... and Kenney Called The NDP "Ideological"

 So, today the Kenney government took the wraps off its proposed K-6 school curriculum: 

https://curriculum.learnalberta.ca/curriculum/en

*I can't guarantee how long this link will be viable, so screenshots will be used to illustrate points.

Kenney bitched and moaned at every turn about the curriculum revision that the NDP was working on.  What is in this is even more ideological than anything that he could criticize in the NDP's efforts.  This isn't just a "step backwards" in terms of educating future generations, it's a walk off an ideological cliff.  

Especially in the areas of Social Studies, this curriculum is like stepping back into the 1960s era - an era when the only perspective on Canada's history was defined by British colonialism. Any perspective from indigenous peoples was carefully sanitized out of the picture (and yes, at that time, the "60s Scoop" was forcibly separating native youths from their families and shipping them off to residential schools).  

I can't wade through the entirety of this curriculum to identify all of the absolute nonsense it contains, but there is a lot of bias lurking in it, and the biases come out early.  Consider the following elements from Grade 1 and Grade 2 social studies:  

First, consider the questionable assumption lurking in the grade 1 element that the indigenous societies on the Canadian prairies were "primitive" (unsophisticated to a European's eyes).  The curriculum then goes on to talk about earth worship spiritualities as part of the belief systems of indigenous peoples.  There is a not so subtle bias playing out here of portraying the indigenous as "primitive" or "simple".  

Then in Grade 2, we get a declaration that monotheistic religions have common origins.  Again, a subtle but of priming going on here and it's nasty.  In Grade 1, we prime students with the idea that earth worship is "primitive", and then in Grade 2, we start making declarations about "common roots" for the 3 Abrahamic faiths, but quietly ignores the fact that other faiths arrived at monotheistic models independently.  To a grade 2 student, the logical conclusion to draw would be that the Abrahamic faiths are "more correct" than those "primitive" earth worship faiths.  

Yes, this is an example of bias - and it's a fairly subtle one - one that should make us all very wary of the intentions of the authors of this curriculum plan.  Public schools are not places we should be indoctrinating students with ideas about the "correctness" of any faith - explicitly or implicitly.  If you want to talk about different faiths, that's fine, but it has to be done on a level footing, not with all kinds of subtle priming going on to lead students to particular conclusions. 

... and just in case you're thinking that I'm "reading too much into this", let me introduce part of the "sex education" portion of the curriculum: 

You're not misreading this - we literally have 'abstinence-only' being imposed here.  This is in no way complete or comprehensive.  This ignores reality, and it clearly comes out of the religious right's toolbox of bullshit.  It's basically saying "don't have sex until you get married, or you will become diseased with something awful and incurable".  I won't go on about how this ignores sexual orientations beyond heterosexual, or gender diversity, because the minute you jump down the "abstinence-only" hole, you're already well into Bible-land.  

Educators I have chatted with briefly are also critical of this curriculum for over-emphasizing memorization, and doing far too little to encourage integration and critical thought.  This is also not a surprise - Kenney is an anti-intellectual with a serious amount of difficulty with the idea that anyone might be able to think beyond him. 

I'm not going to say that I am in any way surprised by this bullshit.  Kenney and the UCP were telling us exactly who and what they are from the get-go.  Albertans voted for this government in droves, many thinking that "oh, they won't be _THAT_ bad".  No, they're _THAT_ bad, and worse. This curriculum is an insidious piece of trash that will put Alberta at the back of the house when it comes to academic achievement.  

From Ideology Comes Sloppy Logic

I've heard about You're Teaching My Child What? for quite a while now and mostly dismissed it as yet another anti sex-ed book.

So, when I spotted this book review, I decided to spend a few minutes reading it to see if there was any reason to think that the book was anything worthwhile.

It isn't.

Although the author is an MD, it's pretty clear that the book is written to reinforce most of the complaints that the anti-sex-ed crowd loves to throw about.

Society has now gone from two STDs, syphilis and gonorrhea, to more than two dozen, some incurable and even fatal. Chlamydia is a common bacterial STD that can cause sterility, but can have no symptoms and is readily transferred back and forth between males and females unnoticed. The protection advocated by sex ed groups is a misnomer; condoms are little protection against many of these STDs. On the other hand, as the good doctor notes, all STDs are 100 percent avoidable, through abstinence, and then monogamy.

Uh huh. We all know just how well that policy works in reality.

Of course, when they turn their attention to sexual minorities, the argument degenerates into the usual "oooh - look how creepy this is".

...keep in mind that most of the “experts” spewing forth information on these websites are not physicians or psychologists or psychiatrists or educators, but are activists, and many are so gender confused because of their own behaviors and sex changes they don’t know who they are. Some are “peer educators,” and the rest would have been described as sexual deviants just 50 short years ago, as they dabble in every kind of unnatural behavior, then describe it, and share it with teens, encouraging imitation.

Oh yes, people who are GLBT are just soooo strange aren't they? Not so much in reality. But this has been part of the anti-gay arsenal for decades - an attempt to erase the person by lumping them into the category of "alien" and "bizarre".

Chapter Seven in the book, devoted to “Genderland” is a real eye opener. Blaming society’s culture for what they described as an assigned bipolar male and female gender system, the transformers described here make a serious departure from reality as they try to address the gender identity issues they have created. On some teen websites there are quizzes to help one determine one’s gender. (Gender is no longer biological fact, you see, but how one identifies oneself, e.g., female at birth now male or transgender, or intersex but identify as male.) This goes far beyond even the homosexual/heterosexual/transgender labels we’ve come to know, and is accompanied by new language; “ze” to replace “he” and “she”, and “hir” an alternative for “his” and “her.”

Let me point out a couple of things here - puberty - and therefore teen years - are when cross-gender identities become real issues for those who have them. There is little more horrifying than to see your body turn into something that you weren't meant to be.

Second, the language of "ze", "hir" etc. is not a commonly used construct in the transgender world. Those are terms that have emerged out of the world of gender and queer theory studies, and are not commonly used - even within the communities that would benefit from them in principle. Again, this is little more than more of an attempt to signal to the reader how unimaginably bizarre the world of cross-gender identities must be.

