Politics
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Friday February 13, 2009
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Print- Brazilian Government Says 99% of Citizens Are "Homophobic" and Must Be Reeducated
- Italian Left Launches "Living Wills" Euthanasia Campaign in the Wake of Eluana Englaro Crisis
- On the Tragic Self-Deceit of the Human Race
- Obama Close to Selecting Child Porn Lawyer Ogden
- Pro-Abortion Nancy Pelosi to Meet Pope - HLI Says "Excommunicate the Speaker"
- Utah Governor Voices Support for Homosexual Civil Unions
- Indian Supreme Court to Examine Abortion Law
- Queen's University Drops "Speech Police" Idea after Investigation
- Papal Postulator Relates Vicious Media Bias against Catholic Church
- Lawsuit Filed after Professor Calls Student 'Fascist Bastard' for Sharing Beliefs on Faith and Marriage
- B.C. School Board Allows Pro-Homosexualist Social Justice Course after Human Rights Complaint
- New York Times Bias Exposed Again as Company Caught in Donation to Planned Parenthood
Brazilian Government Says 99% of Citizens Are "Homophobic" and Must Be Reeducated
TODAY'S HEADLINES
By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
BRASILIA, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Brazilian government has determined that 99% of its citizens are "homophobic," and therefore must be reeducated, according to the Brazilian newspaper O Globo.
The results are taken from a study that tested for "homophobia" by asking people to comment on such statements as "God made men and women with different sexes so that they could fulfill their role and have children." The 92% of Brazilians who agreed partially or completely with the statement were labeled "homophobic."
Another test question for "homophobia" was, "Homosexuality is a sin against the laws of God." Fifty-eight percent of Brazilians agreed.
Those who agreed partially or completely that "Homosexuality is an illness that should be treated" (41%) were also labeled "homophobic," as were those who objected to homosexuals kissing and hugging in public (64%).
According to O Globo, Brazil's federal government will use the data "to plan new policies, and warns that it has now detected a dark consequence of so much prejudice: intolerance." The study was performed by an organization linked to the socialist Labor Party, which currently occupies the nation's executive branch and predominates in the legislature.
"There's no way [for the government] not to involve itself, because intolerance must manifest itself in crimes, including crimes committed by agents of the government," said Paulo Biagi, coordinator of the government's official "Brazil Without Homophobia" campaign.
Biagi says that the government will now begin to "rearticulate" the case for its proposed "anti-homophobia" law, which would make it illegal to criticize homosexual behavior in Brazil.
In addition, the government will be launching the National Plan for the Promotion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Citizens in May. It will also soon initiate a television campaign to combat "homophobia" in conjunction with ten other Latin American countries.
"What is surprising is how a population that is 99% against homosexuality is accepting passively that its 100% pro-homosexuality government is lifting homosexual acts to the level of inviolable sacredness," wrote Brazilian pro-family activist Julio Severo on his blog, Last Days Watchman, "and at the same time it is lowering 99% of Brazilians to the class of 'ignorant mob' that should be forcefully condemned to state policies of reeducation,"
Related Links:
"Study" in the Brazilian newspaper O Globo: 99% Brazilians do not accept homosexuality
http://lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com/2009/02/study-in-brazilian-newspaper-o-glob...
In Portuguese:
http://juliosevero.blogspot.com/2009/02/pesquisa-no-jornal-o-globo-indica-99.htm...
Related LifeSiteNews coverage:
Brazilian President: Opposition to Homosexuality is a "Perverse Disease"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jun/08060904.html
Brazilian Government Punishes Dissenters of Pro-Homosexuality Policy
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/mar/08032702.html
Brazilian Homosexuals File "Hate" Charges Against Brazilian Christians
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112805.html
Brazil Attacks Against Family Defenders Backed by Pro-Homosexual Regime of Nation's President
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07073108.html
Back to TopItalian Left Launches "Living Wills" Euthanasia Campaign in the Wake of Eluana Englaro Crisis
By Hilary White
ROME, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Italian legislators are said to be quietly dropping a proposed measure that would have prohibited the withdrawal of food and hydration from comatose patients after the death of Eluana Englaro.
