The suggestion is that visual cues of churches or religious buildings lead people to vote more conservatively, “and the effect seems to hold, whether you’re Christian, Muslim or agnostic, progressive, independent or conservative.”

This is an intriguing suggestion because if you’re anything like me, you always resent when they hold a poll or public forum in a church.

This is also a very testable hypothesis, outside of psychology. Elections Canada publishes poll-by-poll results, so one merely has to cross reference which polls were held in churches with those that weren’t. There’s 308 separate electoral districts to run the analysis for, and in each district there should be a decent number of religious and secular polls to contrast. With this much data, it should be possible to see if church voters are more likely to vote Conservative than NDP, Liberal, or Green.

Perhaps if I get really bored while job hunting, I may try to do the numbers for my own riding.

Speaking at a Muslim Canadian Congress event honouring his “courageous decision,” Mr. Kenney said polling shows that eight out of 10 Canadians agreed with the decision while only 14% were opposed.

Sadly, neither Kenney nor the National Post provided any evidence for this statistic, so we can’t actually verify it ourselves.

Regardless, I’m still mixed on my own feelings about these decisions. Obviously forcing women to conceal their skin is an affront to feminism and equality but forcing them to undress can be equally offensive to one’s freedoms. I’m not really comfortable with a government that tells its citizens what they can and cannot wear.

Arguments aside, this opposition always seems to come down as a political distraction. It always seems to be presented as a solution that’s looking for a problem.

How many Muslim women were taking the oath while wearing a veil?

One per year? Two?

Without numbers and evidence – which we know that this government despises – all I can chalk these announcements up to is blatant fear-mongering and Islamophobia. Recall that Harper thinks Islamicism is the major threat to Canadian security.

Basically, NPA trustees Ken Denike and Sophia Woo have been caught red-handed in videos lying to the Christian Social Concern Fellowship that Vancouver has no anti-homophobia policy, when in fact one was passed in 2004. They’ve also been trotting out the “parent’s rights” arguments, long used by the Christian Right who want the right to continue to keep their children as ignorant and biggoted as themselves.

Vancouver’s LGBTQ community isn’t taking this one lying down.

On Monday evening, the first Vancouver School Board meeting was held and a resolution was put forward calling on the VSB to reaffirm its support for the policy and to censure trutees Denike and Woo. The resolution passed with the strong Vision-COPE majority but the crowd was split between pro- and anti-gay protesters.

There is now a Facebook call for people to send letters to Denike, Woo, and VSB chair Patti Bacchus, calling for the NPA trustees to resign. Please consider sending this message (or a modified version) to the emails listed below.

Dear Trustees Woo and Denike,

You have failed in your position within the Vancouver School Board. You have infracted and abused your powers and position, and have tried to spread hate within our society.

-You have made many students feel unsafe and uncomfortable within their schools.
-Publicly disagreed with the 'Anti Homophobia Policies' that were put in place by VSB (2004)
-Accused the 'Out in Schools' program for showing pornographic images.
-Are closely related and in support with the Parents Voice Committee, Who are known for their Anti-Homosexual campaigns.

I do not support your actions and views on this issue. The messages you and your groups are spreading are inhumane and dishonest. I do not want people in my city to feel unsafe or unwanted, Vancouver is meant to be a city that accepts differences and respects culture and diversity.

Because of these actions you have taken, I am asking you to resign from your position as Trustee as you have failed to protect all the students within the school board.

ken.denike@vsb.bc.ca
sophia.woo@vsb.bc.ca
patti.bacchus@vsb.bc.ca

His first idea to hold joint nomination meetings quickly moved him to the bottom of a number of peoples ballots, but I’m reconsidering him given his latest statement

Hold a plebiscite on the future of the monarchy in conjunction with a referendum on voting reform. This would be the first time citizens have been asked about whether the monarchy plays a valuable role in 21st Century Canada.  It’s hoped the results would guide Parliament and legislatures on Constitutional changes, should Canadians indicate a desire for change.

Wow, I didn’t know Cullen was a republican, although he ironically referred to himself as a democrat in an interview with The Tyee. Anyone who says the monarchy “irks” them is good in my books.

He does note that the monarchy issue is a “distracting” debate and that there are more pressing issues that he’d deal with.

See also: The Globe and Mail.