It’s hard enough, says Doctor Grossman, when teens and pre-teens feel mixed up about many issues, but the question “Who am I?” needs to be answered before the challenges of adulthood present themselves. Teens are not miniature adults. Theirs is a world of emotional intensity, with strong drives and hormone overloads. Documented in the book are expert findings showing adolescents have a lesser ability to reason. One neuropsychologist explained: “adolescents are more prone to react with ‘gut instinct’ when they process emotions but as they mature into early adulthood they are about to temper their instinctive ‘gut reaction’ response with rational reasoned responses.” Hard science reveals that it’s not a lack of information, but a lack of judgement that gets teens into trouble.

I'll agree that lack of judgment frequently does get teens into trouble. However, lack of information - especially about matters related to gender and sexual identity is asking for even more trouble. It's the teen years when sexual awareness and identity develop, and to blithely tell them to "wait until you're 20" is beyond daft, it's unrealistic. For those who struggle with gender identity issues, there are good reasons to make the information - along with access to appropriate therapists - available. Teens aren't stupid, and contrary to the popular fear-filled mythology of the religious right wing, hiding sexuality related subjects from them doesn't stop them from exploring. It never has, and likely never will.

Dr. Grossman makes clear in the book, which is very well documented, that the real goals of the sex education lobby are not to prevent pregnancy or disease, but to indoctrinate the young. It is this politicization of sex that will morally bankrupt our nation. The sex-obsessed want to spread their unnatural behaviors as they curry favor for dangerous and unhealthy sexual activity by relying on emotions and pleasures. They craft a false perception of the realities of free and open sex, desensitizing our youth to subject matter that used to be avoided in conversation among polite company.

And these sex transformers want to start earlier and earlier, with your child. Anatomically correct verbiage is to be used in kindergarden, and feelings expressed. Third graders are to have an exaggerated version of the birds and the bees talk. And teens, who are scared into avoiding tobacco and alcohol, are to be made to understand the pleasures of all types of illicit sex.

Oh yes, sex education is all about a political agenda. That's right up there with the alleged "Gay Agenda" (which I've never seen a copy of, but every homophobe out there is absolutely convinced it's real). This is another strawman argument, and by the sounds of this review, the entire book is essentially built on the same kind of silly, sloppy and hysterical reasoning.

Why The Pope Is DEAD WRONG About Condoms

It's not like Pope Ratzinger hasn't been swatted around already for his statements about condom use in Africa, but then again, today I spotted a story on BBC's website that puts the whole tragedy into into human terms.

Zenthu lives in a shack where she sleeps in the same room as her father and adult older brothers. She says that they are often drunk and sometimes there is no food for the family in the evenings.

The moment I ask her about her mother she bursts into tears, sobbing and sobbing.
...
Her mother gave birth to her baby sister two years ago, but months later still looked pregnant.
...
Despite the presence of other adults in the household, the care for both the new baby and her dying mother fell to Zenthu, then just 12 years old.

She began skipping school to tend to her mother.

Eventually, in Zenthu's words her mother "succumbed to the excruciating pains".

She had died from HIV/Aids. One in three pregnant mothers in some townships has the virus - so everyone must surely know someone with HIV. But the stigma means it is not discussed.

Imagine being twelve, and being the primary caregiver to the person who brought you into this world. Watching her wither away and die day by day - slowly and painfully.

Why? Because she had sex with someone who was HIV+...whether or not they knew it.

What's worse, is that the tragedy repeats itself with the next generation:

Or perhaps once they have been orphaned they are more likely to develop relationships with older men who can give them clothes and mobile phone time, but whose age makes them more likely to have HIV.

Or that without their parents' protection they might be more vulnerable to rape, a crime so common that some mothers living in the townships take their daughters to have long-lasting contraceptive injections at the age of 12 or 13, not because they think they're going to choose to have sex, but because the likelihood they'll be raped is so high.

Think about these things a bit. The dogmatic insistence of the Pope on "abstinence" is rooted in some fantasy world where everybody follows the same rules. Out in the real world, it's a much harsher, grittier picture. Condoms are a necessary part of the fight against HIV/AIDS, just like realistic sex education is. Sticking your head in the sand isn't going to do it.

Unfortunately, people in Africa are dying, and because old men in cassocks don't want to face the reality of that situation, simple things that could be done are being suppressed. This isn't just wrong, it's a moral failing far beyond that which they are so quick to criticize others for.

Yet Another Celibate In A Cassock On Sexuality

I see Calgary's Bishop Henry is dutifully parroting his masters in the Vatican:

In a letter to the editor, Henry said the Christian virtues of chastity, abstinence and fidelity are "the most effective means of primary HIV prevention," and should not be pushed aside as valid prevention options in favour of passing out condoms.

When asked about his opposition to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, Henry said teachers do have other options in supporting AIDS charity efforts in Africa.

"If you have two businesses or organizations, one that doesn't support your values and mission statement and an-other that does, which one are you going to support? I think that the answer is obvious," Henry told the Herald in an e-mail.

Glad to see you are such an obedient scribe for your masters, Henry...now, perhaps you might do something useful and start actually thinking for yourself and looking at the reality of the world. Perhaps you might figure out that people have sex all the time - regardless of what moralizing stance the Catholic Church puts forward.

Shorter Pope: Dogma Always Trumps Reality

The current leadership in the Vatican just doesn't have a clue about reality. Every time we turn around one of these idiots opens their mouth and says something that is beyond patently stupid.

Today, it's the Pope's turn:

Before arriving in Cameroon's capital, Yaounde, the Pope said HIV/Aids was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

The solution lies in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer", the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

While in Africa, the pontiff is expected to talk to young people about the Aids epidemic and explain to them why the Catholic Church recommends sexual abstinence as the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.

He gave a similar message to African bishops who visited the Vatican in 2005, when he told them that abstinence and fidelity, not condoms, were the means to tackle the epidemic.

Hmmm...let's think about this from a perspective grounded firmly in reality, shall we?

First of all, condoms are one of the few means known to prevent, or at the very least, minimize, the chances of HIV transmission. The Pope's addlepated logic that distributing condoms can make the problem worse is completely false. As the GLBT community in North America demonstrated during the 1980s and 1990s, condom use can and does reduce the rate of transmission from sexual contact.

