denial. Real parenting is about the time that isn't quality.

The quality stuff, the fun stuff, is easy. It's the driving to soccer yet again, the sitting with them when life is awful, the meetings with the teachers, the helping with the homework, the being there stuff that makes you a good parent.

Oh yes, so it's only the maternal parent that can ride out the rough patches, the difficult times? Right. I'll keep that in mind - in the same place that I keep my belief in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

Mr. Coren's attitudes don't even begin to recognize the realities that most families live with today. Perhaps, because of his semi-celebrity status, Mr. Coren has gathered enough wealth that he can afford this idealized stay-at-home world where his wife does all of the hard work raising the children, and he just has to do the "quality time" routine - that isn't real for most parents in urban Canada these days.

Believe me Lisa, sitting in committee rooms with political hacks mouthing the party line is not the same as seeing your child, to and for whom you are responsible, grow by the day into a unique human being.

Perhaps, Mr. Coren, you might want to write that same sentence with yourself as the subject of it? I think a lot of us can think of more pleasant ways to pass the day than in meetings with political hacks.

For Mr. Coren to place the burden of raising children primarily on the female parent, and then complain that "men are treated unfairly" is ridiculous, stupid and infuriating. It is, in fact, the very social structures that he idealizes that resulted in those court rulings he bemoans, not feminism. It has only been in the last 25-30 years that the burden of parenting has become more evenly shared by mother and father - and that has been a product of economic necessity for many.

I will agree that the family courts still make rulings which do not reflect the realities that many single fathers experience on a daily basis, but that will only change when the laws of the land change, and the courts are convinced of the realities. Ironically, those are the very realities that the Status of Women ministry used to fund research into tracking - until the HarperCon$ came along and slashed funding.

[Update 18/08/09]:
Mindelle Jacobs hands Mr. Coren his ass on a plate
[/Update]

Michael Coren ... Revisionist

Usually I try to ignore Michael Coren - and then there's the days where he's so insufferably stupid that he deserves a more thorough swatting about. This week's column in the Sun newspaper chain is an exceptionally egregious assault on both reality and reason.

More people have died in the name of religion than anything else. Not true. There is a story that the Devil asked God for one century. Fine, said the Almighty, have the 20th century.

And hundreds of millions were slaughtered by atheist regimes led by Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and their friends. It is the absence of belief rather than its presence that has led to the most suffering.

There's a few bits of illogic here. I'm not sure what twist in scripture Coren uses to derive that God handed the 20th century over to the Devil - I'm not sure that I care. Causal legends don't go very far in helping us understand what really happened. I am, however, rather offended by his bone-headed linking of political totalitarian regimes with atheism. At best such a link is spurious - coincidence rather than causality; at worst, it is nothing more that a childish smear - implying that a worshipful Christian politician is less likely to be a bloodthirsty maniac.

But, that's just his opening assertion, his reasoning becomes ever more unhinged as one reads on.

Hitler was a Catholic. Not at all. He was born a Catholic but hated Christianity and some of the most devoted Nazi theorists wrote that their contempt for Judaism was based less on anti-Semitism than the fact the Jews gave the world Jesus.

Wow - that's a choice little bit of revisionism - been talking to Ernst Zundel again, Michael - or did you forget to put on your tinfoil hat before going out last week?

What about the Crusades? A geo-political response from Christian Europe to the massive military expansion of Islamic armies into the Christian heartlands of North Africa, Palestine and Syria. There were certainly aspects of it that were dreadful but it says nothing about the truth of Christianity.

How do you explain the Inquisition? Actually there is not a lot to explain. The number of people killed under its authority was very small and most European towns saw an Inquisition delegation once every 10 years.

Here's where Coren demonstrates not only his fundamental ignorance of history, but he mangles his interpretation of it as well.

He claims that the Crusades said nothing of the truth of Christianity - yet those same crusades were sanctioned by, if not sponsored by, various Popes. Last I checked, according to Roman Catholic dogma, the Pope is the only member of the clergy with a "direct line" with God - presumably those same Popes shared that line of communication. Besides, even if one says that the Catholic Church does not "represent the truth of Christianity", it's damnably hard to deny that the Crusades were undertaken in the name of Christianity. Trivializing it, and the long lasting consequences of western military and cultural intervention in the Middle East, is facile and stupid on Mr. Coren's part.

[Update 09/04/07]
A regular reader has pointed out the following overview of the Christian Crusades - with a certain amount of hint at the underlying motives at play - none of them exactly paint Coren's oh-so-noble Christianity in a very pleasant light...
[/Update]

As for his dismissal of the Inquisition as having only killed a few people, once again, Coren utterly misses the point. The inquisition was a part of the power structure - it was part of how the Church maintained its hold on not just spiritual power, but political and economic power. As anyone who has read the Malleus Maleficarum will confirm, the Inquisition structure was designed to be a no-win situation - once accused, you were going to die - it was merely a matter of how, and how quickly. It was a powerful tool for keeping a population controlled - in a manner than any 20th century dictator would have admired - from Lenin and Hitler through to Marcos or Duvalier. (Or perhaps, Mr. Coren would like to examine the oh-so-devoutly Catholic leaders of some South American countries who have perpetrated their own evils?)

It is not the numbers that the Inquisitions killed that matter - it is the purpose and intent not just of the inquisition, but the church itself in creating the inquisition. A roaming body of people meting out "the lord's justice" based on some extreme twisting of scripture and logic is little different than the death squads and "disappearances" of numerous regimes.

That the Sun chain pays Mr. Coren is astounding - that they print his monumental stupidity only goes to show the lack of editorial wisdom at the board.

Contraceptives Make You Wanton

... or at least so Michael Coren seems to think:

If it's true, however, it's extremely disturbing. And if it's true the solution is to stop the girls having sex, not to make it easier for the others to join in. Otherwise it's like assuming that by ignoring the poor we'll prevent poverty.