It’s not that I wasn’t sympathetic or that I wanted it to fail. I didn’t even really think we’d see a lot of conspiracy and woo in the movement.* I think I just misunderstood the idea of the protest.

I assumed it was going to be a few people outside for a few hours, which would in turn get completely ignored by the media. But after a few days turned into a few weeks, and plans have been made for cities from Vancouver to London, I’m starting to come around.

This movement is especially promising after a spat of elections with falling turnouts and returning lacklustre incumbent governments (a more detailed analysis of this to come, probably after the Saskatchewan election). People are finally appreciating the key point that elections have very little to do with democracy.

This is worth emphasizing. Democracy is about citizens taking control of how they are governed. Elections are the absolute lowest wrung of that involvement.

To simply vote is to barely get your feet wet in the way your government is run.

The most obvious example of how little elections matter is the great disproportionality of our electoral system. Governments are routinely given supreme power in this country with as few as two in five votes, and in some cases the popular vote is completely disregarded in the representative makeup of the government – as was the case in Newfoundland’s recent election where the NDP came second in the popular vote, but were usurped from their place as Official Opposition by the Liberals who focussed their votes in a smaller number of seats.

Beyond our faulty electoral system, few policy provisions are decided on voting day. The media likes to talk about the “ballot question,” which has some merit when parties advocate for different actions on a specific interest, but often there are subtly differences and a voter may like some bits of one platform, but not trust the crooks based on their past deceptions.

This is why the protests give me hope – they represent my peers stepping up to the discussion and demanding change.

But protesting (while respectable and worthwhile) is not the only way to affect change.

One key action that more secular progressives** need to take is to actively get involved in the political process.

A great example is Justin Trottier’s recent run for provincial election under the Green Party of Ontario banner. While I disagree with his chosen party, it’s an important step. Here in BC, I tried (and failed) for a Vancouver School Board with COPE.

Besides running for office, there are many more ways to bring our issues forward.

Every party has local constituency associations and typically allows these groups to bring forward resolutions that can influence party policy. I recently joined the Vancouver Point Grey BC NDP association and put forward my own motion calling for the end of public funding of private schools – secularists in Manitoba should take note given yesterday’s story.

I know there’s some trepidation among many about joining a political party. I think this is entirely unfounded. Few members of any political party agree 100% with the party platform. The goal is not to defeat that diversity, but to use the collective will to advance a common agenda. This is worth an essay of its own though, so I’ll leave it here.

My simple point today is to go out there, protest in the street, join your favoured party, and push for the changes you want to see in the world.

*There’s the oft-repeated claim, but never evidenced, that both the left and the right (or the Democrats and the Republicans) have equal amounts of crazy. The fact is simply not born out by the evidence. For every 9/11 Truther there’s a mega-church full of Armageddon-worshipping Christians, for each anti-vaxxer there’s a corporatist Libertarian squad ready to quote Ayn Rand. The biggest hint is a quick examination of where the power lies. Few woo-pushers have any influence (besides Oprah, but hers is a corporate-influence), while the Evangelicals wield tremendous power.

**That’s twice I’ve used the phrase without defining it.

Canada’s biggest secular battlefield is over the publicly-funded Catholic school districts in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, but a number of provinces also fund private religious schools to varying amounts.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, a private Catholic school receives 50% of the funding compared to a neighbouring public school. The school can then inject as much religious education as they want (typically so long as they meet the basic curriculum requirements).

It’s little wonder then why Christ the King School (yes, it’s that unapologetic) is brewing up controversy, given its latest stunt:

Children at a private Catholic school in Winnipeg who attend anti-abortion vigils outside the city's Health Sciences Centre are receiving community service credits for their participation.

Principal Dave Hood of Christ the King School said Tuesday that joining the vigils is a voluntary and family decision. But he's considering it as an official school activity as early as next year.

And before you ask, this isn’t a high school, or even middle/junior high. It’s an elementary school for 200 students from K-8.

The principal emphasizes that “We’re not there to block anyone,” but did advise parents of the daily anti-abortion vigils outside the hospital.

At least the paper adds a voice of reason to the debate:

Lori Johnson, executive director of the Klinic Community Health Centre and the Sexuality Education Research Centre, calls the vigils a political lobby and argued any school receiving public funding should not be allowed to involve children.