I won't even begin to describe my revulsion with the dogma of "noble suffering". This is nothing more than a way to wash one's hands of a topic that is uncomfortable or unsettling. Instead of taking action, it becomes far too easy to simply blame the person suffering from HIV/AIDS and call their suffering "consequences" and "God's will". Intellectually speaking, this is sloppy reasoning.

Lastly, while the concept of abstinence works in theory, it completely ignores the very real and human reality that people have sex. Just as the unreasoning "abstinence only" policies of Bush II failed miserably (with evangelical teens having sex just as often - and ending up pregnant more often - as their peers.

Condoms are not a solution in and of themselves. This is true enough. However, the rabid anti-condom stance of the Pope is rooted not in reason but in dogma ... and like the dogma of the church around abortion, it is completely divorced from reality.

Bush II: The Reign of Error

Tomorrow, the world will see George W. Bush step aside as President of the United States, bringing to an end one of the most disappointing presidential tenures that the world has ever witnessed.

Under Bush II, things went from 'not bad' to 'really awful' in short order.

(1) In the wake of 9/11, he started a heavy armour war in Afghanistan to smoke out a handful of people. (anybody else remember Osama bin Laden? yeah - we were supposed to find him in weeks, not years) Anybody with an iota of sense would have long ago realized that capturing someone like bin Laden doesn't take tanks, it takes stealth, intelligence and patience.

(2) Then he leveraged the limited success in Afghanistan and did a bunch of chest-thumping to justify finishing off what his father started in Iraq a dozen years before. I think we all know how swimmingly well that war has gone. We shouldn't ignore the blatant lies that he used to justify attacking Iraq - the mysteriously non-existent WMD's, among other topics.

(3) Guantanamo Bay - never before has a US President gone to such lengths to detain people in a legal no-man's land. In doing so, Bush II and his sidekick Dick Cheney created an environment which encouraged torture, abuse and maltreatment of inmates.

(4) We shouldn't ignore the systemic nature of the attitudes with respect to Guantanamo Bay, because they gave implicit license for the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

(5) Under Bush II, the US government went from surplus to deficit, and the national debt has spiralled out of control as the government attempts to finance wars it has little chance of actually succeeding at.

(6) It certainly didn't help matters that Bush II encouraged people in the wake of 9/11 to "spend, spend, spend". People took that message to heart and leveraged their houses, using them as ATMs rather than long term investments. The result? Unheard of levels of consumer indebtedness, and rates of foreclosure on properties unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s once the "housing bubble" popped.

(7) Tax cuts that served to benefit the very wealthy, and further downloaded the tax burden onto middle-income earners.

(8) Woefully inadequate oversight of the banking industry allowed it to lose sight of the fundamental principles of banking, succumbing to the atmosphere of greed that resulted from writing predatory mortgage loans, and then being able to resell them as "Asset Backed Commercial Paper". Separating risk and reward was a huge mistake, and where was the oversight?

(9) What he couldn't legislate, he passed into existence as "executive orders" and "rules" - some of which are so ill considered that they jeopardize people's health on the altar of "faith".

(10) Abstinence Only sex-ed. This is one of the great oxymorons of our time. Abstinence Only programs aren't about educating people about sex and sexuality, they're about scaring youth into not being sexual beings. Good luck with that - hormones are amazingly powerful things, as are instincts ... and teenagers will figure things out - sadly they may have more misconceptions about healthy sexuality than their grandparents did.

I'm sure I could come up with more if I wanted to. Needless to say, incoming President Barack Obama has his work cut out for him. He inherits a nation bruised and battered, it economy a shambles and its credibility on the world stage ruined.

On the other hand, when you start at the bottom, there's only one way to go, isn't there?

That's Reasoned?

I see that Calgary's Bishop Henry continues to faithfully repeat whatever comes out of Rome ... in this case, he's trying to defend his blind opposition to HPV vaccination.

This is particularly galling because the suppositions the Bishop (and the RC Church in general) are operating from are fundamentally flawed - to the point of making the conclusions drawn from those assumptions quite ridiculous.

Besides raising the issue of side effects and questions about long range effectiveness, the Bishop falls into the classic Catholic line about sexuality.

Yes, there are legitimate questions worthy of study in respect to the vaccine's long term effectiveness - and this does warrant ongoing study. Similarly, as with any vaccine, side effects need to be studied and analyzed as the vaccine is put into broader use. However, that doesn't justify being obstructive to the availability of the medication in question - which is precisely what the Bishop has argued for.

We should teach critical thinking skills; provide factual information and guidelines as needed; and teach right from wrong and equip our youth for proper decision-making.

That's almost reasoned enough to make sense - then he proceeds to demonstrate that it is in fact rooted in standard dogma about sexuality (which frankly seems to be more 'ostriching' than anything else):

A school-based approach to vaccination runs the risk of sending at least an implicit message that early sexual intercourse is allowed, as long as one uses "protection."

I cannot even begin to express how outrageously false this claim is. There isn't a shred of rational evidence to support the inference made. It also vastly underestimates how much knowledge and awareness that youth have about sexuality. (It wasn't hard to get when I grew up - and that was long before the easy availability of the Internet)

The "popular" wisdom these days insists that because we can't stop our children from engaging in pre-marital sex, and because such sex can be dangerous and have bad effects, we should do everything we can to protect our youngsters by vaccinating them against the HPV virus.

Well, Bishop, I'd like for you to reflect upon 2,000 odd years of Church history - and then demonstrate to me how the Church's anti-sex dogma has changed a thing in terms of the activities of youth. There's a small, not so trivial aspect of this picture that you are overlooking - namely the impact of those initial flushes of hormones that are manifest at puberty. Teenagers aren't terribly rational creatures at the best of times, and they are infinitely curious about everything - in particular the bodies of those that they have just discovered to be interesting. This hasn't changed since humankind hid in caves, and I don't exactly expect it to change based on the moralizing idiocy that comes from the pulpit.

Respecting the God-given designs for our sexuality and struggling towards sexual self-mastery is one of the great challenges of our age, and probably of every age. Arguments in favour of widespread availability of the HPV vaccine are emblematic of a collective loss of nerve in the face of powerful libertine pressures within our culture.