While Eluana herself was being buried in a Catholic ceremony in her native village of Lecco, the Italian government turned its attention to pending legislation on "living wills" that many fear will usher in a legal situation that will make cases such as hers more common. Direct euthanasia remains illegal in Italy, but the removal of food and hydration remains a contested issue, and no direct action was taken in the case of Eluana to stop her killing.
Although under Italian law a patient, or a patient's guardian, can refuse treatment, it remains to be seen if food and hydration will be regarded as medical treatment under the new law, which is heavily favored by the left.
Italian novelist Umberto Eco, in an article published in the left-leaning La Repubblica daily supporting the euthanasia push, wrote, "Now that this young woman is dead, we can talk about these problems without fear of behaving like a stalking jackal around a suffering body."
Mina Welby, a euthanasia campaigner, said today that the living wills legislation is necessary to avoid a repeat of the Eluana Englaro situation. Welby, a spokesman for the far-left Luca Coscioni Association, a group that campaigns for euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research, announced an all-out campaign for the living wills law, starting with a Resolution to be presented to the Rome municipal government.
"We turn to individuals, associations, movements: we will collect signatures in the Catholic world, parties, Universities and among foreigners: this is a battle of civilisation and everybody is included," she said.
"If approved, this resolution will have immediate effect, allowing citizens to make their choices regarding health treatment public. What has happened to Eluana, for whom it took 17 years of appealing to have her will recognised by the courts, will not happen again," said Mario Staderini, of the extreme left Italian Radical Party.
Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, a former leader of Italy's now-defunct Communist party, said during the crisis over Eluana that the solution to these kinds of cases is to institute the living wills legislation. Napolitano was accused by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of having contributed to Eluana's death by his refusal to endorse an emergency "decree law" last Friday that would have halted the dehydration process.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Italian PM Accuses President of Complicity with Murder
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09021001.html
On the Tragic Self-Deceit of the Human Race
Column by John Jalsevac
February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A while back Cardinal Egan wrote an uncharacteristically scathing column, which is one of the best I have ever read on the abortion issue, certainly by a bishop. In it he included these few lines: "If you can convince yourself that these beings (unborn children) are something other than living and innocent human beings, something, for example, such as 'mere clusters of tissues,' you have a problem far more basic than merely not appreciating the wrongness of abortion. And that problem is - forgive me - self-deceit in a most extreme form."
Human beings are extraordinarily adept at self-deceit, which is witnessed to by the fact that whole generations have periodically convinced themselves of things that are laughably (but often tragically) false, even when all the evidence points otherwise. Usually this is accomplished because the prevalent lie of the age happens to be a convenient one, and to think contrary to what is fashionable would spoil one's groove.
For instance, I often meditate upon the fact that not a few highly intelligent men and women (not to mention a lot of the rabble) convinced themselves not so very long ago that members of other less-developed civilizations were "sub-human," and could, therefore, be treated according to one's whims. Hence the institution of slavery, which was thought to be an extremely groovy institution by people who made bundles of cash off of it, and even by those who didn't profit at all, but were simply taken in by the propaganda.
I often idly wonder if I would have been one of those working alongside William Wilberforce. Would I have been fighting against all the odds to abolish the slave trade, or would I have been one of the complacent, or even (God forbid) one of the complicit? It is not so straight-forward a speculation as I would like to think. We like to forget (because of what it might say about us) that William Wilberforce was an anomaly, an almost solitary voice of contradiction, a single bolt of lightning in the midst of a seething black sky. In the end he may indeed have lighted the whole world, but it was only after he nearly killed himself in the effort to galvanize his compatriots into action.