Dear god this man is clinically insane. While I realize that it's one thing to encourage sexual activity between a twelve year old and adults. Then there's Coren's solution to treat normal sexual experimentation as "criminal":

The boys involved should be charged, the parents of the girls investigated and, perhaps, the abused children taken into care, because this is illegal and it certainly is abuse.

No, Michael - teenagers have been experimenting sexually since the dawn of time. Arbitrary laws and criminalization of that behaviour are stupid in the most extreme, resulting in cases like this one.

While I may have some reservations about making hormonal birth control available to twelve year olds, I think Mr. Coren's position is derived from a moral ideal that neither exists nor has it ever existed.

But in a way none of this is at all surprising. Little girls have been dressing like hookers, and boys like pimps, for years. The free market appears to care not a damn about morality if it can make a profit, and its usual opponents, the left, seems obsessed with promoting sexual anarchy and abolishing absolutes.

Oh yes, that old saw - it's all the fault of how people dress, and after all we've started to lose some of the social inhibitions that came over with the puritans when this region was settled.

The line that access to birth control makes people "wanton" or irresponsible is a crock. It was a crock a decade or more in the past, and remains a crock today. Teenagers have always experimented as their bodies change. Coren's horror is at the age that some are beginning to become sexually active. What he forgets is that there has been evidence about for years about "precocious puberty" where the process we are used to thinking of as starting at the age of 12 or so starts much earlier, sometimes as young as 8.

Coren also is ignoring - in a classically male fashion - the simple fact that it is the female who carries the burden of "consequences" from sexual activity. He's not going to get pregnant, she is - with all of the implications that carries. The neo-Christian "you should feel guilty about sex" line creates problems - and some of them are even worse than what Coren thinks is a current problem.

Used irresponsibly, it has reduced women to the level of the worst of men and transformed sexuality from a loving coupling of two people to a mere lustful exchange of bodily fluids.

Ah yes, contraceptives make you horny - got it. Sure. When Coren figures out that it has a lot more to do with the human mind, and a soup of hormonal chemistry than something as simple as a condom, he might start to understand why his "criminalize sex" line is doomed to fail.

I'm not saying that you provide unfettered access to sexual information, but rather that parents should lead by example. That doesn't mean not talking about the subject or ignoring it, but rather by being up front and honest with their children. Teach responsible behaviour, understanding of consequences and how to say "no". Access to contraceptives is a safety, and in an era where ignorance can be fatal, I'd much rather my offspring be able to protect themselves...and if that means making contraceptives available when they are teens, so be it. Better that than to learn that a child entering adulthood is doomed from a fatal infection, or is pregnant before they are ready to be a parent because some prude like Coren tried to make them criminals for being human.

Ministerial Censorship Versus Legislated Process

The sexuality-obsessed and deeply repressed Michael Coren has been on a real tear this past week.

First, he managed to persuade the editors over at National Post to publish another of his anti-gay screeds. His reasoning on SGM is so pathetically poor it's not even worth my time to dissect it.

Second, he opened his yap on the Bill C-484 issues, and he makes the most amazing leap of illogic, claiming that there is some equivalency between C-10 and various human rights commission complaints.

I can't pretend to be a regular viewer of the television show Kink. ... There also are some quality products that are given a tax credit, but the point about the government's proposed C-10 legislation is that it doesn't threaten anything that's any good. Only cheap trash watched by a handful of people who should really fund their pornography through their own pockets.

Screech. Halt. All Stop.

I don't like the example Coren puts forth any more than he does. But then again, what I've seen of "evangelical television" doesn't exactly grab my interest either - in fact I find it just about as offensive for different reasons. But then, that plays into my point. Coren's whining about his right not to be offended, and demanding that his morality be imposed by ministerial fiat with NO review process, no process whatsoever other than the opinion of the minister of the day and whoever happens to have the minister's ear.

Really? They should, then, be campaigning for magazines such as Maclean's and Catholic Insight, websites like Free Dominion and Five Feet of Fury and a whole bunch of journalists who are currently under attack by numerous federal and provincial Human Rights Commissions for indulging in genuine freedom of speech without any fatties in latex or government handouts.

"Genuine freedom of speech"? Just what is that really, Michael? Your right to spout anti-GLBT lies with impunity? Your right to marginalize others for offending your moral code?

Of course, he's whining about HRC's underneath it all. However, the HRC's - even Alberta's - have a process that is clear, documented and publicly visible. (In spite of what Coren, Levant and others may claim) More to the point, only a small percentage of complaints actually go much beyond initial investigation. For the most part, the opinions of the minister responsible seldom come into the picture - any more than they do in other matters of law.

Second, there's a massive difference between someone's art being offensive to others, and a discrete attempt to marginalize members of society for offending Mr. Coren's particular sensibilities.

Allow me to illustrate by example. I do not like evangelical television - for a variety of reasons I find it deeply off-putting. The solution is simple - I don't watch it. I am not asking that it have whatever government funding it receives pulled, nor do I care if it does receive some funding. I don't partake in it, and frankly I have no interest in doing so.

The other side of the coin comes when people like Coren open their fatuous mouths and demand that GLBT people be treated as second class citizens (with the full burden of paying all of the taxes anyhow, I might add). The difference is that GLBT people offend Mr. Coren's sensibilities, and therefore he demands marginalization - not merely socially (which happens already), but in law. Making it harder for someone to get a job or to live their lives in peace is quite different from funding for the arts.

Step back from this for a minute or ten, and it becomes quite clear what the difference is. In one case, there is a process that is public and known to weigh the balance of competing rights; in the other we grant to the political minister of the day the arbitrary right to change the rules on a whim - largely on the basis of whether or not they are "offended" by something.

It always fascinates me how the first people to cry censorship when conservatives merely suggest a level playing field are just the sort of people who write letters to newspapers calling for people like, well, like me, to be fired.