Would this be the same "God-given designs" that treat women as property? That blame women for being 'barren' when the husband is firing blanks? The same designs that blame women for being unfaithful to their husbands, but celebrate the man who has multiple wives?

Making the HPV vaccine available has nothing to do with a loss of nerve, rather it has to do with a recognition that if we can do something to prevent a cancer that can kill, that just maybe it's worth doing - because we care about our daughters too.

It infuriates me to no end that the churches insist on attempting to regulate people's sexuality - and do so in a manner that not only suppresses information, but ultimately makes it harder, not easier, for people to deal with not only their sexuality, but the consequences of being a sexual human being. Abstinence only works on paper - as a convenient way of shaming people for doing what comes most naturally to every species of life on this planet. For an idea about just how ultimately ineffective abstinence programs are, consider this essay - which points out, more or less that such programs do little, if anything ultimately to curb teenage hormones and curiousity - and worse, can arguably be accused of contributing to not only higher rates of teen pregnancy and the increased transmission of STIs. No matter how I slice it, the biblical reality cheque just bounced.

As The Veneer of Civility Cracks

I've claimed for a very long time that just below the surface of the CPoC currently sitting on the government benches in Ottawa is the squirming base of intolerance and hardline religious bigotry.

With the CPoC sniffing at majority territory, that base is becoming more vocal - and in particular some of what has been oozing out of the National Post in recent weeks has made this very, very clear. Today's bit of vileness comes to us from via Barbara Kay's wisdom.

In it, she manages to invoke not only the wingnut insanity of the anti-gay religious reich, but also the racism of the KKK.

Three causes preoccupy liberal ideologues: the absolute divestment of morality from all sexuality, the normalization of homosexuality and the eradication of racism. Unfortunately, the hard truth around the spread of HIV/AIDS -- a nightmare trifecta for them -- indicts promiscuous homosexuals and certain African black populations, and tends to acquit sexually prudent heterosexuals.

Why yes, Barbara, it's really all the fault of those nasty gay people who have more than one sexual partner. Ever been to a bar like Cowboys in Calgary? If yo have, then try to tell me that there isn't massive amounts of promiscuity among young heterosexuals as well - with a straight face. (and, unsurprisingly, the GLBT people I know who are over thirty are in established, long term relationships.)

As for the issues in Africa, if you can't recognize those as social and educational problems, then you are similarly naive.

But alas for all those non-judgmental AIDS do-gooders: What has worked best and most rapidly to reduce HIV infection among both homosexuals and promiscuous Africans is partner reduction.

Nice theory. Here's your reality check, Barbara. Societies don't change overnight; and subgroups that are held in an oppressed state will be less likely to conform with the social norms of the broader society. (It's funny how that works - alienate a group of people and then watch them go a totally different direction socially to what you want them to.

Sadly, the other problem that Ms. Kay is blithely overlooking is that HIV is transmitted by more than sexual promiscuity, and once a virus like that is in the wild, it will find ways to survive and propagate - nature's funny that way. That, combined with the fact that in Africa in particular, AIDS is literally killing off an entire generation when they should be at their peak of economic productivity. Hardly a combination that says we should stop treating HIV/AIDS patients, or searching for longer term solutions than the chemical cocktails required to survive the effects of the virus.

Epstein credits the decrease in multiple partners to Uganda's "Love Carefully" and "Zero Grazing" campaigns against casual sex, ubiquitously promoted by politicians and the media.

And yet, although the relevant data was available to the AIDS establishment throughout the decade, Epstein observes, "When independent consultants, some of them hired by UNAIDS [The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS], reported to the agency that partner reduction, not condoms, was largely responsible for Uganda's HIV decline, their reports were ignored or never made public."

Worse, international AIDS "experts" scolded Uganda's National AIDS-Prevention Committee for encouraging sexual restraint, which was believed to be naive and ineffectual. Sadly, as advocacy of fidelity and youthful abstinence was systematically undermined, Uganda's HIV rates began to rise again.

In 2006, UNAIDS publicly acknowledged that partner reduction was pivotal to HIV reduction. It took so long because, in the words of a candid insider: "There was a sense that promoting fidelity must be totally wrong if it was a message favoured by the Christian Right. We've made an emotion-based set of decisions and people have suffered terribly because of that." It seems George Bush was actually on to something in his policy of linking aid money to the encouragement of sexual fidelity.

Unfortunately, this realization has come too late. AIDS establishment elites lied; gay and black AIDS victims died.

Ummm, no, Bush wasn't onto anything that wasn't already part of normal sex ed. The Bush-styled "abstinence only" education tries to bury sexual realities, and in doing so is far more deadly. People make better decisions when they have all of the information, not just the half-baked subset that Bush, and apparently Ms. Kay, want to be made available.

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.

Why Choice Is Important

Since today is Blogging for Choice day, it seems as good a time as any to review my own thoughts on the subject of abortion.

The argument is often made that abortion is wrong, that it is effectively "killing" another human being. I disagree with that stance for a couple of reasons.

First off, pregnancy is a biological process that carries with it significant risks for the woman. If you take the position that terminating a pregnancy is "killing the child", then the corollary stance to that is that you must hold the child responsible for the mother should something catastrophic happen during childbirth.

Obviously, such a stance is fraught with ethical and moral issues throughout, as it presupposes a degree of intent on the child's part; and it further dehumanizes the woman by treating her as a mere vessel once she becomes pregnant - ignoring her status as a thinking, intelligent human being.

The second point I wish to raise extends from the basic recognition that a woman does not give up her faculties and abilities as a human being the moment she becomes pregnant. In no respect is her judgment impaired, or her capacity to reason diminished. To me, this is quite clear, and it means that the woman is ultimately capable of making her own moral and ethical decisions regarding a pregnancy. While we may wish to provide a certain moral framework in which society would want her to frame that decision, it is unquestionably her decision first and foremost.

