Wednesday February 3, 2010
McGill Prof: Quebec Anti-“Homophobia” Plan is “Declaration of War”
By Patrick B. Craine
MONTREAL, Quebec, February 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A professor at McGill University has published a strong condemnation of the Quebec government’s “policy against homophobia,” which was released in December. Warning that this policy represents a “declaration of war” against any who oppose the homosexualist agenda, Dr. Douglas Farrow, Professor of Christian Thought, calls on his fellow citizens to take a stand against it.
When the Quebec Ministry of Justice released the policy before Christmas, it was held up as the first of its kind from a North American jurisdiction. The Ministry asserted that, with homosexuality having achieved full normalization in Quebec law, the present policy aims to normalize homosexuality on the social level.
Dr. Farrow’s article, entitled “The Government of Québec Declares War: on a ‘homophobic’ and ‘heterosexist’ populace,” was published on the Catholic Civil Rights League website.
The Quebec policy, writes Dr. Farrow, “diagrams a full-scale assault, to be coordinated by an inter-departmental committee, against ‘homophobic attitudes and behaviour patterns’ and ‘sets out the government’s goal of removing all the obstacles’ to full recognition of LGBT interests and modes of life.”
“What is thus promulgated is no ordinary policy document,” he continues, “for it aims at the conversion, not merely of this or that piece of public infrastructure, but of the psychological and moral and sexual infrastructure of a generation.”
He emphasizes that the initiative represents an unprecedented interference of government into private affairs, and that it thus threatens basic freedoms. “Herewith the Ministry of Justice moves boldly and decisively into territory once reserved for the voluntary organs of civil society,” he explains. “Not only is homophobia to be eradicated ‘at all levels of society,’ it is to be eradicated as a matter of government policy and by means of government action.”
The policy is “an official endorsement of – indeed, the assumption of full responsibility for – the activist agenda of so-called LGBT groups,” he says. “As such, it is also a declaration of war by the Charest government on all groups and citizens who oppose that agenda.”
“Can the government win such a war?” he asks. “Perhaps not. But a government so lacking in constitutional modesty, in moral judgment, and in political sense as to wage it, is a government that can and will wreak havoc in Quebec society.”
Farrow undercuts the ideological assumptions driving the government’s plan, dissecting, for example, a statement on it from Premier Jean Charest. “Our society has everything to gain from accepting sexual diversity and fighting intolerance,” Charest proclaimed.
While such a claim is commonly accepted at face value, Farrow raises some of the numerous questions underlying Charest’s assertion. “Refusing to accept sexual diversity as a public desideratum may indeed be a form of intolerance, but is it a bad form of intolerance or a good form?” he asks, for example.
The document focuses on combating “homophobia,” but Farrow says that “we cannot get the measure of this document” without a grasp of what he says the government sees as homophobia’s ‘twin evil’: “heterosexism.” “Heterosexism,” according to the policy, is “affirmation of heterosexuality as a social norm or the highest form of sexual orientation.”
Farrow points out the fact that, in rejecting “heterosexism,” “the Government of Quebec has rejected heterosexuality as a social norm!” and he says that it is there where “the full scope of this absurd war begin[s] to appear.” He relates the obvious fact that Quebec society, as all others, was built on ancestors “who all took heterosexuality as the social norm.”
“The Government of Quebec, giving a mind-boggling twist to the doctrine of original sin, has
declared all the implicit and explicit ‘heterosexism’ that is built into these undeniable
facts an enemy of the state,” he says. “In its breathtaking stupidity it has declared war, not only on its own citizenry, but on nature itself.”
“Institutions, public and private, will be pressed into partnership,” Farrow warns. “The cooperation of every citizen is already expected, and will soon be demanded. A supportive school curriculum, mandatory in nature, will be forthcoming – indeed, the Ethics and Religious Culture program has already laid the foundations.”
Farrow connects what he calls the government’s ‘impaired judgment’ with the formerly Catholic province’s denial of its faith during the Quiet Revolution. “[The government’s] thinking has become futile because it no longer acknowledges what every human being should acknowledge about the Author of morality or about the fundamentals of morality,” he says. “In other words, because it has carried an earlier revolution, the Quiet Revolution, much too far, and got it all mixed up with the sexual revolution that began about the same time.”
Heterosexuals are equally to blame as homosexuals, he says, for “what John Paul II dubbed ‘the contraceptive mentality’ helped to produce our moral blindness and corresponding intellectual futility.”
Farrow concludes by urging his fellow citizens to stand up against the government’s attack. “War has been declared, and war there will be,” he states. “Let those who intend to fight, fight now. Let them fight with the weapons of St Benedict, yes, but with the weapons of Martin Luther King, Jr, too. Let them meet and consult, and determine to act publicly and in concert, laying aside their customary deference, which has no place in a time of war.”
See Dr. Farrow’s article:
The Government of Québec Declares War: on a ‘homophobic’ and ‘heterosexist’ populace
Contact Information:
The Hon. Kathleen Weil, Minister of Justice
Ministère de la Justice
Édifice Louis-Philippe-Pigeon
1200, route de l’Église, 9e étage
Québec (Québec) G1V 4M1
Telephone: 418 643-4210
Fax: 418 646-0027
E-mail: [email protected]
The Hon. Jean Charest, Premier of Quebec
Édifice Honoré-Mercier
835, boul. René-Lévesque Est, 3e étage
Quebec, Quebec G1A 1B4
Phone: (418) 643-5321
Fax: (418) 646-1854
E-mail: Use this form on the Premier’s website.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Quebec Government Launches All-Out Attack against “Homophobia”
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/dec/09121508.html
Quebec Anti-Homophobia Action Plan to be Tabled by Year-End, Says Justice Minister
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081801.html
Quebec Readies All out Fight Against “Homophobia” with Pro-Gay Gov’t Ministry, Ads, Education
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07031601.html