That's a level playing field, Michael? No it isn't - in fact, there's no equivalence. I have a right to ignore art that offends my sensibilities - which I exercise on a daily basis; on the other hand, I have no right to demand that (for example) evangelical art be denied funding because it offends me.

Granting ministerial fiat rights in matters of "public morality" is extremely dangerous, especially if there is no process for review, input or otherwise besides the lobby system. Even the quasi-judicial HRC model works better than that.

WingNut Christianity and "Terror"ism

Well, that didn't take long, did it. A few short days after a handful of loonies in the UK attempted a series of car bombings, we find the wingnuts out in full force spreading fear.

We begin with whatever oozed out of Michael Coren's fetid imagination this past week:

Commentators were incredulous that people of science sworn to do none harm should apparently act thus. Fools. The doctors' unions in Egypt and Jordan are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a fascist group that preaches jihad. The second in command of Al Qaida is a pediatrician and one of the founders of Hamas a surgeon.

The idea that poverty and oppression produce psychotic mass murderers has always been a patronizing illusion. Egyptian universities churn out fundamentalist fanatics, the Saudi middle class is riddled with extremism.

The brush used here is so broad as to be borderline racism on Coren's part. More or less, he's arguing that anyone who is a Muslim Arab is dominated by what the fearmongers have dubbed Islamofasism (cue evil sounding music here).

Besides being Coren's usual near-hysteria over Islam, it shows us something of the ugly underbelly of Coren's idea of "Christian". Tolerance and respect for others is based on whether he thinks you are doing the "right things", and doesn't for a moment take into account the long term history of Christians in the Middle East. (and it's not real pretty)

I'm sure that in Coren's mind there's a big difference between Car Bombing a city and Carpet Bombing a country. Apparently, one has a moral justification in his mind.

Then, we turn around and find a slightly more literate form of stupidity over at Mercatornet, the headline blaring at us: FOCUS ON TERROR: Those who cure you will kill you

This piece of insanity proceeds to attempt to convince us that Muslim doctors are inherently bound to the whim of radical Islam:

The oath of a Muslim physician asks Allah to "make us worthy of this favoured station with honour, dignity and piety so that we may devote our lives in serving mankind, poor or rich, literate or illiterate, Muslim or non-Muslim, black or white with patience and tolerance with virtue and reverence, with knowledge and vigilance, with Thy love in our hearts and compassion for Thy servants, Thy most precious creation." And it cites an eloquent verse of the Qu'ran's fifth sura: "Whoever kills an innocent soul, it is as if he killed the whole of mankind. And whoever saves one, it is as if he saved the whole of mankind." Most Muslim doctors abide by these ideals.

Obviously the doctors currently under arrest, who, by all accounts were model citizens -- quiet, friendly and hard-working -- had a blind spot for this ideal. They paid more attention to a verse which follows shortly afterwards: “Those that make war against God and his apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain . . .” Their rigid, unforgiving ideology interpreted the Qu'ran to exclude unbelievers and depraved night-clubbers from personhood and therefore from the mercy of the Almighty -- and theirs.

The writer's insane hysteria mirrors Michael Coren in ways that I can only be appalled by. He goes on to try tarring an entire population based on the actions of a few:

Other Muslim doctors have been terrorists. Osama bin Laden's top deputy is Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian who trained as a surgeon. Mahmoud Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas, is a surgeon. Another leading Hamas figure was Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, a physician and geneticist. He was killed by an Israeli gunship. The founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi al-Shikaki, was an Egypt-trained doctor who was assassinated in Malta in 1995. Back when the terrorists were freedom fighters against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a number of mujahadeen were doctors and engineers.

The radical insanity of a few over years is supposed to tell us something about the majority? Please.

Of course, being slightly more intellectually sophisticated than Coren, Mercatornet's writer tries to turn things back on the ills of "post Christian" Western Society:

Terrorism clearly violates the traditional Hippocratic Oath. However, few realise how much the Hippocratic Oath has changed. Today nearly every American medical school administers some sort of oath, but heavily bowlderised. Reflecting the confusion of contemporary values, many young doctors swear not to discriminate on the basis of race, nationality, sex, religion or sexual orientation and to protect patients' autonomy and ensure informed consent. Inspiring stuff, but it shines a weak light on what makes a person worthy of life. The original oath invoked Greek gods. A 1993 survey showed that only 11 per cent of US oaths invoked any kind of deity. Nowadays the ancient pledges never to participate in euthanasia and abortion are often omitted. As of 1993, only 14 per cent of US oaths prohibited euthanasia, and only 8 per cent abortion. The original oath forbade sexual relationships with patients, but only 3 per cent of oaths administered by US medical schools did so.

What this demonstrates is the not so much the moral equivalence of terrorism and abortion or euthanasia, but the existence of a shared moral crisis: both the Muslim world and the post-Christian technology-obsessed West have lost sight of what constitutes a person. Muslim extremists regard unbelievers as unpersons, and many doctors and scientists regard human embryos, foetuses, and the terminally ill as unpersons. Muslims, perhaps because of a flawed understanding of God as altogether distinct from reason, and Westerners because of an arrogant reliance on the autonomy of reason.

The twist of logic here is astonishing, and it hardly mitigates the blatant bigotry of either side of the story. Instead, it confirms in my own mind the complacent intolerance and bigotry that runs through the hard-line "Christian" world. (I put the term in quotes, because I believe that these people have so badly distorted the meanings of "Christian" so as to make it unrecognizable).

The arrogance of presupposing that there is some moral justification for invading and occupying a foreign land is amazing. To expect that such actions would not be met with retaliation of some form is simply beyond credulity.

Dear Mr. Coren:

Just. Shut. The. F***. Up.

We already know you're clinically insane, but your weekend tirade simply adds a whole new dimension to the phrase 'cognitive dissonance'.