The last part that I wish to address is the prickly issue of medical abortion itself. Fundamentally, it is a medical procedure, and a relatively recent one at that. While it is a medical procedure, and correctly governed from within the medical profession, we must not lose sight of its origins. For as long as humanity has been around, women have sought to control their fertility - whether it be through abstinence or the use of a variety of techniques to ensure that they avoid becoming pregnant (or ending that pregnancy)

In the years prior to the Roe v Wade decision, safe abortion was available only to those with money. If you weren't sufficiently wealthy and needed an abortion for whatever reason, you fell prey to the questionable ethics of underground operators whose practices ranged from acceptable to downright criminal. While a handful of such operations no doubt still exist, they are relatively rare, and most women have access to relatively safe procedures. (I do not claim that any surgical procedure is inherently "safe" - they all carry some kind of risk, but so does being alive)

In speaking up for a woman's right to choose in these matters, I speak in favour of ensuring that abortion remains accessible and safe. I also speak from the perspective that a woman being pregnant does not alter her intellectual capacity. If we claim that safe abortion (or any other surgical procedure) should be denied to her simply because she is pregnant (and not because of some inherent risk that pregnancy would introduce), we are essentially saying, as a society, that in fact her reasoning capacity is diminished - a claim for which there is no reasonable evidence.

Innovative Thinking - Conservative Style

I heard on CBC this morning that Alberta Health had decided to stop publishing this adolescent sexual health booklet. (Audio here)

The drone from Alberta Health basically argued that because we have an outbreak of syphilis happening, that's more important. I suspect the real problem is that some of dinosaurs in Edmonton have it stuck in their head that this booklet - and several others like it - talk about the "icky bits" of being human, and shouldn't be made available to impressionable young minds. (Hmmm - why might there be an outbreak of syphilis happening - Alberta has a boom, a huge influx of people - an amazing percentage of whom are either single, or living apart from their family for economic reasons - the net result? Well - that's pretty easy to guess)

What they are forgetting is that these booklets are an amazingly inexpensive "ounce of prevention". If our youth are aware some basic facts about their bodies, and hopefully, their emerging sexuality as well, then they are better equipped to survive times like we have right now when an outbreak of some STI is happening.

Of course, the Kleinosaurs in Edmonton don't see this as an "ounce of prevention". Instead, they no doubt want to put forth more of the "God Will Punish You" style of material to scare people, rather than actually educating. (I'll put odds that the rest of the sex ed books will quietly vanish off the government's list, to be replaced by Bush-doctrine crap like "abstinence-only" education.

Abstinence Education meet Reality

Normally, Sun Media columnists have an amazing ability to annoy me. For once, I see a column that I agree with. Mindelle Jacobs writes compellingly on the reasons why "abstinence only" programs that teach an idealized notion of marital fidelity are doomed to fail - sadly at the price of a lot of people's lives.

Dear Bishop Henry: You Don't Play The Game...

... You Don't Make The Rules.

Via Lifesite, we find that Bishop Henry has once again started writing for the Calgary Sun after a hiatus of nearly four months.

This week's column from the good Bishop is a return to his usual tirades about sexuality.

This week, his target of choice is Gardasil, a vaccine that protects people - especially women - from Human Papillomavirus - which causes cancer - cervical cancer in particular. (Yes there are a few cancers that this can cause in males as well, but the incidence rate of these is extremely low)

The Bishop starts off by decrying the use of Condoms - after all, they aren't effective against everything, ya know:

Did he know that although the correct, consistent use of condoms offers a degree of protection against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) transmitted by fluids, condoms do not prevent the spread of the two most common STDs, human papillomavirus (HPV) and genital herpes? Did he care?

Well, no kidding Bishop. I hate to point this out, but condoms were intended to prevent pregnancy first - its a happy coincidence that a condom happens to be an effective barrier against quite a range of STI's - including HPV, by the way - by a significant 70% reduction.

No, apparently an improvement isn't good enough for the Bishop - he wants it to be 100% effective, or he's going to complain that it's "inadequate".

The Bishop then goes on to whine about the cost of the vaccinations:

Furthermore, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization says females aged 14 to 26 should also be vaccinated against human papillomavirus even if already sexually active because they may not have yet been infected.

Seemingly, the big question now is who will pay? Girls must receive the injection three times for it to be effective totalling a cost of $405 per patient.

Yes, it would be such a waste of money to take preventive measures to ensure that our young women don't get cervical cancer from HPV, after all the ones who do must clearly have been immoral, promiscuous little things, mustn't they? Of course, the Bishop conveniently ignores the fact that MALES can carry HPV too, although usually without health consequences. Which leads me to the obvious point - how many thousands would we save treating cancer patients if we didn't spend that $400 / patient?

Rather than ask "who should pay?" we'd be further ahead to address the primary behaviour that predisposes individuals to sexually acquired infections.

Parents, physicians, educators, and governing bodies should adopt an approach that addresses sexual attitudes and behaviours recommending delayed genital sexual activity and partner reduction.

Oh yes, the oh-so "effective" abstinence programs. You know - the ones that have resulted in an increase in teenage pregnancies and STI transmission rates in the United States - especially in the "bible belt" regions.

Yes, Bishop, it is important to teach our children good moral and ethical behaviour. As parents and adults, we are also equally remiss if we fail to teach our children the realities and facts. Sooner or later, our children leave our nests and become adults in their own right. I'd personally be a lot happier if more of them actually understood their sexuality honestly, and knew enough to ask their physicians to help them protect themselves.

I'll tell you what Bishop - when you figure out a way to cure the cancers that HPV causes, then I'll consider your arguments against Gardasil and contraception in general. In the meantime, I'll take a flawed, but at least somewhat practical approach forward. (One that acknowledges the cold, hard realities of our world)

Just How Effective Is Abstinence Only Policy?

Not very, it would seem. 95% of Americans have engaged in premarital sex.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

Which more or less blows an infinitely huge hole in the Forced-Birth movement's arguments that sex education that talks about the use of contraceptives and other topics has promoted all sorts of social evils.

The basic statement is that the puritan notion of abstinence has a very limited amount of mileage - no big surprise to most, really.

The AIDS Conference and Conservative Disengagement

A great deal of criticism has been levelled at the International AIDS Conference that wrapped up in Toronto this past week.

A number of commentators have observed that too much of the coverage looked decidedly like things had been taken over by celebrity names such as Bill Clinton or Bill Gates.