"It would certainly not be allowed in the public sector," said Johnson, a registered nurse and former longtime school trustee with the Winnipeg School Division board. "That is ill-considered by any school, public or private. It should be at the cost of losing their public funding."

So congrats Manitobans, a part of your tax dollars are going to promote a religious agenda through young children.

Of course this is also in the province that recently returned the NDP to a fourth majority government. It is also the province that has had some issues with the Lord’s Prayer being pushed on students in public schools.

While I am glad that Manitobans didn’t opt for the regressive Conservatives, democracy doesn’t end with election day.

Secular progressives (I think I need to write a book detailing this position) in Manitoba need to get involved in the provincial NDP and push for the end of this two-tier education system. I’ll discuss this further in a coming post though.

The bill was an overdue amendment to Alberta’s Human Rights Act, which added sexual orientation to the list of protections. However, sensing there might be a social conservative revolt to the idea that gays are people too, the government conceded a section that enshrined a parent’s right to opt their children out of topics including sexuality, sexual orientation, or religion, in schools.

That such rights already existed within the School Act was apparently insufficient for some parents, and some confused comments by then-premier Ed Stelmach had suggested evolution may be considered a religious topic. They quickly recanted that gaffe; however, the damage was easily done and teachers and the media were left scratching their heads as to the need for such legislation.

But the government held the line and pushed through valiant filibuster attempts by the Liberal and NDP opposition.

Redford’s reversal is welcome news to those of us who support comprehensive education, free from dogmatic influences.

She does go farther though and states she would repeal the entire Section 3 from the Human Rights Act. Section 3 is the hate speech section, long decried by conservatives like Ezra Levant and Christian fundamentalists who want the freedom to slander their favourite targets – typically Muslims and gays. Critics of the section argue that the current laws allow innocent columnists to be dragged before Human Rights Tribunals at their own expense by censors. Defenders argue that hate speech is a form of discrimination and needs to be curbed to protect those who may be victimized it.

While I would generally describe myself as a civil libertarian (among many things), I am conflicted on this issue and I think we need to see it as a balance of rights. People have the right not to be persecuted for their identity or beliefs, but they are also allowed to speak without fear of censorship.

It’s not clear to me that those indicted by the Tribunals have been unjustly punished, and given the tendency for those in the majority to use their privilege to demonize minorities, I think some level of laws against hate speech are justified.

Basically, I am not convinced that Alberta’s hate speech laws are broken, so I’m not convinced we should be trying to fix them. I am open to being proven wrong though.

The trip left me with a longing to live in such a warm, beautiful area, surrounded by delicious food, drinks, and beautiful lakes.

Then I read about things like this and the reality of small town BC comes back to me.

For the forth [sic] year in a row the mayor of Kelowna, British Columbia, Sharon Shepherd, has issued a proclamation recognizing Protect Human Life Week, at the request of the Kelowna Right to Life Society.

“It is the intention of this proclamation to promote respect and protection to all human life, especially the infirm, the aged, the handicapped and the unborn,” the Protect Human Life Week proclamation states.

…

Kelowna Right to Life is urging supporters of Protect Human Life Week to thank Mayor Shepherd personally for proclaiming the pro-life week.

“Aside from year one when she received a considerable amount of backlash from those who believe killing unborn babies is a good thing, she has largely escaped criticism of her show of tolerance toward the pro life community in the Central Okanagan. Supporters are encouraged to drop Mayor a Shepherd a quick note thanking her for respecting our mission,” the pro-life group said.

Four years straight.

This is four years of a mayor putting a creepy religious attachment to their warped morality ahead of the interests of women, seniors, and the terminally ill.

They even plan to show Ben Stein’s horrendous movie Expelled. I’m not sure what that affront to human dignity has to do with respecting life, if anything I want the bit of my life back that I wasted watching it.

Their week officially kicks off next Saturday, the 24th. Perhaps by then we can increase that criticism.

Mayor Shepherd’s email address is conveniently given in the article: mayorandcouncil@kelowna.ca

Let’s send her some backlash.

I’m going to try to craft something on behalf of the BC Humanists and encourage as many people as possible to write their own letters.

And if the mayor refuses to back down, perhaps we can get CFI Okanagan to host their own week. Either something civil like a Separation of Church and State day or perhaps more provocative like abortion and blasphemy rights week. If she goes ahead with this week under the guise of “tolerance” then she’ll have to “tolerate” our viewpoints too.

