News round-up

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Stories about the United Church:

Will United Church 'throw in the towel'?
Reverend Connie denBok says to sum up what is wrong with the United Church of Canada, one need look no further than the name of the panel discussion being held tonight in Toronto. "Shouldn't the United Church Just Throw in the Towel?" is the opening event of a four-day Church-sponsored conference that will look at the future of the country's largest Protestant denomination.
National Post, June 19

What is there to save?
As befits an organization whose primary purpose is occasional comic relief, the United Church of Canada will this weekend debate the topic: "Shouldn't the United Church just throw in the towel?" The answer is so obviously "Yes" that one may assert, with complete confidence, that the result will be a resounding "No."
Ian Hunter, National Post, June 20

Facing the gospel truth
The word "evangelism" makes the United Church of Canada uncomfortable. For some members, it evokes a time when a desire to advocate Christianity led to painful mistakes such as the assimilation of natives at residential schools. And yet, as a national conference on revitalization draws to a close, the Church, which has lost half its members since the 1960s, is talking about a need to vocalize its faith -- to embrace the notion of spreading the gospel-- if it is going to rebuild itself.
National Post, June 23

Stories about Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions:

Alta judge dismisses bulk of lawsuit against Watch Tower Society over girl's death
A Calgary judge has dismissed most of a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the father of a teenage Jehovah's Witness who refused blood transfusions. Lawrence Hughes alleged that the Watch Tower Society, its lawyers, religious leaders and doctors deliberately misinformed his daughter Bethany about her medical treatment in 2002, and counselled her to refuse transfusions for leukemia.
Canadian Press, June 20

Dad loses bid to sue church for girl's death
A Calgary man has suffered a major legal setback in his bid to sue the Jehovah's Witnesses church and its lawyers over the death of his daughter, who fought against blood transfusions to treat her leukemia. On Friday, Alberta Court Queen's Bench Justice Alan Macleod dismissed most of the claims in Lawrence Hughes' wrongful death lawsuit, which allege the defendants gave his teenage daughter, Bethany Hughes, misinformation about her medical treatment.
Calgary Herald, June 21

Earlier: Stories about Jehovah's Witnesses and blood transfusions

Stories about spanking, grounding, and the legal issues thereof:

Senate passes anti-spanking bill
Politician hopes it will 'send a signal' to people who use violence repeatedly
CanWest News Service, June 19

Girl fighting for rite of passage, lawyer says
A 12-year-old Quebec girl who felt so strongly about her end-of-year school trip that she took her father to court after he forbade her from going is at the centre of a case that challenges the authority of parental discipline. The extreme measure of taking the case to court, which the girl's lawyer defended as a necessary move to ensure the child was not denied a significant rite of passage, was upheld by the judge in a surprise ruling last week.
National Post, June 19

Father doesn't know best, court rules in girl's fight to get grounding overruled
First, the father banned his 12-year-old daughter from going online after she posted photos of herself on a dating site. Then she allegedly had a row with her stepmother, so the father said his girl couldn't go on a school trip. The girl took the matter to the court - and won what lawyers say was an unprecedented judgment. Madam Justice Suzanne Tessier of the Quebec Superior Court ruled on Friday that the father couldn't discipline his daughter by barring her from the school trip.
Globe and Mail, June 19

Court ruling on parental discipline stuns, raises questions of right to raise children
If you deny your children access to TV or withhold their allowance, can they take you to court? And win? That implausible scenario emerged after a judge in Gatineau sided with a 12-year-old girl who challenged her father after he refused to let her go on a school trip for disobeying his orders to stay off the Internet. Experts in family law and child welfare say they were dumbfounded by last Friday's ruling by Superior Court Justice Suzanne Tessier.
Ottawa Citizen, June 19

Court quashes dad's grounding of 12-year-old daughter
A father plans to appeal after a Quebec court ruled that he didn't have the right to punish his 12-year-old daughter by barring her from a school trip.
CBC News, June 19

Why letting courts overrule parents is a dumb idea
If the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation, it also has no place in its family rooms.
Lorne Gunter, Full Comment, National Post, June 19

In the new Canada, we are all wards of the state
"Leave parenting to parents," thunders the Post in its Saturday editorial. "The courts have no business -- none -- in such routine family matters." Quebec Justice Suzanne Tessier's "galling decision" in favour of a 12-year-old girl from Gatineau, who asked the court to overturn a perfectly reasonable act of parental discipline, must itself be overturned, lest parents no longer know "where their authority over their children ends and the state's begins." Marvelous! For a moment I thought I was back in the old Canada, the Canada of the 1960 Bill of Rights, which speaks of "the protection of the family in a society of free men and free institutions." The Canada of Paul Martin Sr, who spoke grandly, in language borrowed from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of "the sanctity and inviolability of the family as the fundamental unit of society." The Canada where marriage and procreation and parenting were still linked at law and in the general culture.
Douglas Farrow, Full Comment, National Post, June 24