While I agree that the "main hall" events of the conference had took on a distinctly "photo op" appearance, with speeches clearly geared to "large audiences", a perusal of the conference program paints a much different picture, with a plethora of sessions focused on all different aspects of the issues that HIV/AIDS presents. (If you are sufficiently interested, webcasts and presentation slides have now been posted on that site)

The disengagement of the CPC government with respect to the conference is disturbing for quite a number of reasons. First, it signals to the public that a major public health issue is not something this government is willing to address.

However, even more troubling is the elliptical comments from Tony Clement, Minister of Health, in regards to the conference. The assertion that "no rational debate" was possible worries me - it's hard to imagine what "rational debate" the CPC is talking about. For example, just what do they claim is debatable - that HIV/AIDS is killing people? Or, in a country like Canada, putting them on lifelong diets of drug cocktails that are no fun to live with.

A review of the CPC's Policy on Health shows a position that is deliberately vague and evasive in a great many dimensions, one that stays away from any hard statements except for this paragraph:

57. Assisted Human Reproduction and Related Research

The Conservative Party recognizes the need for federal regulation in assisted human reproduction and related research. This field should be governed by principles that respect human individuality, integrity, dignity and life. In recognition of the ethical and scientific concerns around research using human embryos, we support an initial three-year prohibition on embryonic research, and call on the federal government to encourage its granting agencies to focus on more promising adult (post-natal) stem cell research.

This is pretty much a rehash of the BushCo position on this subject.

Then, poking around the news this morning, I tripped across this article blathering about abstinence only sex ed program results. It's talking primarily about an American study, and one that only followed the students for two years (a relatively short period of time, especially when you are talking about teenagers who are growing and changing quite rapidly). There's two things about this article I find striking - one, it's appearance in an obviously conservative media outlet, second is the timing of its release, right in the middle of the AIDS conference itself. Of course the cited study fails to account for the long term price of ignorance - which is now emerging as an increasing rate of HIV infection in parts of Africa that had experienced major declines in their infection rates.

As Tom Paine.com points out, the abstinence only sex ed discussion is deeply troubling when one considers what these programs leave out. US Government policy surrounding the funding of NGO AIDS prevention programs in other countries is written in a way that effectively prohibits teaching about condoms and other effective birth and disease control techniques.

When Clement starts claiming that "rational debate" isn't possible, I have to wonder if it really doesn't boil down to another case of sucking up to the teat of BushCo favour, but not wanting to admit it publicly.

As commentor "Quixote" pointed out on his personal blog, the government is conduction "Stealth Consultations" online. I suspect that like a lot of the Alberta Governments "public consultations", this one is designed to restrict the respondents (by being online, you've already restricted your sample to the part of the public this is "online", and the subset of those people who are willing and able to trawl through the government's website looking for these things. (Notably the government's main web presence doesn't even hint at this consultation's existence)

With a government whose desire to be secretive about what they really represent, one has to be cautious when obscure phrases like "no rational debate" are used. I suspect strongly that the CPC is rather inclined to lean towards "abstinence only" sex education.

BTW - I don't disagree with teaching abstinence - I disagree with teaching that without teaching about other aspects of the subject. Teens need to understand topics like the use of various forms of birth control in honest terms, as well as some of the psychological aspects of sexuality. Abstinence by itself is inadequate, and is more of a "head-in-sand" approach to the whole topic - one that ultimately does not achieve the desired goals in terms of public health.

Exploring the Irrational - Next Chapter

Back here I spent a goodly amount of time dissecting an attempt at a non-religious argument against SGM. A return visit today turns up the next part of this screed posted.

Having already established that the author is not really writing against SGM, but in fact is writing against both feminism and the sexual revolution, there will no doubt be some more amusing assumptions.

3. It will drive a deeper wedge between man and woman. ...In my own lifetime I have witnessed the last petering out of a tradition of song and poetry that had lasted eight hundred years, from the troubadours of Provence to its last and decadent efflorescence among the rockers of the 1960’s.

In the continuing saga of linking unrelated topics, the author is clearly claiming that the elegant poetry and music he so personally admires is dying out, and is blaming it all on feminism and sexual liberty. Quite an amazing reach frankly. Although I don't care for some of the music that today's teens listen to, I'd hardly call poetry and love songs "dead".

Oh, wait, now we get to the author's attempt to link this back to SGM:

It is simple: the acceptance of homosexuality is predicated upon the tacit assumption that male and female are not made for one another. It defines male apart from female, female apart from male; or it leaves those terms free-floating, without definition. Young men and young women already are growing up without understanding what they are to be for one another.

Wow - that's quite a leap. From love songs to gender and social identity, the author then claims that allowing homosexual people to marry is going to rip asunder people's natural sense of self and their attraction to one another. That's one hell of a huge semantic leap to make. Of course, the author is assuming that the social changes he is so worried about can be isolated to a single cause. It is a sadly naive oversimplification to assume such things - human society is far more subtle and nuanced than a single-cause explanation of any phenomenon will allow for. I doubt that SGM is going to cause the 95% of the population that is heterosexual to lose their sense of identity...

Leaping from the politics of music and identity, the author makes yet another tenuous link, blaming declining birth rates on the changes of the last few decades:

In no western country does the birth rate now assure even a replacement of one generation by the next; in many countries, the birth rate is so low as to constitute a slow and numb despair, a resignation to cultural suicide.

The argument that the birth rate is too low to replace the current population is horribly flawed. Among other things, it ignores the "baby boom" population bubble that has been trickling through since WWII ended. While this will no doubt create numerous challenges for society, it seems horrendously naive to blame birth rate issues on the feminist and gender revolutions - and it is virtually impossible to see how allowing homosexuals to marry would cause marriage to end. If marriage is truly as endangered as these people think, then perhaps allowing SGM is the best thing we can do as a society, for the example becomes one that couples get married.

Moving right along, the author then claims:

4. It makes a mockery of chastity.

I just can't get over this one. The "anti-gay" lobby has squawked incessantly about how promiscuous gays are, and when the gays want to enter into marriage, with all of its social implications around fidelity and chastity, they complain about how allowing this will be the end of this "value" - the illogic is astounding. Does this moron think that homosexual spouses don't feel betrayed when one of the pair "plays around" outside of the couple? Look at "standard" Christian marriage vows - among them are clear commitments to monogamy and faithfulness. How in the world is allowing SGM going to change that?