There is a scene in the movie "The Mission," in which the Jesuit priests working amongst the South American natives present to a visiting Cardinal and his retinue a native child, who sings for them a convincing rendition of Ave Maria. The priests arranged this performance to demonstrate that the natives could perform well and with feeling the most elevated of art, and were, therefore, just as spiritual and human as anybody else.
Of course, the wily slave traders denounce the whole performance as a sham, observing that a beast could be trained to do the same, which was only the first of their many lies. But it is well to remember that this very same tragic scene was going on all over the world at that time, in many of the colonies. And the slave traders were considered the popular ones, while the puritanical objectors mere gnats buzzing in the face of progress and profit.
Vision is 20/20 in retrospect, and now we all rightly wonder at this monstrous blind spot in the collective conscience of the colonial West. But it is mere fantasy to suppose that some of us wouldn't have been taken in by the lie, if we had lived then. And the same goes for every other great lie in history.
Now, I happen to have a wife, and she happens to be pregnant. (But, before I explain my reasons for bringing her up, I feel I must dispense with an objection. Paul Johnson proclaims as law in his essay, "the art of writing a column," which I just read last night, that a columnist ought never to mention his wife in print. However, I observe that Johnson also lays out a scad of other rules, and, as far as I can tell he violates every single one of them, often. For instance, he wrote that a columnist should never talk down to his readers, but if anyone talks down it is Johnson, which is perhaps the very reason he is so popular. He also strongly proscribed against name-dropping, but after I read the essay in which he nonchalantly spoke of the time he kissed Margaret Thatcher, I began to suspect something of the humbug in him. Hence, I have thought it admissible to forego his advice.)
And so, back to my wife. As I say, she is pregnant, just recently into the third trimester, and therefore exceedingly uncomfortable. Now, I have never had a wife before, let alone one that is pregnant. Like most men, prior to discovering my own fatherhood, I never paid much attention to pregnant women, whom I thought strange and mysterious creatures that I could not hope to understand. And so now I am learning very many things, not the least of which is that they are much more strange and mysterious than I could have imagined.
One thing that I have been most astonished by, however, is just how present the baby has been. We began to be able to feel its movements quite strongly only 17 weeks into the pregnancy. And in recent weeks he seems to be positively in training for the Golden Gloves boxing match. I can even see when he or she (we have decided against finding out the sex) moves now, which I did not expect and is an odd experience.
The baby reacts to all sorts of things, including voices and light. Once I turned on the stereo and it came on unexpectedly loud, and the baby jumped all of a sudden, startled by the sudden noice. You can feel the baby's head, and feet and hands, and sometimes when you push against its hands or feet, he pushes back as if to say, "Please give me some peace in here. It is the only nine months of peace I am likely ever to have."
It is at such moments as these, when I feel this tiny fist resisting my own intruding finger, that I think soberly of the many women with children, or married men, including many politicians and journalists and other important and intelligent and influential people, who vociferously defend, not simply abortion, but late-term and partial-birth abortion, under the pretense that the fetus is a "blob of tissue," or "sub-human" in some other way. And at such times I can only think of that South American child beautifully singing the Ave Maria, oblivious to the fact that he was singing for the very existence of his race.
The President of the United States is a married man with two children. He has also been one of the most outspoken defenders of all abortions, including partial-birth abortions. I wonder then, did he ever take the time while his wife was pregnant to notice what pregnancy was like? Surely Barack has sat on the sofa with Michelle, as I have done with my wife, and watched as his child's fists imprinted themselves on his wife's belly in a sudden flurry of punches. Was he not moved? Did he not, even for a moment, question himself? And somehow we have convinced ourselves that Obama is the great, indeed, the model family man.
Ay, we humans are very adept at self-deception.
Obama Close to Selecting Child Porn Lawyer Ogden
By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Senate Judiciary committee has prolonged the decision-making process in regard to ratifying David W. Ogden as Obama's pick for deputy attorney general.