Anti-family chickens come home to roost
Public recoil from the court's appropriation of what most Canadians recognize as a private family dispute was swift and intense. As the Post's Saturday editorial noted: "The courts have no business -- none -- in such routine family matters. This ruling is so profoundly intrusive we can only hope the Quebec appeals court strikes it down, and quickly." Well, it may and it may not. Thanks to the Charter of Rights, our judiciary has come to assume that all personal behaviours are legally examinable, with alternate behaviours liable to enforcement at the court's pleasure, and so -- under the guise of the child's "right" to a peer social ritual -- an appeals court validation is not unthinkable.
Barbara Kay, National Post, June 25

Earlier: Senators urged to keep spanking legal

Stories about Samuel Golubchuk and end-of-life issues:

When doctors say no
Three of the unit's critical-care doctors have refused to treat Samuel Golubchuk, saying to do so is an ethical line they won't cross. Two intensive care beds at the city's biggest trauma centre had to be closed so nurses could scramble to Grace to provide him with kidney dialysis. And one burning question remains -- what is the cost of all this to Golubchuk, our publicly funding medicare system and the professional obligations of our doctors and nurses?
Winnipeg Free Press, June 21

Man at centre of life support controversy dies
An elderly man at the centre of a court case over life and death has died of natural causes in a Winnipeg hospital. The family of Samuel Golubchuk, 84, had gotten a court order requiring doctors at Grace Hospital to keep him on life support. They said that to hasten his death would be a sin under Orthodox Jewish law.
Canadian Press, June 25

Winnipeg man's death does not end debate over when doctors can refuse treatment
An elderly Jewish man at the centre of a legal battle over the right to life support was remembered Wednesday as a fighter who never gave up. Samuel Golubchuk was buried just one day after his death, as is customary for Orthodox Jews. But his passing has not stopped the debate over whether doctors have the right to refuse treatment to patients they feel are beyond hope of recovery.
Canadian Press, June 25

Earlier: New legislation for assisted suicide on horizon

Stories about "human rights" tribunals and commissions:

The elephant in the room
While it's true that the proposed changes to the Income Tax Act, as outlined in Bill C-10, will have a negative impact on the Canadian film industry and will place Canadian film producers in a precarious position, it should leave a reasonable person flabbergasted to see how those who protest against this bill remain silent against an even larger elephant in the room: the Maclean's human rights case.
Anthony Furey, National Post, June 19

Human rights issues open to vigorous debate
This week marked a major success for the expanding agenda of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, but you would hardly know it to judge by the discussions at the annual conference of human rights agencies.
National Post, June 21

CHRC's achievement in doublethink
Few institutions conjure up George Orwell's dystopia of 1984 as readily as the Canadian Human Rights Commission. A premature baby, born seven years ahead of Orwell's schedule, the CHRC has been as smugly doubleplusgood as the satirist's Ministry of Love, though not remotely as powerful or quite as evil. Give it time, I say.
George Jonas, National Post, June 21

Earlier: Stories about "human rights" tribunals and commissions

Stories about Islam and the West:

If Shaikh's lying, whither the case?
By, in effect, labelling its own star witness a liar, the government has delivered a devastating blow to its entire case in the so-called Toronto 18 terror plot. In a remarkable exchange yesterday at the Brampton courthouse, Crown prosecutor John Neander accused RCMP informer Mubin Shaikh of confecting evidence to protect the sole youth still facing charges in what the government calls Canada's first homegrown Islamist terror plot.
Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star, June 19

Cdn Jewish group reacts calmly to claim Hezbollah eyeing targets outside Mideast
One of Canada's best known Jewish groups reacted with calm detachment Thursday to a published report that intelligence agencies in the United States and Canada fear Hezbollah is poised to attack "Jewish targets" somewhere outside the Middle East. The ABC News report said Hezbollah had conducted surveillance on some Canadian Jewish sites.
Canadian Press, June 19

Spies on guard for Hezbollah strike in Canada
Federal officials have spent months probing "chatter" involving suspected members of the outlawed Hezbollah organization possibly discussing attacks on targets in Canada, but have fallen short of proving a plot exists. On Thursday, ABC News leaked details of an ongoing international intelligence investigation including allegations that up to 20 "sleeper cell" suspects from the Lebanon-based group were activated, including a "weapons expert" spotted "at a firing range south of Toronto."
Globe and Mail, June 19