... Chastity is the virtue of using one’s sexual desires properly. Since the act that is biologically designed to produce babies has the predictable propensity to, well, produce babies, and since the desire to perform that act is one of man’s strongest and most violent drives,...

Hang on a second here - once again, we return to the underlying anti-feminism/anti-sexual revolution screed of this argument. Sex might be "about making babies" on some biological level, but that doesn't explain why it is wired into the pleasure centers of the brain of both sexes, does it? God knows, if this were the case, women would _want_ to be pregnant all the time - and I cannot think of a single woman I have ever met that wants to be perpetually pregnant.

Unlike the author's last rant, he does try to tie chastity back to the gay marriage debate:

In particular, how can we even talk about chastity when we accept homosexuality? For a homosexual defines himself or herself by the action. A teenager calls himself homosexual because he has performed homosexual acts. It is utterly incoherent to suppose that we can ever recommend to “straight” teenagers a chastity that must be violated by the homosexual in order for him to define himself as such. What homosexual could possibly “wait until marriage,” even if such “marriages” were made legal?

This paragraph is amazingly rich in its stupidity - allow me to dissect it one piece at a time:

First, is the assumption about homosexual identity. I can't even begin to describe the stupidity of this assertion - how is it that a homosexual would identify themselves in terms of "the act", and a heterosexual would not? The assumption is ludicrously false. Talk to a few homosexuals for a while, and you will quickly realize that they define their sexual identity in terms of romantic interest, not sexual acts. They often struggle with the fact that they are "different" for years, but their core identity as people is hardly centered around mere sexual acts. This is, of course, the classic conservative christian screed that the homosexual identity is a matter of choice and couldn't possibly be rooted in someone's core identity - an assertion that I argue is unreasonable and untenable when confronted methodically.

The next statement is the classic "virgin at marriage" issue. Since society has rarely expected males to be virgin at marriage, it's fairly safe to assume that this really is an anti-feminist argument at its roots. In the past, and in many cultures, not being a virgin at marriage could be fatal to a young woman. It's an amazingly naive assumption to believe that people don't have sex before marriage, and even more naive to believe that women are any less sexual creatures than men. (Of course, there's no "easy" way to tell if a young man is "still a virgin" - and in an era where sex toys are readily available, a young woman might well fail the "standard" virginity test, even if she has never taken a lover. Goodness knows, we can't have women enjoying themselves, can we? I don't deny chastity, nor do I despise it - but I'm also not so incredibly naive as to believe that who someone loves has anything to do with their ability and desire to be faithful to that individual. Chastity is akin to "abstinence" sex ed rules - it's a truism to say that it works, but it is another thing altogether to assume that humanity as a whole practices it. Again, I point repeatedly to the double standard applied to men and women through many societies past and present - and I must conclude that chastity is at best an ideal, and far from being a practical reality.

Once again, the reasoning presented in these latest two arguments is mostly irrational button-pushing that assumes causal relationships that are nearly impossible to prove. Linking, for example, chastity to SGM is possibly among the most ridiculous of connections - based in an understanding of gender and sexuality that predates modern psychology. (and ignores practical, observable reality)

Just as people used to believe that a dead animal generated flies (quite wrongly), the conservatives claim (equally wrongly) that all of society's ills are caused by some specific evil. It amazes me how allowing one social minority group to participate in the greater body of society can be argued as leading to the destruction of all we know.

Society changes - that is perhaps the one constant in our world. No society has remained static for any length of time. Human knowledge grows, and our understanding of the world grows with it. Knowledge itself brings change. Just as we laugh today at the notion of the world as a flat disc, it seems to me equally foolish to blame feminism, the sexual revolution or gay rights of "society's demise" - society is not ending, it is evolving - and like all human endeavors it is imperfect.

The Consequences of Abstinence Only Policy

The consequences of the conservative right-wing approach to sex education is becoming rather clear in the United States.

We aren't talking about a simple failure here, but instead of an approach whose failures are so glaring that they are costing people their lives.

In Alabama - a deeply conservative and religious state - the latest legislation regarding HIV and Aids is known as the Abstinence Bill.

But Michelle Lampkin, an awareness campaigner who is herself HIV positive, said that young people are having sex "whether you want to believe it or not."

She told Analysis she has tried advising young people to wear condoms, but is accused of "promoting teenagers to have sex."

"I'm not - what I'm doing is to help to protect them," she argued.

Meanwhile, statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta show that, while Aids is still thought of by some as a disease primarily affecting the gay community and drug users, the biggest risk to women comes from heterosexual partners - husbands or boyfriends who do not know or do not tell their HIV status.

The point here is simple - AIDS is a disease. It is not a punishment from God for "immoral" behaviour - any more than Katrina was. The simple cold reality is that AIDS doesn't care about its victims gender, sexual orientation or anything else. Period.

Any education policy that provides the very information and knowledge that can protect people from the risks is better than nothing - even if it is imperfect. While abstinence is unquestionably effective, it doesn't work - not when you are talking about the mobile hormone factories that are adolescents and young adults.

Conservative "Justice" Policy

Stephen Harper - along with his advisors - needs a swift kick upside the head. Today, the CPC unveiled it's Get Tough on Crime policy.

Key features:

- Mandatory minimum sentences
- More police on the streets
- Increase the age of consent from 14 to 16
- Mandatory "adult" sentences for 'serious' crimes committed over the age of 14
- Expanded Mandate for CSIS (to include overseas activity - and goodness knows what else)
- Arm border guards
- Re-establishment of the Canadian Border Police to combat drug smuggling
- Shut down the Federal Gun Registry

Let's think about this collection of issues carefully for a moment.

1) Where's the money going to come from to expand our prisons? Mandatory minimum sentences are going to increase the load on our entire justice system - from police on the street through to prisons and probation officers.

2) Under Conservative thinking, a fourteen year old isn't smart enough to engage in sex (they do), but can be held as an adult for criminal activities?

- which is it people? At the age of fourteen, someone is either aware of their actions and can take responsibility for them, or they're not.