In one column, you go from condemning a man just diagnosed with brain cancer for an event decades in the past to whining about school violence, funding for gender surgery and punishing poverty.

Regardless of Senator Kennedy's past, and what he did or didn't do in the past, your comments about him are inexcusable and callous. The man has just been shown the form of how he will leave this world, and you berate him for what? Where's that much vaunted sense of compassion that conservative christians like you keep spouting off about? (Oh wait - that vanished decades ago when political christianity became more about trying to regulate everybody else's life than anything else)

Much as it may please a kid being beaten half to death to know that his attacker is marginalized or may not enjoy full equity, the solution to gang violence, murderous teenagers and the mass decay of inner city public education is, for a start, to dismantle school boards that issue absurd and pointless press releases.

Ah yes, typical conservative thinking. Instead of addressing the problems, you'd punish those who identify the problems. Brilliant thinking Mr. Coren. Perhaps you'd like to try again.

Or perhaps your concept of "christianity" is far too rooted in punishment and retribution? Ah, I see it is:

More importantly, punish rather than reward irresponsible behaviour. Just as an example, cut off welfare payments to women who have several children by several men before they've reached 20 years of age.

Oh yes, punish those who are already in poverty. Brilliant, just brilliant, Coren. After all, we all know that those young girls who have multiple children when they are young did so deliberately, and their fathers were merely seduced by their feminine wiles. If the suppositions in your accusation weren't so laughably predictable, they are certainly derived from the standard biblical fundamentalist stance that women are somehow inherently evil and devious creatures. (Makes me wonder how Coren's wife can stand him, if his writing is a reflection of what he says and does at home...)

Also in Ontario the Health Ministry decided to restore full funding for sex change surgery, after having not fulfilled its election promise to finance special and crucial education to autistic children. If only those annoying autistic youngsters could prove that they were born in a body of the wrong gender!

There's so many problems here - and it's a pity that Coren manages to mangle all of them.

First of all, I doubt that the Ontario Ministry of Health made any promises in the last election, much less anything to do with providing specialized education for autistic children.

Second, I would expect that the Ontario Government provides services for the education of autistic children through whatever ministry is responsible for children, youth and education. A few minutes with Google turns up this press release from 2006, and there seems to be more in subsequent months. Once again, Coren mangles the facts.

Lastly, his sniping at gender transition related surgery simply shows us all just how clueless the man really is. The number of such surgeries requested in a year is a handful, and for the psychological well-being of those who request it, it is important. But then, Mr. Coren has shown us just what "christian compassion" really means in his mind so many times in the past that his christianity is filled with hostility and retribution.

At a national level no Canadian labour union or left-wing church called for a boycott of either China or Iran, after it was exposed that these two countries alone account for the vast majority of the world's executions and torture.

I don't know where that aside came from, but in typical pseudo-con style these days, it's a classic linking of unrelated topics. Yes, Michael, it's amazingly important to the world that Canadian organizations squawk about topics in other countries - when we have our very own variety of loon here at home to deal with.

More On Michael Coren

Last week, I took Michael Coren's idiocy about Iran apart.

This week, we are treated to Coren whining about the response to his stupidity.

Let's take a closer look at his complaints shall we?

As regrettable as such an attack would be, I argued, it would save countless lives in the long run. A conventional attack could fail and, anyway, not provide a sufficient shock to the torturers and serial killers who rule the Persian state.

I see, the opening volley is of course to claim that he was massively misunderstood. Horsefeathers - Coren argued quite unequivocally in favour of unleashing one of the most horrifying weapons systems mankind has ever created on another nation - plain and simple. There is no "mitigating" that by claiming that it would save "other lives".

The hysterical websites immediately went into action and told their readers to write and complain. I've been warned I could be taken to the Human Rights Commission and the Press Council. A campaign has been launched to pressure hosts of my forthcoming speaking engagements to cancel me and my family has been threatened.

Oh dear, annoyed a few people, did we? I will not condone the threats of physical violence that appear to have been made - those kinds of threats are simple thuggery and are of no redeeming value. On the other hand, did you really think, Mr. Coren, that given your public profile that people wouldn't try to go after your precious speaking engagements? Hello? I'm sorry to say, but that cannot come as a surprise, and frankly, if it were me that was hiring you to speak, I'd be seriously reconsidering that decision - fast.

Actually, I've been a strong supporter of justice for Muslims. I wrote a column during the Danish cartoon controversy urging people to understand why Muslims were so angry. I've called for funding for Muslim schools, spoken in mosques, won awards for my work in inter-faith dialogue.

Oh yes, the classic, condescending "some of my best friends are ..." defense. Newsflash - after making the statements you did, just about everyone in Canada who is of Middle Eastern descent should be asking themselves just how sincere your overtures really are. Clearly you aren't willing or able to even attempt to understand the cultural and political dynamics of that nation.

... I'm just a newspaper columnist giving an opinion about geo-politics and international peace in what is still, one hopes, a free country.

I keep hearing that "freedom of speech" thing being bandied about every time some wingnut case starts arguing for destruction of other people. Suddenly, they turn around and decide that it's a matter of "free speech" for them to be able spew whatever misguided, ill-informed vitriol that they choose.

I've seen Coren spew some amazingly ill-informed tripe over the years, and other than taking him to task on what he has written, I am more or less content to let him dribble his idiocy onto the pages of the Sun Media newspapers. However, he needs to realize that his right to "free speech" is not unbounded, and I can quite understand why people with relatives in Iran would be utterly horrified at Mr. Coren's suggestion.

If the Sun Media chain wakes up and drops this loon, I won't feel too terribly sad about it. I'm sure there's quite a business to be had speaking at the various "christian" white supremacist "militia" compounds in Montana...

It Was A Matter of Time

You had to know that when it became public that James Loney was gay, that the wingnuts would pick up on it and use it to trash him.