Continue article >>

Hezbollah sleeper cells may be active in Canada: report
Disturbing "chatter" picked up recently by intelligence agencies about attacks against Jewish targets by Canadianlinked supporters of Hezbollah has prompted an alert to Canada's Jewish community urging added caution. Anti-terrorism officials, however, are officially down-playing a startling U. S. news report that says the banned terrorist organization, which is backed by Iran, has activated four suspected "sleeper cells" in Canada and that a known Hezbollah weapons expert was followed here and seen at a firing range outside Toronto.
National Post, June 20
Also: Vancouver Sun

Suspect said he was 'just chilling, reading the Koran'
A young suspected terrorist told a police officer hours after he was arrested that violence was sometimes justified to bring peace. But during the police interrogation the youth seemed confused by allegations that his associates were making bombs to kill innocent people and claimed that a so-called terrorist training camp was a really a religious getaway to get in shape.
National Post, June 20

Imam ready to work with Khadr
Lawyers disagree over whether Gitmo detainee requires a 'religious rehabilitation' program
Toronto Star, June 21

The Koran: Words beyond worth
How do you measure a book's worth? By its sales in the millions, by its perennial appeal to generation upon generation, by the beauty of its language and style or because, as in the case of the Koran, the book is considered sacred and venerated as God's very word. With more than one billion Muslims in the world who believe that the Koran is God's last revelation in human history, the Koran, like the Bible, is one of the most widely read, revered and recited books in the world.
Mona Siddiqui, Globe and Mail, June 21

Khawaja lived for jihad, Crown alleges
Mohammad Momin Khawaja thought of little else but holy war, an Ottawa court heard yesterday.
Globe and Mail, June 23

Terror trial to test use of new law
More than four years after the arrest of Ottawa software designer Momin Khawaja, federal prosecutors are poised to lay out the evidence they've gathered to back their contention that he played a key role in an international plot by Islamic extremists to bomb targets in Britain.
Canadian Press, June 23

Earlier: Stories about Islam and the West

Other stories from the past week:

Bus stop ads get 'blessing' of city
God is coming to a bus shelter near you. The city's is revamping its advertising policy to allow religious ads and advocacy campaigns on municipal property.
Hamilton Spectator, June 3

City nixes plan for church-top condos
City planners have deemed too adventurous a proposal to build high-end condos on top of an historic east-end church. The Berkeley Playing Fields condominiums would see a 26-storey glass and steel structure extend over and above the 19th-century Berkeley Church on a downtrodden stretch of Queen Street East at Berkeley Street. A pre-application was turned down by city officials last week.
National Post, June 19

'Footprints' Forensics
Now a federal court on Long Island is trying to decide just whose footprints were next to Jesus' during the better times. Basil Zangare of Shirley, New York, claims they belonged to his late mother, Mary Stevenson, and that she's the "author unknown" whose "Footprints in the Sand" poem is depicted on countless posters, coffee mugs, and pocket cards. . . . Not so fast, says the lawyer for Canadian traveling evangelist Margaret Fishback Powers, one of the women named in Zangare's suit.
Religion News Service, June 19
Earlier: Stories about the 'Footprints' lawsuit

Pastor calls horrific family murder-suicide a 'perplexing medical tragedy'
A "perplexing medical tragedy" was behind the horrific murder suicide of a young Calgary family that left five dead, mourners were told Thursday. Three weeks after Joshua Lall slaughtered his wife, two young daughters and a basement tenant, Pastor Miriam Mollering's brief summation of the horrific crime might be as close to an answer as anyone ever gets.
Canadian Press, June 19

Psychic's vision sets off sex-abuse probe
A Barrie mother of an autistic girl is considering legal action against her local school board after a psychic's prediction to a special educational assistant sparked a sexual abuse report to the Children's Aid Society. "I'm in shock," said Colleen Leduc, 38. "They reported me to Children's Aid because of a psychic. Can you imagine?" The damaging allegations were resolved by child welfare authorities relatively quickly, but the case highlights the difficult and sometimes clumsy outcome of zero-tolerance policies and mandatory reporting regulations regarding child sexual abuse.
National Post, June 19

Belgian man, Que. teen planned life together
A Belgian man and a smitten 13-year-old girl planned to settle in an Amish community in Ontario where they believed no one would question their 20-year age difference, a courtroom heard Friday.
Canadian Press, June 20

