OTTAWA, June 25, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – Bradley Miller, a socially conservative legal scholar and judge, has been promoted by the federal government to Ontario’s highest court, the Court of Appeal.
Miller, a former University of Western Ontario law professor who has written several articles published in LifeSiteNews, was first appointed to Ontario’s judiciary—its Superior Court—six months before his promotion.
Already, Toronto’s Globe and Mail is warning about “a critic of gay marriage” being named to Ontario’s highest court.
But Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC), told LifeSiteNews, “I don’t care what the Globe and Mail thinks of him. He is a young, incredibly well-read thinker, whose writing is original and well expressed, with an excellent record of published articles.”
Added Hugh Scher, the legal counsel for EPC, “He’s a very bright, thoughtful man with a good scholastic record. He will make an excellent judge of the Court of Appeal.”
London lawyer Gordon Cudmore said that the “defence bar” has concerns about Miller’s, Huscroft’s and Brown’s objectivity when judging Charter cases. According to Cudmore, there is little doubt the three judges have been selected for the ideological view they share with Prime Minister Harper. Though no one would deny their merits, he told LifeSiteNews, “plenty of other meritorious lawyers were passed over.”
When Miller was appointed to the bench six months ago, the Globe and Mail was chiefly concerned that he espoused “originalism,” along with a fellow UWO law school alumnus, Grant Huscroft, who went right up to the appeal court.
Originalism holds that Canada’s constitution ought to be interpreted as its drafters intended. This stands in opposition to the “living tree” view espoused by the current court and especially Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin that judges are free to interpret old laws, even constitutional ones, according to the current needs of society as the judiciary understands them.
Miller has published essays arguing that the advance of the homosexual agenda, which he termed “the new orthodoxy,” had “harmed religious freedom and free speech” in Canada. In one article he deplored how Canadian law faculties have condemned Trinity Western University’s efforts to start a Christian law school.
Click “like” if you want to defend true marriage.
The Globe and Mail led its story on Miller’s promotion by stating, “A critic of same-sex marriage has been appointed to Ontario’s highest court,” adding that he was the third such judge chosen by the Conservative government since December.
Huscroft was the second judge the Globe has been able to identify in the 21-member Court of Appeal. The first was David Moseley Brown, a devoutly Catholic lawyer who advocated for several conservative Christian groups on issues ranging from same-sex “marriage” to spanking.
Brown looms largely enough in the Left’s gun sights that he merited a full page in Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor, which warned, in 2010, that Canada was being taken over, through the federal Conservatives, by Christian fanatics who believed the Biblical End Times were upon us and that the State of Israel deserved Canada’s support.
Brown was on McDonald’s list of Christians to watch for telling Christian law students that, “as a Christian law student, you are called upon to practice your trade and conduct your life in accordance with your faith.” McDonald wondered how such a man could be impartial (i.e., agree with her own views) on “cases involving gay rights or pro-choice issues.”
Miller, for his part, has written that same-sex “marriage,” along with polyamorous and polygamous unions, “tend to undermine the norms of marital permanence and exclusivity.” He also said same-sex “marriage” is “morally defective” and as such “makes it more difficult for people to understand genuine marriage and to develop the dispositions and character necessary to participate in it.”