He hasn't even been back in Canada a full week when this piece of crap comes spewing forth from Michael Coren.

Apparently working from essays published in "the left-wing Catholic New Times", Coren spends most of his column trying to demonstrate how Loney was not a True Christian(tm).

Frankly, the bits that Coren quotes strike me as more of an indictment of what churches have become than anything else. Most of Coren's arguments seem to be focused around Loney's opinions on marriage - and of course, because Loney's gay, his opinions don't matter as much as the revered Mr. Coren...

It makes me somewhat ill to note just how quick Coren is to trash someone who has just been through an ordeal that few in the world can truly comprehend. He accuses Loney of being "less than Christian" while he sits in judgement from afar - how Christian of Mr. Coren.

Michael Coren: Abstinence Because Girls Are Icky

Did Michael Coren never get out of grade school or something?.

His latest gem is an amazingly misogynistic rant revolves around the movie "Sex and the City" and contraception. Basically, he's blaming movies like "Sex and the City" (and I presume its television series predecessor) for the spread of STI's in New York - and of course, the world would be so much a better place if we were all good abstinent little "Christian" robots who held off sex until we got married.

Of course, Michael's contact with reality is tenuous at best, but his focus on "Sex and the City" - and in particular feminine chastity that he appears to nearly fetishize - is creepy and smacks of both hypocrisy and ignorance.

Yes, I know that according to the Bible, women are temptation that men must resist ... yadda yadda yadda... If Michael had even the faintest inkling of reality he would have long ago figured out that even at the height of Church power in Western countries, the church couldn't even keep its own clergy abstinent! There are so many people around whose ancestry includes the illegitimate offspring of some cleric or another who was supposedly "chaste" it's not even funny.

Nothing in Michael's column even starts to acknowledge that when it comes to sexual fidelity, human males are rather prone to wander about. In the past, this was often winkingly referred to as "sowing one's oats" among other euphemisms; youthful sexual curiousity created more "shotgun" weddings and "overeager brides" who delivered a baby in somewhat less than the usual 9 months after wedding day.

Although the "abstain" crowd is technically right about one thing - if you aren't having sex, you can't acquire an STI - they overlook and grossly misrepresent the basic human condition that leads people to be sexually active. I don't know what little fantasy world Coren lives in, but apparently in it, nobody has any instincts, or perhaps every time those instincts rise to the foreground, the individual drops in prayer until the feeling goes away - either way, it sounds like a pretty grim little world.

Telling people about condoms and contraception is not about encouraging promiscuity (as Coren argues) - it's really about giving people the knowledge they need to keep themselves alive in the face of a reality that a lot of people are going to have sex at some time or another in circumstances that Coren wouldn't approve of. In an era where some STI's can be lethal if untreated, not teaching people about condom use is akin to handing someone a table saw and not giving them instructions on how to avoid getting their hands lopped off while operating it!

Coren getting on his high horse because there's a movie out there that happens to play on the mythology surrounding feminine sexuality is merely further proof in my mind that the man has no concept of what goes on in the real world.

Abbreviated Michael Coren

As if he hasn't produced enough drivel to convince us that he's a complete loon, Michael Coren opens his and demonstrates not only a complete lack of understanding but a monumental level of ignorance, intolerance and bigotry normally reserved for Klan meetings safely held while everyone is wearing pointy white sheets.

Musing about the challenges that afflict some of the various ethnic minorities in Canada.

The reason is that black children do extraordinarily badly in our education system. Shock. Horror. Never mention race unless it is to play the guilt game and apologize for wrongs committed centuries ago or to claim that every problem within the black community is the fault of white people.

He then goes on to rant about how flawed black culture is in Canada:

The fundamental, of course, is the existence of a nurturing family. Meaning a mother and a father who value education, value family and support and encourage their children. It is insulting to assume that no such units exist in black Canada, but realistic to ask why they seem so relatively rare.

Holy sweeping generalizations, Michael. I thought you were smarter than that. I won't profess to know much about "black social culture" in Canada. I'm sure it exists, but I don't have a lot of personal insight into it - from the statement that he just made, Coren has just demonstrated how little insight he has as well.

There is also the danger that their so-called "Afro-centrism" becomes a euphemism for rejecting white culture and rejecting Canada. No need for dead white males, from Shakespeare to Tommy Douglas, if we can teach the latest radical fashion in black identity politics.

Less than 40 years ago Irish Catholics were told they need not apply for all sorts of jobs and there were university quotas to restrict the number of Jewish students. Cry me a river for kids who live in a country with free health care, social security, welfare democracy and freedom. This is a grand, great nation. Do not blame it if you choose not to live up to its standards.

[Snark]Why yes, Michael, we're all so threatened by the rising tide of alien cultures among the anglo-saxon traditions we are used to.[/Snark]

I think it's time for Michael to move down to somewhere in the US South - preferably one of those "quaint" little towns that never quite managed to leave the segregation era. He'd fit in just fine there - I'm sure he'd enjoy the occasional lynching too.

Michael Coren is not asking valid questions about the issues, he is casting broad aspersions about subjects he is clearly not just ignorant of, but willingly so. If Mr. Coren wishes to make pronouncements on the social and economic success of an entire population in Canada, it would behoove him to learn a little about the topic first. Instead of doing such research, he makes sweeping generalizations and then wonders why he is immediately tarred with the brush of 'racist'...probably because he's earned it. (But then, Coren's never let facts get in the way of a good rant - especially when it allows him to unleash his inner bigot)

And Their Words Shall Reveal Them

Every so often, someone writes something where it is not the main thrust of their argument that leaps out at me as significant, rather it is the terms in which they frame it.

According to Michael Coren, arguing for improving civil rights conditions at home (where ever that might be) is a matter of left wing hypocrisy:

Dumb as well as hypocritical. Freedom of expression for us because we are tolerant. No freedom of expression for you because you're not. There's consistency for you. It's not about Israel or homosexuality or feminism, but about truth and common sense. For goodness sake, someone pass a motion.