The Senate was expected to have voted on Ogden after a committee hearing last week, but the vote has been delayed until after the Senate's recess next week.
Ogden is considered a controversial pick for the office, due to the fact that he represented several media groups to challenge provisions of the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1988 and the Child Protection Restoration and Penalties Enhancement Act of 1990.
He has argued that requiring the pornography industry to personally verify that models were no younger than 18 would "burden too heavily and infringe too deeply on the right to produce First Amendment protected material."
Ogden also submitted a Supreme Court brief on behalf of the ACLU that defended a man convicted under the federal child pornography statute on account of the man's videotapes, titled "Little Girl Bottoms (Underside)" and "Little Blondes," which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had found "clearly were designed to pander to pedophiles." Ogden argued that the man should not be prosecuted because they are technically not pornography under the Constitution.
One of Ogden's past clients is PHE, Inc., the largest distributor of hard-core porn videos in the U.S., which has distributed DVDs with titles that include terms such as "School girls," "Bubblegum cuties," "Sweet young things," "Young Girls," and "Fresh and Young."
When Ogden appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, he distanced himself from his history, saying, "I believe that child pornography laws are extremely important. Child pornography is abhorrent."
However, Brian Burch, president of the pro-family watchdog organization Fidelis, expressed little confidence in what he termed Ogden's "confirmation conversion."
"David Ogden is a hired gun from Playboy and the ACLU. He can't run from his long record of opposing common sense laws protecting families, women and children," said Burch. "The United States Senate has a responsibility to the American people to insure that Mr. Ogden's full record is fully reviewed before any vote on his nomination."
"Now, as pornography spreads like a virus, commandeering our homes, schools, entertainment and public spaces, women and children can expect the same justice from lawyers who serve Big Porno that blacks got from lawyers who served Jim Crow," warned child pornography expert Dr. Judy Reisman in a WorldNetDaily column. "David Ogden cannot bite the pornography hands that have fed him, nor can his handpicked team."
To see Fidelis' dossier on Ogden:
http://www.scribd.com/full/11607068?access_key=key-18yr2u50t...
To contact your senators regarding the Ogden appointment:
U.S. Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
See previous LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Obama Picks Porn Lawyer for #2 at Justice
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/feb/09020401.html
Pro-Abortion Nancy Pelosi to Meet Pope - HLI Says "Excommunicate the Speaker"
By Kathleen Gilbert
WASHINGTON, D.C, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Reports have surfaced that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a self-avowed "Catholic" adamant abortion supporter, intends to head a delegation to Euope that will meet with Pope Benedict XVI.
Today the Drudge Report headlined a report by Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) on Houston's KSEV radio that Pelosi hopes to pass the federal economic stimulus bill in time for her join the group, which reportedly leaves Friday evening.
According to Il Tempo, Pelosi will arrive in Rome Sunday afternoon, her first visit to the city since becoming Speaker of the House. It has not been determined when Ms. Pelosi plans to meet the Pope.
Speaker Pelosi has drawn severe criticism from Catholic leaders for her misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine in light of her extreme pro-abortion position.
In a Meet the Press appearance last August, Pelosi justified her support for abortion despite professing Catholicism by saying that "the doctors of the Church haven't been able to make that definition" on whether life begins at conception.
"The point is, is that it shouldn't have an impact on the woman's right to choose," she continued. "This isn't about abortion on demand, it's about a careful, careful consideration of all factors and - to - that a woman has to make with her doctor and her god."
In September Pelosi's bishop, Archbishop Niederauer of San Francisco, invited her to discuss witih him the abortion issue. Pelosi stated she would "welcome the opportunity," but there is no report of Pelosi having yet scheduled a meeting with the archbishop.
Fr. Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (HLI), told LifeSiteNews.com that HLI will be briefing the Vatican "so they are aware of her dismal record on life issues.
