Last Friday, April 25, a local paper, the Courier-Islander, gave us a glimpse of what we can expect from the new owners when it published an editorial I'm pretty sure wasn't written in-house.
As is my wont when I find I'm somewhat offended by something political, I wrote a letter to the editor:
Dear Sir,
As a subscriber to your newspaper since the 1970's, it is extremely
disappointing to see a piece of rather obvious Conservative propaganda
masquerading as Friday's editorial (The Fair Elections Act. Is it fair
or unfair?)
Especially as the government that introduced the Act has now climbed
down from most of the contentious provisions so energetically defended
in that editorial.
Today that letter was published, along with two others in the same vein.
This afternoon J showed up. He wanted to talk about "your letter", and why, as a Campbell River lawyer who signs himself W.J. Havelaar he couldn't be associated with it.
Fair enough, although as I pointed out, the contents of the letter pretty clearly demonstrate that he couldn't have written it.
Anyway, I agreed to write another letter:
Dear Sir,
My son, W.J. (Jay) Havelaar, wants me to point out that there are four
W.J. Havelaars presently extant, and that he's not the one who has
subscribed to your paper since the 1970's, so he's not the one who wrote
the letter complaining about the "editorial" that appeared in the April
25th edition of the Courier-Islander.
Yours very sincerely,
W.J. (Justus) Havelaar
That should clear things up!
(Though I doubt they'll publish it.)
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
This lead from today's Globe illustrates...
...why it is apparently so difficult to have a rational discussion on
the issue:
Ontario’s law society has refused to accredit a new law school at a faith-based university over a policy prohibiting same-sex intimacy that some say is discriminatory.
Not to mention that that a significant part of it is just plain wrong.
Maybe not as wrong as the headline, however: Law Society rejects school over gay policy
Happily, the rest of the story is more nuanced.
That said, cheers from this corner for the Ontario Benchers!
(I tried to link to the article, but it appears to have been changed. Maybe someone read it and drew the same conclusions I did!)
April 26:
Since I posted this, the Nova Scotia Bar has essentially agreed with the Ontario Bar. It's quite possible the BC Bar will reverse its decision as well, if the membership gets to vote.
Mike asked me to expand on my position. I replied:
I thought the Supremes were wrong in the BCTF vs TWU case, and I think the Ontario Benchers are right in this case.
My complaint with the Globe lead and headine is that it doesn't help to describe the case as pitting the interests of same-sex advocates against the interests of religious fundamentalists, no matter how passionate the argument on either side. They're both, in their own way, correct, and I have no problem with each making his case.
However, the TWU covenant is clearly discriminatory: that's its raison d'etre. It discriminates against all adults who are in relationships that are not traditional man-woman marriage.
Normally this kind of discrimination of no great import, but these activities and relationships are, in Canada, not only legal but have the implicit blessing of the state in that they're recognized in various laws.
When such discrimination is a condition of entering or remaining in a professional faculty, one (education and law being two examples) which has strict anti-discrimination bylaws written into its professional college rules, a line has been crossed.
I should have added that the practice of law is, like teaching, a social service, a part of what makes our society work. Any person who has been sheltered in a cocoon of like-minded individuals his or her entire academic life is not, in my opinion -- no matter how professionally competent -- well prepared to confront the realities of that society, and is thus not well-prepared to fully discharge his or her duties to that society.
I believe I could give examples observed during my teaching career.
Ontario’s law society has refused to accredit a new law school at a faith-based university over a policy prohibiting same-sex intimacy that some say is discriminatory.
Not to mention that that a significant part of it is just plain wrong.
Maybe not as wrong as the headline, however: Law Society rejects school over gay policy
Happily, the rest of the story is more nuanced.
That said, cheers from this corner for the Ontario Benchers!
(I tried to link to the article, but it appears to have been changed. Maybe someone read it and drew the same conclusions I did!)
April 26:
Since I posted this, the Nova Scotia Bar has essentially agreed with the Ontario Bar. It's quite possible the BC Bar will reverse its decision as well, if the membership gets to vote.
Mike asked me to expand on my position. I replied:
I thought the Supremes were wrong in the BCTF vs TWU case, and I think the Ontario Benchers are right in this case.
My complaint with the Globe lead and headine is that it doesn't help to describe the case as pitting the interests of same-sex advocates against the interests of religious fundamentalists, no matter how passionate the argument on either side. They're both, in their own way, correct, and I have no problem with each making his case.
However, the TWU covenant is clearly discriminatory: that's its raison d'etre. It discriminates against all adults who are in relationships that are not traditional man-woman marriage.
Normally this kind of discrimination of no great import, but these activities and relationships are, in Canada, not only legal but have the implicit blessing of the state in that they're recognized in various laws.
When such discrimination is a condition of entering or remaining in a professional faculty, one (education and law being two examples) which has strict anti-discrimination bylaws written into its professional college rules, a line has been crossed.
I should have added that the practice of law is, like teaching, a social service, a part of what makes our society work. Any person who has been sheltered in a cocoon of like-minded individuals his or her entire academic life is not, in my opinion -- no matter how professionally competent -- well prepared to confront the realities of that society, and is thus not well-prepared to fully discharge his or her duties to that society.
I believe I could give examples observed during my teaching career.
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