Well coming from Coren, one of Canada's loudest, most noxious bigots, I don't suppose I should be overly shocked that he frames hypocrisy in the following kind of terms:

Feminist New Democrats call for Canadian troops to leave Afghanistan, thus abandoning Afghan women to the Taliban.

Just look for a moment at his phrasing here. Apparently, it is a form of hypocrisy in Coren's mind to be opposed to Little Stevie's Grand Adventure in Afghanistan - after all, if you argue for women's equality at home, you should be appalled by the Taliban. Well, truth be told, most people are appalled by the Taliban - but those among us who actually think about things a little also recognize that Canada's military engagement in Afghanistan is unlikely to change that particular issue in the long run.

Of course, we all know that the right wing Cons in this country don't like feminism at the best of times - it undermines the male patriarchy and their grip on political power. (Goodness knows, there are those who argue that women's emancipation was a mistake, and I don't doubt that for a minute Coren's among them - even if he doesn't dare say it out loud)

Of course, he saves his harshest comments and wishes for the GLBT people:

If they declared their sexuality in Palestine, or for that matter in Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else in the region, they would likely be murdered. One particularly ingenuous method of killing one's local male homosexual in Palestine is to push a wall on him.

Again, here we must examine his words. There is a tone of admiration for the idea of killing someone by flattening them with a wall. He doesn't call it vicious, vile or sadistic, no, Coren reserves the admiring term "ingenuous" for this particular form of savagery, almost as if he wishes he could use it at home - where such an act would get him 25 to life - and if he's lucky that would be in solitary confinement.

Coren accuses the "left wing" of hypocrisy, but in doing so demonstrates his own distaste for women's rights, or even the basic right of GLBT people to live their lives in relative peace without fear of being assaulted or worse. Instead, he waxes poetic over the violence that is visited upon people.

Says a lot about him, doesn't it?

Shorter Michael Coren: Harper's Corruption Is Small Potatoes

I have never considered Michael Coren to be even remotely reliable in his analysis of anything.  The simple fact is that he is so firmly embedded in radical conservatism that he can't possibly bring himself to see anything wrong with anything that Harper has done.

Case in point:  His latest column whining about the media paying attention to the Senate Expenses Scandal.

Apparently, in Coren's mind, the festering boil of corruption in Ottawa is not important.  We should all be paying more attention to the Ontario Liberal government.

So where are the exposed and shamed names, where are the CBC hacks and the brave Toronto Star reporters demanding to know what has been going on?

Most of the time we haven’t even been told where Dalton McGuinty is, and Wynne is treated as if she’s above suspicion. Yet on some television networks, Ford Watch has become a soap opera, with even his non-appearances discussed, and reporters are receiving praise for calling Mike Duffy names. There’s courage for you.

To hell with Ford and with Duffy and the other Senate mediocrities.

I want real journalism and real accountability, and I want to know where my money is and who spent it and then covered their tracks.

Being dumb or greedy is wrong, being a major thief far worse.

Well...let's start with the obvious.  Apparently a corrupt conservative government in Ottawa is less important in Coren's mind than a corrupt liberal government in Queen's Park.

News Flash to Michael Coren:  Corruption in Ottawa affects the entire country.

No, we need to pay extremely close attention to the corruption in Ottawa.  It is not small potatoes corruption.  The further we dig, the more the stench of corruption becomes all the more pungent.  Harper has driven Ottawa into the ground with his short term political gain strategy.  EVERY citizen of Canada is paying the price for this.

While the uproar in Ontario over power plants is serious, I don't think it can be held as superseding the ongoing issues in Ottawa ... unless of course, like Coren, you are a Conservatroll seeking a way to divert attention from the mess that Harper has created in Ottawa.

For the first time in years, the media is finally doing its job:  publicizing what the government in Ottawa should be held accountable for.

Abbreviated Michael Coren: *WHINE*!!!

I didn't feel like talking about anything serious this morning, so I went reading Michael Coren's weekly drivel, and I wasn't disappointed.

Michael's cause of the week is "hotel room porn" - or the evil of turning on the television in a hotel room and discovering it has a porn channel.

Who is Edwina McCombs and why is she under attack? She's a Tennessee resident who was visiting California in the summer of 2006 when she booked into a Value Lodge motel with her two daughters, aged 8 and 9. Tired after a long journey, she put her little girls in front of the room's television so that they could watch a children's show while she took a quick bath.

Instead of innocent cartoons, they were immediately confronted with hardcore pornography with, according to Ms McCombs, "close-up images of people engaged in various sexual acts." The girls were traumatized and their mother is suing the motel.

Now, if you listen to Coren, it sounds as though the default channel that the television turned on to was a porn channel. This is a bit surprising - anytime I've been in a hotel, there's quite an array of options and services on the television - porn is usually on a secondary channel.

Of course, there's Coren's fantasy world, and then there's reality:

Edwina McCombs used the Value Lodge in Artesia, California on a negligence theory claiming that the motel should have told her that her children could and did view hardcore porno on the motel's television system. The girls, age 8 and 9, were flipping through the channels on the television in the room when their mother was in the bathroom when they channel-surfed for children's programming and encountered "hardcore and graphic pornography" with extreme close-ups of several sexual acts.

So, the mother hands the children the remote, and they are channel surfing. (Read: hitting whatever buttons will get a different channel). How difficult would it be to experimentally flip to the in-house "pay-for-view porn" channel? Not very. While one might reasonably be able to argue that the porn channels are too easy to get to, one should also ask themselves just what the mother was thinking? Where's her responsibility in all this? It's not news these days that there are things on television that you wouldn't want you children watching, why wouldn't she at least select a channel with her children and make sure it was appropriate viewing? (Heck - I've seen stuff on CNN I'd never show to a ten year old)

However, the case itself is merely Coren's jumping off point for a tirade about how the world's going to hell in a handbasket because hotels offer adult channels on their televisions:

It's about a fundamental shift in societal expectations and assumptions, where the freedom of some pathetic soul to play with himself while watching broken, robotic people pretending to enjoy loveless sex is considered more significant than the freedom of a mother to trust that her young children can turn on the TV and not be abused.

