By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
OTTAWA, March 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study guide for immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship, titled “Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship,” contains no specific mention of homosexual rights or same-sex “marriage,” reportedly at the insistence of the Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.
Conservative MP Kenney, whose office is responsible for updating and producing the guide, is well known for his fight against same-sex “marriage” and for his pro-life stands on abortion, euthanasia and destructive research on human embryos.
The Canadian Press reports that when the new guide was released Nov. 12, Mr. Kenney brushed off a reporter’s question about why it lacked any reference to same-sex “marriage.”
“We can’t mention every legal decision, every policy of the government of Canada,” he said.
“We try to be inclusive and include a summary. I can tell you that if you were to read the old book, you wouldn’t even know that there are gay and lesbian Canadians.”
The CP report notes that though an early draft of the guide contained sections stating that homosexuality was decriminalized in 1969 and that same-sex “marriage” was legalized in Canada in 2005, Minister Kenney elected not to include these references in the citizenship guide.
However, a spokesman in the minister's office mentioned that the previous guide produced by the Liberals in 1995 did not include any reference to homosexuals.
“We can endlessly debate what was included or not included,” Alykhan Velshi said in an email to Canadian Press. “Unavoidably, choices had to be made about content because we had to ensure the guide did not become encyclopedic.”
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