letter to National Post re Christian Horizons Dec 21

Re: Christian Horizons

We all agree that the Christian Horizons are doing a great job in caring for the sick and disabled. We also agree that they are inspired by their religious beliefs and use that as a basis of their altruism. Does that however give them the right to break Canadian law or act in such a way that would be considered to be unjust by our laws and by most of our society? Do good deeds exonerate you from bad deeds? Does a religious tradition, based on the writings in a holy book justify actions that Canadian society and laws consider to be wrong or even evil? A judgement in favour of Christian Horizons would place gays in the position of being unable to obtain jobs in any religious charitable or educational organization. Is this what Canadians really want? In law, as a function of sentencing we consider the reputation of the person being sentences but we don't exempt them from their illegal actions. Should Conrad Black be acquitted of his actions because the majority of his financial transactions were within the law? Should a man who kills his wife (perhaps in a mercy killing) after 30 years of a good marriage not be charged with murder? Similarly, the Koran permits a husband to beat his wife under certain circumstances. Should we look the other way because the action is permitted in many Muslim countries and is recommended by a holy book? Isn't it time that Canadian laws and justice take precedence over religious prejudices and actions that are written in holy books and believed by some of the religion's followers?

Ontario's Negligent Funding

The case of the Christian Horizons organization brings out two interesting questions. How far will the idea that all religious thought and actions are equivalent be allowed to proceed and to favour freedom of religion over all other freedoms; and how much prosyletizing and imposing of one's religious views on others will be accepted and subsibsidized by the Ontario government before it is considered to be excessive. To me, freedom of religion means freedom to practice one's religion in private, not necessarily freedom to prosyletize and certainly not freedom to impose private religious views on the public or those who are in some way reliant on you. In addition religious practices must not be contrary to criminal law. I do not want my taxes spent on people who would subtly and often not subtly push their religious views, practices, and prejudices on others. This is clearly what the Christian Horizon organization did. Recently I became aware that there was a booth in the Word of the Street festival that prosyletied for Islam. Word on the Street is Ontario's book and magazine publishers' festival and is supported by the Ontario government through the Ontario Media Development Corporation . The festival has nothing to do with the benefits of the Koran, so that booth should not have been there. In reply to my letter to the Ontario government notifying them about the misuse of their funds, and my taxes, I received a letter from Aileen Carroll the Minister of Culture, who told me to contact Word on the Street. In other words she was telling me that Ontario had no interest in what the funds were really used for and whether the funds had been misapplied. Since the real use of public funds has been ignored twice to my knowledge by the Ontario government, it appears to me that Ontario is being extremely lax or just plain negligent in its funding policies. If the name of the organization sounds good, Ontario will fund it and they don't monitor how the funds, my tax money, is spent. This is not only disappointing, but is a failure of their responsibilty to me, an Ontario resident and a taxpayer.