"It is our hope that the Holy Father will not grant the floundering Speaker of the House what she surely wants and expects, a quick and valuable photo-op, but will rather give her a stern lecture on contraception and abortion and let her know that her eternal salvation is in danger," said Fr. Euteneuer.
"Further, this would be the perfect opportunity to formally excommunicate the Speaker, as she has done everything a public official possibly can to declare her lack of communion with the Holy Father and the Roman Catholic Church on every conceivable issue."
See related LifeSiteNews.com articles:
"Catholic" Speaker Pelosi Denies that Catholicism Condemns Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082502.html
Pelosi Spokeswoman About-face: Catholic Church "Clear" on Life Teaching After All - But Catholics Need Not Listen
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082706.html
Cardinals, Bishops and Congressmen Slam Pelosi on Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08082601.html
Utah Governor Voices Support for Homosexual Civil Unions
By Kathleen Gilbert
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr. has caused a stir by voicing his support for homosexual civil unions.
Huntsman says he supports civil unions and many of the bills in a package known as the Common Ground Initiative, which is backed by the homosexual rights group, Equality Utah. The package is designed to extend certain marriage privileges to homosexual and other unmarried couples.
"I had many discussions about Amendment 3 with many legal experts who informed me that individual rights, equal rights, could be taken up to the level of civil unions without compromising traditional marriage, which is something I believe in," Huntsman said in an Associated Press interview. "I believe in the traditional definition of marriage, but I also believe that we can do a better job in enhancing equal rights for more of our citizens."
"He's long supported many of the ideas that are presented within the Common Ground Initiative," said the Republican governor's spokeswoman, Lisa Roskelley. "He supports civil unions."
Rep. Jackie Biskupski, D-Salt Lake City, one of the sponsors of the Common Ground bills, praised Huntsman's stance. "Wow. That's absolutely fantastic. I wish the rest of the state felt the same way," she said.
Conservative legislators reacted with dismay at the news. "I'm very disappointed in the governor's stance. Civil union is really tantamount to marriage," said Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights. "It's 'gay marriage lite."'
According to a recent Salt Lake Tribune poll, 70% of Utah residents oppose civil unions.
58% of adult Utah residents identify as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormon Church, which has been a leader in promoting pro-family culture and laws.
Pro-family critics say that Huntsman's favor of civil unions violates Amendment 3, the state's constitutional ban against legally recognized unions other than true marriage.
Amendment 3 states that, "Marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman," and that, "No other domestic union, however denominated, may be recognized as a marriage or given the same or substantially equivalent legal effect." Huntsman had supported Amendment 3 when it passed into law in 2004.
News of Gov. Huntsman's position evoked a strong response from both sides of the debate.
A pro-homosexualist crowd gathered in vigil outside the governor's mansion to thank him Wednesday evening. "I think it's the mark of a true leader to put aside your personal, maybe your religious beliefs and do something that's right for someone else," said gay rights advocate Jacob Whipple.
Earlier that day, lawmakers and citizens rallied on Capitol Hill in opposition to Huntsman's statements.
"This is not anti-gay," said Sen. John Valentine, R-Provo, according to ABC KSL 5 News. "This is not anti-anybody. This is pro-family."
"Seventy percent of all Utahns oppose civil unions. We're here today to say: 'We hear you. We will stand with you, and we will defend marriage,'" said Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman.
It is uncertain whether any of the Common Ground bills currently under committee review will emerge for a hearing this year.
Indian Supreme Court to Examine Abortion Law
By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
NEW DELHI, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - India's Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, which prohibits abortion after 20 weeks gestation, has been challenged in the Supreme Court by gynecologist Nikhil D. Datar. Datar was involved in last August's court ruling that denied permission to a woman who wanted to have her 25-week-old unborn child killed.