Again, I must ask the oh-so-obvious question - where was the mother in the picture? Oh right - having a bath, after having given her kids the remote to "find the childrens programming". What the hell did she think was going to happen - that "Friendly Giant" was going to show up on ever channel?

Added to this is the fact that many men -- yes, it's invariably men -- who take advantage of this rubbish are married and would never watch a porn channel at home. So in that way it's partly a type of adultery and certainly a form of dishonesty

Yep, the world's gonna end because some guy gets his jollies watching a badly acted porn flick. Got it. Probably a better alternative than what used to be the case - where the men would go wandering off to the local brothel to "satisfy" their urges, bringing home all sorts of interesting diseases on the way by.

What is relevant is that the rights of the international sex industry, an entity that exploits women and breaks up families, are being defended by people who seem incredibly angry that a young mother didn't want her vulnerable kids to be exposed to filth.

While I agree that children should not be exposed to this kind of material, I disagree with Coren's oh-so-moralizing stance on this matter. It is not the hotel's responsibility to "protect" the children from what's on television - that's the parent's job. Mrs. McCombs has a responsibility to at least vet what her children are watching before she gets her relaxing bath.

The world is not "going to hell" because hotels are showing porn. My parents were pretty careful to vet what I watched on TV while I was young, and as far as I know, they simply assumed it was their responsibility to do so. There's an even easier solution much of the time - don't turn the TV on unless you are in the room with your children. Sounds pretty simple to me - and much cheaper for all parties involved than a lawsuit because your children were "traumatized" by stumbling across something "objectionable".

Michael Coren Is Delusional ... and a Bigot

Michael Coren needs psychiatric help - soon. His latest column is an anti-Islam screed that demonstrates just how far off kilter his world really is.

Imagine a history book being read by people in 100 years time. In a chapter entitled, Why We Fought, it would list the crimes of an ideology and a movement, Islamic fundamentalism, that became so powerful and so grotesque in the opening years of the 21st century that the civilized world was obliged to resist.

Okay - he's hallucinating about a "war" that exists only in his fevered imagination, and that of a few other religious nutjobs who have confused scripture with reality - lovely.

He then goes on to describe all of the evil things that have been done in the name of Islam in recent years - and some of it's pretty nasty. But then again, some of what I've heard and seen Coren advocate doesn't exactly show his brand of Christianity to be a very redeemable thing. (Remember, this hypocrite is the same man who has called for nuking Iran, and gay bashing disguised as "Christian compassion")

They declared their intention to target children because, they said, they knew their enemies valued children most of all and loved life. For them, they boasted, death was more important than life. They vomited this philosophy all over the world, in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and Australia.

Who is this "they", Michael? Last I checked, Islam was no more a philosophical monolith than Christianity or any other school of thought. Yes it has its share of whackjobs, and so does Christianity - looked in the mirror lately?

Coren ends his latest insane tirade with this:

They despised progress, freedom, grace, gentleness, empathy, tolerance, civilization, truth, thought, understanding, joy, laughter and love. They hated humanity and they hated God.

That, the readers would be told, was why we fought. And that is why we fight. Because if we genuinely care about all that is fine and grand and important we have no choice.

Coming from a man who keeps calling for society to roll its clock back to the 1950s, I find it ironic that he criticize Islam for "despising progress". Yes Michael, I'm sure the women of our land would happily go back to your fantasy world where societal expectations kept them pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen.

He's bought the whole Bushian concept of a "war of cultures" hook, line and sinker - and apparently thinks that some noble ideal is being upheld by invading far-off lands - other than sheer greed and lust for power.

His paranoid rantings are filled with the near irrational rantings of racism and ignorance. Basically, he wants to bring war to parts of the world because he thinks that the people who live there are a threat to his faith. Gee, Michael, do you cross to the other side of the street when you see someone of Arab descent? Or do just yell obscenities at them?

Somehow, if Coren's tirades are in that category of "fine and grand and important", then I think we need to reimagine our priorities.

Shorter Michael Coren: This Earth Is Flat!

It seems that Michael Coren has a few problems with the world today - like the fact it's not flat.

Apparently the last century's progress is all for naught, and must be discarded in favor of 'absolute biblical truths':

It's not about socialism, recycling, sexual licence, climate change, group hugs, self-esteem or never offending anyone. It's about truth, unchanging Scriptural absolutes, church teaching, the undeniable facts of the virgin birth and bodily resurrection, speaking God's message even when it hurts the speaker as well as the hearer and unending love and forgiveness.

Yes, Michael, let's discard the last couple of hundred years' worth of rational thought and knowledge - we don't need none of that fancy thinking stuff if we have you to interpret scripture for us.

You know, it is the inability of people like Coren to look beyond their assumptions and actually appreciate the fact that we understand ourselves and the world very differently than the original authors of scripture did. Science, psychology and medicine have all changed how we perceive the world - you might just think that just maybe an absolutist view of scripture doesn't work so well any more.

Of course, Michael just has to play the "poor, persecuted Christian" card:

Now this is important. Never think that the attack upon Christianity is a sign of the decline of the victim. On the contrary. These attacks are evidence of the decline of the perpetrator. So insecure in their ideology are the atheist hordes that they try to destroy anything and everyone that reflects and exposes their weakness.

That's right Michael, facts and reality don't matter if you've got FAITH. Those of us that don't share your particular brand of faith must be deluded and weak. Sure.