3) Last I checked the Youth Justice act provides mechanisms to handle offenders as adults even if they are under the age of 18. These are tools at the hands of the police and crown to use as needed. It seems to me that an 'automatic' tool simply handcuffs our law enforcement officials by imposing a politically expedient policy on all situations.

4) Expanding CSIS's mandate does not strike me as a useful thing to do. Given the recent fiasco in the United States over George Bush's little "spy on the neighbors" program, I have to think that Canada would do well to keep its spy agencies on a fairly short leash. (come to that I'm not at all sure I want Canada giving itself the mandate to operate extraterritorially without specific parliamentary supervision at the moment)

5) Arming the Border Guards and resurrecting the Canadian Border Police strikes me as a phenomenal waste of time and resources. Border agents are generally not dealing with criminals, and arming them really just leaves things open to bigger problems - especially without the significant training that police have in dealing civilian populations.

As for the "Canadian Border Police", I thought they got folded into the RCMP. Canada doesn't need "another police force" so much as it _might_ be beneficial to expand the RCMP.

6) Shutting down the Gun Registry is nothing more than a play pandering to the Alberta Redneck population. (The same people that really do want a gun rack in their truck...) Thanks, but no thanks. Registering a gun is no different to me than registering a car - get over it.

I don't believe that the registered gun discourages the criminal particularly, but the rest of the laws around storing the weapons does a lot to defuse domestic violence before it gets out of hand.

Oh yes - the Conservatives claim that they will "invest" in "programs to help at-risk youth avoid getting involved in gangs and drugs". Uh-huh - will this be like GWB's lovely "abstinence-only" sex ed policy in the states?

So, it's really about discrimination, isn't it?

I just caught a brief note on CBC's hourly news mentioning that James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" organization has decided to stop doing business with the Wells Fargo bank.

The reasons? It seems that Dobson's group objects to the fact that Wells Fargo has anything at all to do with the GLBT communities in the markets they serve:

The aim is to give gay and lesbian companies more business, but they don’t stop there. They are also interested in gay youth.

“They also have given money to Gay and Lesbian Youth Center; they’ve given money to Family Pride Coalition, which advocates adoption for same sex couples.”

In 2003 alone, Wells Fargo gave $2.1 million to more than 95 non-profit agencies serving the homosexual community. That brings their total giving since the 1980’s to more than $14 million. Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family.

Dear God! How could Wells Fargo be so immoral? I don't know - perhaps because they figured out that doing business visibly with marginalized communities is actually good for business in the long run. Heaven forbid that they might actually do something that might help these people.

Then, Dobson's organization goes on to say:

“We have to do business with some companies because there are no alternatives. All you can do is refuse to do business with those who are most aggressive in terms of promoting that lifestyle.”
Focus on the Family is sympathetic to the homosexual community but opposes the radical agenda by activists. The ministry will be switching all its banking to First National Bank Omaha, described as a family-friendly institution.

I see...once again we are treated to the classic "I have no problem with group X, but..." argument. To which the only response is Bullshit! - all that line of "yabbut" reasoning is doing is attempting to self-justify an otherwise untenable piece of irrational logic.

Like the recent Vatican policy on homosexuality in the Church, Focus on the Family's real intent is to restore the "old order" that puts the "Christian Family" (whatever that really is) above all others in society, and self-justifies their desire to marginalize others who are for one reason or another are "different", whether by gender, ethnic tradition or whatever.

With organizations like FOTF attempting to inject themselves into Canada's political dialogue, it's very important to recognize what they really are, and who they back politically. These are not organizations which look forward, they are organizations that look to the past and idealize it. They like the idea of being able to marginalize people based on their sexuality, gender, ethnicity or whatever other arbitrary criteria they can derive from scripture.

Now - that means if you are not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (Fundamentalist) Male, you can look forward to being marginalized by these clowns. If you are female, gay, black, whatever, you can expect to see your rights to participate fully in society withdrawn either implicitly or explicitly. Do we want a government that is being influenced by such open minds as these? In the current United States government, it's organizations like this that push "abstinence-only" sex education programs; fight tooth and nail against abortion rights (actually, reproductive rights period). Similarly, these organizations also inject themselves into the education system on matters such as science education. Really - do we want to spool the social clock all the way back to the Dark Ages after the collapse of the Roman Empire?

Oh Fer Crying Out Loud!

Stephen Harper demonstrates once again that he has the originality of thought that accompanies a pavlovian-trained dog.

A Conservative government would legislate mandatory minimum prison sentences of at least two years for people convicted of serious drug offences, party leader Stephen Harper said on Saturday.

The terms would apply to people convicted of trafficking, manufacturing or importing hard drugs, such as heroin, cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, Harper said during an election stop in Burnaby, B.C.

His party would also introduce mandatory prison time for anyone convicted of running marijuana grow operations.

He said his party would ban conditional sentences and house arrest for serious and repeat drug offenders.

In yet another example of "let's follow the United States", Harper is proposing harsh "minimum sentence" guidelines for drug offences. Brilliant! How original! Let's duplicate the absolutely brain damaged philosophy of a "war on drugs" that the United States has used with such stunning success. In the United States, there are people sitting in prisons for ten, twenty or life sentences - often for first time drug offences. The US "war on drugs" approach has had no more effect than to increase the size of the US prison population into the millions.

I'm not saying don't enforce the laws, nor am I saying that producers and traffickers shouldn't face serious penalties. However, it is folly to believe that harsher laws will make the issue go away. We need to address drug use not just through criminal sanctions, but also through the social conditions that drive people towards drug use. I will point out that we have been much more successful in dealing with tobacco use and alcohol abuse by education and support programs. (anyone else recall the spectacular failure of the "prohibition era" in constraining alcohol use?)

It amazes me how often the conservative mind seems to lean towards addressing problems with prohibitions. Whether it is "stricter" sentencing for criminal cases, "abstinence" sex-ed plans, or whatever - they seem to default to punishing people rather than actually examining the situation and understanding how those people got there.

Once again, the Conservatives have gone over to the discard pile of wood and pulled another rotting plank out to use in their election platform. This time, it's old, weathered and provably stupid policy. (It's been tried, and aside from being "good electioneering", utterly ineffective)