Hands touching god
This description of what, to most of us, would feel like sheer masochism is from Maria Coffey's new book, Explorers of the Infinite: The Secret Spiritual Lives of Extreme Athletes - and What They Reveal About Near-Death Experiences, Psychic Communication and Touching the Beyond. It's the award-winning Victoria author's attempt to understand what drives people like Streeter so far beyond the realm of what any ordinary human being could imagine.
Katherine Hamer, Vancouver Sun, June 21

No skipping gay-friendly classes, schools tell parents
Catholic group says parents must have the right to pull kids out of classes
Vancouver Sun, June 23
Earlier: Opposition growing to school curriculum changes

Alberta's Catholic bishops urge parents to research HPV vaccine
Alberta's six Catholic bishops are urging parents to learn more about a vaccine that protects against cervical cancer before deciding whether their daughters should be immunized. "There is no general consensus that the HPV vaccination is the most prudent strategy in terms of allocating health-care resources aimed at preventing deaths from cervical cancer," says a statement from the bishops released Monday.
Canadian Press, June 23
Earlier: Stories about Catholic school boards

Shock as Canada rejects Iraq refugees
Azad Sarkissian's Armenian great-grandparents settled in Iraq more than a century ago, and none of their descendants has stepped on Armenian soil since. His sister and her family fled the violence in Iraq and are living precariously as United Nations-recognized refugees in Jordan. Sarkissian, in Toronto, has tried and failed three times over the past six years to bring them to Canada through a refugee resettlement application sponsored by the Assyrian Methodist Church of Canada. But they were startled and angered by the latest response by a Canadian visa officer in Damascus, who said the family should go to Armenia instead.
Toronto Star, June 23

Aboriginals, Jews bond in adversity
The anti-Semitic rants of former assembly of First Nations chief David Ahenakew six years ago have produced a bonding between Canada's native and Jewish communities, leaders of both groups said yesterday.
Ottawa Citizen, June 23
Earlier: One Harper issues apology for residential schools, another Harper forgives

Lhasa's monks all but vanish in Chinese crackdown
Severe restrictions, including checkpoints and surveillance, imposed since wave of anti-government protests in March, exiles say
Globe and Mail, June 23

No love lost between Love Guru and Hindu leaders
Mike Myers latest comedy isn't getting any love from some North American religious leaders. The president of one of Canada's biggest Hindu temples joined a prominent American Hindu chaplain yesterday in calling for a worldwide boycott of The Love Guru, which opened Friday to poor reviews and paltry audiences.
Globe and Mail, June 23

'It was a total nightmare'
Why are Jamaican men and women so hostile to gays? (Even in Toronto, he says, he avoids areas frequented by his countrymen.) The island's religious figures preach against homosexuality. The law penalizes anal sex with sentences of up to 10 years. Songs frequently celebrate the beating and killing of gay men. The government is silent. "The violence is there," he says, "because it's state-sanctioned violence and it's church-sanctioned violence."
Globe and Mail, June 23

It's not all about sex, top Anglican says
The top leader of the Anglican Church of Canada has come to Vancouver to tell his divided flock to get their minds off sex, especially sex as practised by gays and lesbians. It's Not All About Sex is the title of the speech Primate Fred Hiltz will give tonight at Christ Church Cathedral at the corner of Burrard and Georgia in downtown Vancouver.
Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun, June 24
Earlier: Stories about Anglican and Lutheran schisms over homosexuality

Class-action suit filed against Roman Catholic diocese in N.S. over alleged abuse
The brother of a man whose suicide note led to charges of sex crimes against a Nova Scotia priest has filed a class action against the Diocese of Antigonish, claiming it failed to protect the children in its care when it became aware of the abuse. The class action, filed Tuesday by Ronald Martin, also names the Roman Catholic Church and a church official.
Canadian Press, June 24

N.S. Roman Catholic bishop says church open to helping sexual abuse victims
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, named in a class action lawsuit that alleges five of its priests sexually abused children, issued a statement Wednesday that says it remains committed to helping the victims. Bishop Raymond Lahey acknowledged past wrongs in the statement, released a day after the class action was filed with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
Canadian Press, June 25

Polygamist may get more than $10,000 in 'dividends'
Prominent polygamist Winston Blackmore and his family could receive more than $10,000 this month from the B.C. government in so-called dividend cheques. Others in the polygamist community of Bountiful with fewer wives and smaller families will receive less, but government payments could still be substantial.
Globe and Mail, June 26
Earlier: Stories about the polygamist cult at Bountiful

June 26/2008