Under the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortions are legal in India until the 12th week of pregnancy. Between 12 and 20 weeks abortions are allowed if either the mother or the baby faces a health risk. After 20 weeks only very grave medical risk to the life of the mother is grounds for asking for a court ruling allowing the unborn child to be killed.
Datar was one of the petitioners, along with the couple - Niketa and Haresh Mehta - who sought permission from the Mumbai High Court to abort Niketa's first child after Datar diagnosed her child with a congenital heart problem.
The High Court dismissed their petition, observing that medical experts did not express any "categorical opinion that if the child is born, it would suffer from serious handicaps."
"The court has opined that the medical expert body, which was directed to submit a report, has submitted that the child will not be a permanent disabled as contemplated," Rajendra Raghuvanshi, Additional Solicitor General for Mumbai, told reporters outside the court after the decision was reached.
In denying the Mehtas request to kill their child the High Court also stated that the issue of revising the legislation was the responsibility of the government, not the courts.
It was reported that shortly after the High Court ruling Niketa Mehta suffered a miscarriage.
In his lawsuit, Datar is seeking amendment to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, contending that a congenital heart defect can only be detected in an unborn child after the 20th week of pregnancy and that the 20-week limit for abortion had become obsolete, because in "developed countries" it had been extended to 24 or 26 weeks.
Supreme Court Justices K G Balakrishnan and P Sathasivam, while allowing the lawsuit to go forward, have issued notices and sought a response from the Indian government.
See previous LSN coverage:
Indian Court Rejects Woman's Request to Abort Her 25 Week Old Unborn Baby
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/aug/08080501.html
Queen's University Drops "Speech Police" Idea after Investigation
By Tim Waggoner
KINGSTON, Ontario, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, has ditched its controversial "dialogue facilitator" program after protests from Queen's alumni spurred a three-member panel investigation.
In the fall of 2008, Queens hired six graduate students from diverse backgrounds to encourage campus discussions on race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and other social issues. The students were advised to step-in whenever they heard conversations that could be deemed "offensive," or that involved "hate speech."
The program barely lasted a semester, however, before the press and Queen's alumni became privy to the "speech police" initiative and, following a public outcry, a panel was hired to investigate.
The panel sided with critics of the program, finding that, "The proposed method of intervention has the potential of making students feel unsafe or under surveillance because of their opinions.
"It is incompatible with the atmosphere required for free speech everywhere, but particularly in a university, to make anyone feel that their thoughts and words are monitored so that they can later be discussed, used toward some social end and perhaps even 'corrected.'"
The panel reiterated the concerns of many commentators who suggested that the program would amount to censorship, saying, "The question arises of who has the power to decide what remark is 'offending.' "
The panel's review also condemned the hasty and seemingly underhanded manner in which the program was developed.
They found that, "An insufficient number, if any, of knowledgeable and experienced Queen's academics, students, administrators or personnel" were consulted with before establishing the program.
Queens University vice-principal academic, Patrick Deane, said in a statement that Queen's University will still be taking steps in the future to eradicate "intolerance" and advance a "climate of inclusiveness," reported the Globe and Mail.
Papal Postulator Relates Vicious Media Bias against Catholic Church
By Hilary White, Rome correspondent
ROME, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a meeting with a US Orthodox rabbi, a renowned historian related his experiences with the mainstream media in his work as the "postulator" or investigator for the Vatican of the cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII. Fr. Peter Gumpel SJ said that in his experience of hundreds of interviews and debates, he has experienced first hand the open hostility to the Catholic Church of the liberal mainstream media.
He relates what he said was a routine experience with the media: "I was once asked by a newspaper in Rome, I gave a long interview, but they never published it. Apparently they were deadly set against Pius XII so of course, I didn't accept all their statements. It was in itself a friendly discussion, but it was never published."
The elderly, soft-spoken German priest, received LifeSiteNews.com as a guest at his offices near St. Peter's Basilica during a meeting with Rabbi Yehuda Levin, the US Orthodox rabbi who was in Rome at the end of January to discuss the relations of the Orthodox Jews with the Catholic Church.
