...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.”...
...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.” (more from Lifesite)
In the preface to his statement, with notes, Professor Farrow states:
Before I begin, let it be noted that nothing I have to say here is directed at or against people of homosexual inclination, among whom I too have friends and colleagues, some of whom would agree with the main thrust of my argument even while disagreeing strenuously on points of substance or of detail, whether in morals or politics or in social phenomena....
.....they do not wish to find themselves in a society where it is not possible to enquire openly about the causes and consequences of sexual behaviour, or to make moral claims about sexual behaviour that do not suit the people in power. And they can see that this is where we are headed; that the new moralists (as I have elsewhere referred to them) are in some ways much more rigid and prone to persecute than the old. They may not like it, for example, if an institution or an individual refers to their condition as “disordered” or their behaviour as immoral, but they would defend the right to hold such a view, to live by it, and even to argue for a polity that takes it into account.
That right is just what is threatened by the Québec policy against homophobia.
Download complete article, including notes.
- Douglas Farrow is Professor of Christian Thought at McGill University.
3 comments:
It smacks of the fanaticism of the Salem Witch trials. Where will the madness end?
Good to hear from you YS. It will end when men of principle stand up and say, "enough!"
What is not forbidden is compulsory.
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