Canada's secularists - mostly atheists/humanists - are at war with Canada's foundational principles of justice and liberty: equality before the law, the rule of law and division of powers - distinctively Christian principles.
In order to distract Canadians from their scurrilous behavior, they have directed their militant "McCarthyite" rage against Canada's Christian MPs, as this article reveals - as well as a French Le Devoir article published today. The atheists are showing their fangs. Nice to see the key role that Canada's Christian-hating mainstream media are playing in this warfare strategy.

He has even gone so far as to repost (I’m sure that violates both my, and PostMedia’s copyrights) my religion and politics article on his website No Apologies with the paranoid title “ATHEIST MCCARTHYITES ON THE WAR PATH'.”

The Le Devoir article he references is found here, and one of my friends with more French literacy translates and summarizes it:

1. In the first part of the article, they talk about a liberal female MP who went into anaphylactic shock because she was eating at a restaurant earlier in the day that serves seafood (which she's allergic to) and the scent later caused the reaction. Three CPC MPs, instead of administering any kind of aid to her, got down on their knees and did something that looked like they were giving her a religious blessing. The people on the plane did not want to call them out on it, because they were afraid they would be labelled as intolerant.
2. Another CPC MP was talking about adoption and that how he too was "adopted"; he had his biological family and his adopted family, which turns out to be Jesus and company. In the end, he basically says divine adoption takes precedence over real adoption.
3. Faytene Kryskow, a religious militant (their words, not mine), was given a laissez-passer certificate (basically let them go through without question) for the Parliament building from a Conservative MP. Kryskow is apparently the director of 4MyCanada, an organization that wants to return traditional family values to our country.
4. Last but not least, the good Minister Kenney. While at SFU, a group of young women were handing out pamphlets on abortion, but the University said no and so they (the young women) threatened to take it to the courts. The University backed off and adopted a code which said what was tolerated in terms of expression.
Kenney said that the code was stupid and basically went on to say that now anyone could go on campus to spread their message, from the Ku Klux Klan to pedophiles. He then wrote to the Catholic Church asking them to revoke the Catholic status of the University (in summation, he cried like a little bitch).

Some of which is found in Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor, which references Tim Bloedow 6 different times, among them:

1. He wrote a 132-page book called “Environmentalism and the Death of Science: Exposing the Lie of Eco-Religion” where he argues that there is no environmental crisis and that we should let Jesus and the free market save us. This received praise from national columnist Lorne Gunter and he worked for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott. (p. 117)
2. Vellacott issued an invitation on behalf of Christian nationalist Charles McVety to all MPs to watch Ben Stein’s Expelled. McDonald notes that both McVety and Bloedow attack the environmental movement. (p. 206)
3. Backers of Bloedow’s website include a number of wealthy Canadian businessmen - Hamilton’s Al Schutten and Martinrea chair Rob Wildeboer – the latter of whom was appointed by Harper to the “Science, Technology and Innovation Council.” Bloedow was also appointed as chair of the “Equipping Christians for the Public Square (ECP) Centre,” which defended homophobic Christians who got in legal trouble for their words. (p. 276)
4. Bloedow sees the Supreme Court as the major obstacle for the “re-Christianization” of Canada and called for dismantling the courts. Bloedow has an odd mix of Libertarian –Christianity where local governments could handle justice issues. He’s failed to explain how this would work in a fair or reasonable way (i.e. not just tribal vendettas and bigotry ruling). (p. 280)

But what strikes me most is the blatant ignorance of throwing out terms like “McCarthyism” without understanding the underlying irony of a Christian levelling such a claim against an atheist. During the Red Scare, Senator Joe McCarthy fear-mongered about the atheist communist threat to America, and subsequently the USA passed many pro-Christian signs of support, including adopting “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The McCarthyism of the day was based on fear and lies. Atheists are not trying to repress Christianity using the state, but instead to recognize that in a multicultural, pluralistic country, we can no longer continue making laws that recognize only one sub-sect of society. All people are equal.

That’s a screenshot from the frontpage today of Canada.com. No clue who that kid is, but the picture is priceless.

Go ahead and read through the varied comments too. I’ll repost and respond to some them later.