After over thirty years of investigation, Fr. Gumpel has concluded that Pius was holy man who did everything possible to help save the Jews. But this picture conflicts with the message of the secular media, and some sections of the Catholic academic world, committed to portraying the pope as an anti-Semitic dupe, or even collaborator, of the Nazi's genocide of Europe's Jews.
"If you see the German documents of the time, you will see that the Nazis hated him," Fr. Gumpel said of Pope Pius. But this history, he said, is being blocked by a consciously anti-Catholic media determined to keep it from the public.
Fr. Gumpel said that although books have been written clarifying the record in other languages, "nowadays to find a publisher who is intending to publish something in favour of the Roman Catholic Church in the English speaking world, be it in England, be it in the United States is not that simple."
Rabbi Levin spoke with Fr. Gumpel about the widespread belief of many Jews, and heavily disseminated by the Catholic left, that what is termed the "silence" of Pope Pius led to the deaths of greater numbers of Jews in Europe in the Nazi genocide. But Fr. Gumpel maintains that the impression of the Pope's "indifference" is one that has been created by a broadly anti-Catholic secular media and is not upheld by the historical record.
"I have given hundreds of interviews in six different languages on television, radio, newspapers, etcetera. I am not someone who would defend this man against my better conscience. If I have defended somebody I do so because I am convinced that he merits to be defended."
The attacks on Pope Pius have come only since the publication in the early 1960s of a play, called The Deputy, in which he was depicted as an anti-Semite and a dupe of the Nazi regime. In the lifetime of Pius, however, the pope was enthusiastically thanked, applauded and honoured by the leadership of the Jewish world for his efforts to save Jews during the war.
Fr. Gumpel, a German, is one of the academic community's most respected historians whose family suffered under the Nazi regime. In his more than thirty years of study and investigation into the Pope's life, Fr. Gumpel has been no stranger to the hostility of the mainstream secular media for his defence of Pius.
"I remember some years ago I was called by a leading editor of a daily newspaper in the United States who point blank asked me 'Professor, is it true that you were a member of the Hitler Youth and a member of the SS?'
"Now, since my family suffered greatly from the Nazis, at first I was taken a little bit aback. And then I said, laughingly to him, it is very interesting for me to get to know certain things about my own life from a journalist of which so far, I have never known anything.
"And then he said, 'please father, understand that I was not thinking this, but I am put under terrible pressure to publish this. But since I am afraid that I may end up with a process for libel and calumny, I wanted to be sure'. These are the things that have been happening."
He relates: "Certain people in the US of a leading weekly telephoned me to my residence asking whether I had ever been condemned for criminal activities or that my family were full of criminals."
He takes a stoic, philosophical attitude toward these problems, however, saying, "We try to do what we can. And with considerable success in many instances even though it means that you may be attacked the next time as a fool or anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic."
Lawsuit Filed after Professor Calls Student 'Fascist Bastard' for Sharing Beliefs on Faith and Marriage
LOS ANGELES, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom filed a lawsuit against officials of the Los Angeles Community College District Wednesday. The lawsuit comes after a professor censored and threatened to expel a student following a speech about marriage and his Christian faith during an open-ended assignment in a public speaking class.
On Nov. 24, 2008, Los Angeles City College speech professor John Matteson interrupted and ended Jonathan Lopez's presentation mid-speech, calling him a "fascist bastard" in front of the class for speaking about his faith, which included reading the dictionary definition of marriage and reciting two Bible verses. Instead of allowing Lopez to finish, Matteson told the other students they could leave if they were offended. When no one left, Matteson dismissed the class. Refusing to grade the assigned speech, Matteson wrote on Lopez's evaluation, "Ask God what your grade is."