For those few readers that haven't noticed, fundamentalist christians like Mr. Coren believe that their faith is under attack. I don't think their faith is under attack at all. They are merely running smack-dab into the cold, stony wall of reality that not everybody sees the world "their way". Suddenly, there's rational fact that disproves their assumptions; there are significant faith traditions that are quite different from theirs - in essence, they think they are losing control.

As if to reassure himself, Mr. Coren states:

Every little victory for the secular culture is a major triumph for the Messiah whose birthday we are about to commemorate. Just as the Church was persecuted most harshly by a Rome in massive decline. The darkness before the new dawn.

Yes, history repeats itself - true enough. I can only hope that whatever religiousity emerges from the ashes of modern day religions is more intelligent, compassionate and a whole lot less judgemental.

As of The 2001 Census, religions are somewhat in decline in Canada, with 28% of Canadians professing no religion at all.

Much of the shift in the nation’s religious make-up during the past several decades is the result of the changing sources of immigrants, which has contributed to a more diverse religious profile. As well, many major Protestant denominations that were dominant in the country 70 years ago, such as Anglican and United Church, are declining in numbers, in part because their members are aging and fewer young people are identifying with these denominations.

In 2001, Roman Catholics were still the largest religious group, drawing the faith of just under 12.8 million people, or 43% of the population, down from 45% in 1991. The proportion of Protestants, the second largest group, declined from 35% of the population to 29%, or about 8.7 million people.

Yes Michael, overall, your faith and its relatives - noisy as you are - have been in gradual decline for quite some time. (I'll be curious to see if the 2006 census shows similar results)

Who is channelling whom?

I can't decide if Michael Coren is channelling Craig Chandler or vice versa.

This week, Coren's whine du maison is immigration - or rather immigrants:

But all that was being said here was that the immigration equation requires balance. On the one hand Canada opens its doors and provides help and safety to newcomers. On the other, immigrants should thank their new homeland and imply that gratitude by moderate, yet necessary, adaptation to our ways.

Like Chandler's asinine tirade against newcomers to Alberta, Coren is using an incredibly broad brush - one that is tainted with what I will politely call a form of "cultural racism".

He doesn't quite come out and say it, but what most of Coren's tirade boils down to is "don't ask me to adapt to your customs". What he is hinting at, of course, are those highly visible, but relatively rare cases such as Sikhs wearing Turbans in the RCMP - where someone from a minority steps forward and demands that Canada apply its own laws.

As such newcomers have a duty to learn one of them. We shouldn't expect miracles but we should expect effort.

It's very difficult to live in Canada and not develop at least a pidgin knowledge of English. That doesn't mean that there aren't those who try to hide in a cultural enclave of sorts, but they are a relative minority of new immigrants to Canada. Most are hard working, diligent people that do their best to become net contributors to our society.

Do remember, however, that most of Canada's cultural demise and decay has to do with old Canadians. White, privileged, liberal people who decided long ago that they despised everything for which this great country stood.

Ah - herein Michael returns to his favorite tactic - blaming the evil "liberals" for every ill he experiences. Of course, one of the key cornerstones of a liberal democracy (and Canada is a liberal democracy - no matter how much that makes conservatives like Coren cringe) is that our laws periodically force us to re-examine our own assumptions about what they mean. Sometimes, those laws provoke some deeply unsettling conclusions when tested. Such was the case with the "Sikhs, Turbans and the RCMP" discussion, and numerous other topics where the assumption of a dominance of Judeo-Christian belief turns out to be problematic when held up in the light of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees equal treatment for all Canadians, regardless.

Conservatives tend not to like trying to answer tough questions like that.

Abortion Is Racism?

Oh, I see. The latest meme out of the religious right wing (the same people who wish to argue that being gay is an acceptable reason to be shot) is that abortion is racist because it can be used as a form of ethnic population control.

Of course, like any technology, procedures like abortion can be used for both good and ill. To make his case, Coren cites a supposed telephone conversation between someone wanting to make a donation to Planned Parenthood that would be earmarked specifically for a patient based on their ethnicity.

Based on this, Coren figures that Abortion is just evil, and is being used for something approximating genocide. Lovely. That's about as logical as the twit I blogged about earlier today who tried to blame Larry King for getting himself shot. Whatever. The point around the abortion discussion is that a woman has control over her own body. If more black women wind up using abortions, perhaps what we should spend the time to understand why these abortions are happening (perhaps its a function of grinding poverty? Perhaps she (the woman) would find herself dreadfully beaten by her spouse if she became obviously pregnant? The reasons for someone seeking an abortion are many and not always trivial. Even if that money was officially "earmarked" in a way that seemed racist, it may end up doing a lot more good than Mr. Coren imagines - perhaps by allowing someone to keep their job, or survive just a little longer to escape an abusive partner with their existing children.

Of course, coming from the same lunkhead who called for dropping nukes on Iran, I'm not at all sure that Coren's moralizing position here means that much. Perhaps Mr. Coren would do better to pay attention to his own life, and get his nose out of the lives of others - especially when it's quite clear he's somewhat less capable of empathy than your average rock.

That's A Turnabout

When I first started writing this blog, Michael Coren was a regular target for my ire, especially when he would go off spouting right wing talking points about gay marriage.  Quite frankly, I saw little difference between his columns published in the Sun newspapers and the tirades of his then ally Charles McVety.

About a month ago, I saw a segment on CBC's Power and Politics (starts at 1:39:00) where McVety and Coren were talking about Ontario's new sex-ed curriculum.  I was shocked at the irrational flailing about of McVety, and even more stunned by how reasonable Mr. Coren was sounding.  

It turns out that Mr. Coren has had quite a change of heart.  

I applaud Mr. Coren taking steps to change in light of new evidence and information.  While I don't expect to agree with him on all matters in the future, I applaud his thoughtful, reasoned approach.  I wish him well.