One week later, after seeing Lopez talking to the college's dean of academic affairs, Matteson told Lopez that he would make sure he'd be expelled from school. Matteson's treatment of Lopez during his speech follows an earlier incident in which Matteson told his entire class after the November election, "If you voted yes on Proposition 8, you are a fascist bastard."
"Christian students shouldn't be penalized or discriminated against for speaking about their beliefs," said ADF Senior Counsel David French. "Public institutions of higher learning cannot selectively censor Christian speech. This student was speaking well within the confines of his professor's assignment when he was censored and ultimately threatened with expulsion."
"Professor Matteson clearly violated Mr. Lopez's free speech rights by engaging in viewpoint discrimination and retaliation because he disagreed with the student's religious beliefs," concluded French.
To express concerns to the College contact:
B.C. School Board Allows Pro-Homosexualist Social Justice Course after Human Rights Complaint
Commentary by Ted Hewlett, President, British Columbia Parents and Teachers for Life
February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-homosexualist activists are celebrating the news that the Abbotsford School Board in British Columbia has approved the offering of the Social Justice 12 elective course for students who have their parents' permission.
The decision by the Fraser Valley community's school-board follows after the Correns (Murray and his partner Peter) lodged a complaint with the BC Human Rights Tribunal against the Board for refusing to approve the teaching of the course soon enough to allow some students to take it. One school had offered the course before approval by the board (according to a board spokesperson) and students had signed up for it. When the board refused to allow the course to begin without its further consideration, the Correns launched their complaint to the Tribunal.
The Social Justice 12 course is the result of the settlement agreement made by the British Columbia government with Peter and Murray Corren, under which the Correns agreed to withdraw action against the government, and the government agreed to institute a course demanded by the Correns, as well as to allow them special rights in the approval of all courses as they are revised. This meant, among other things, that organizations named by the Correns as having expertise in sexual orientation matters would be guaranteed consultation privileges.
Our opinion as a result of analyzing the course is this: The Social Justice 12 course that was the first result of the Corren Agreement deals with many topics which most socially conservative people would find unobjectionable, but also allows for the use of the classroom as an instrument of propaganda for pro-homosexuality activists' objectives.
It seems clear that Social Justice 12 will, for example, result in teaching students that the traditional definition of marriage, as being between a man and a woman, that held true in Canadian law until recently, was an injustice.
It is of great concern that students will be judged on their attitudes, and the question arises as to how students will fare who fail to develop the attitudes towards social questions that are mandated by their teachers.
In the wake of the Abbotsford School Board's decision to allow the Social Justice 12 course to be offered, the "Social Justice Regional Conference" being sponsored by the BC Teachers' Federation is likely to turn into a celebration of the Correns and the achievements of the pro-homosexuality propagandists. The conference is being held in Abbotsford on February 21st and 22nd.
In spite of the Board's having approved the teaching of the course, the Correns are still insisting on the threat of continuing their action in the BC Human Rights Tribunal, that the Board "Write personal letters of apology to all those students who were denied access to the course," and that "The Board access and participate in sensitivity training, at its own expense, that the Tribunal recommends."
New York Times Bias Exposed Again as Company Caught in Donation to Planned Parenthood
NEW YORK, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Times Watch, a project of the Media Research Center, dedicated to documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda of the New York Times, reports that the NYT parent company has donated money to Planned Parenthood.
Times Watch's Clay Waters reports today: "When it comes to advancing a liberal agenda, the New York Times not only gives at the office through slanted reporting, but also through the New York Times Company Foundation, according to the Foundation's 2007 annual report, released in May 2008."
Waters adds: "Matching the liberal advocacy carried out every day in the pages of the Times, the New York Times Co. handed over a $5,000 grant to an abortion group, Planned Parenthood of New York City, for 'educational outreach in schools and the community,' the second of two installments."
See the NYT Company Foundation report here:
http://www.nytco.com/company/foundation/annual.html
See the Times Watch website here:
http://www.timeswatch.org/
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