Gary Bauer's Focus is the Harper Government's Vision

I Burned my Bra For This? REAL Women of Canada and the Men Behind Them

Another soldier in the war against American women, who helped to the launch a similar war against Canadian women, is Gary Bauer.

Bauer was with the Moral Majority/Religious Right political movement, that helped to run Ronald Reagan's campaign for President. As reward, he was appointed to the Education Department, as the "family policy" czar, and his first order of business was to "usurp the feminists" (1).

With that accomplished, the Department of Education, then directed the effort to crown the fathers. As Susan Faludi said, "If the "pro-family" movement was "pro" anything, it was paternal power". The same has been said of REAL Women of Canada. (2)

To many, the creation of a "family policy" office would suggest an office committed to helping families with things like financial aid, and medical or legal assistance, but that was not the case. Instead they churned out lectures on how the American family should "behave".

And in a further attack against the Civil Rights movement, Bauer told civil-rights leaders: "The values taught on the `Cosby' show would do more to help low-income and minority children than a bevy of new federal programs. . . . a lot of research indicates that values are much more important, say, than the level of welfare payments."

Not everyone could accomplish what the Huxtables accomplished, with a doctor father and lawyer mother, and that includes most white families. However, the Religious Right's attitude on racial issues has not changed since Reagan's time, as witnessed by their latest offspring, the FAMILY LEADER, and their suggestion that slavery was good for the black family.

However, women and blacks were not the only targets of Bauer's office"

[In 1986] President Reagan asked the surgeon general [C. Everett Koop] to prepare a report on AIDS as the United States confirmed its ten-thousandth case. Leaders of the evangelical movement did not want Koop to write the report, nor did senior White House staffers ..... Dr. Koop related to me, "Gary Bauer was my nemesis in Washington because he kept me from the president. He kept me from the cabinet and he set up a wall of enmity between me and most of the people that surrounded Reagan because he believed that anybody who had AIDS ought to die with it. That was God's punishment for them. (3)

Gary and Carol Bauer: Your Typical American Family

Bauer's office promoted the nuclear family, as laid out in a fifty-two-page diatribe, that senator Daniel P. Moynihan, referred to as "less a policy statement than a tantrum."

"The Family: Preserving America's Future" opens with a quote from Teddy Roosevelt: "If the mother does not do her duty, there will either be no next generation, or a next generation that is worse than none at all." The pages were filled with attacks on "women who work, women who use day care, women who divorce", and "women who have babies out of wedlock".

His "recommendations" to save the family included a list of punishments for girls and mothers: "bar young single mothers from public housing; revive old divorce laws to make it harder for women to break the wedding bonds; deny contraceptives to young women". Mothers who stay home, he suggested, should get tax breaks; "the more babies, the more credits".

With such strong opinions you would think that Bauer and his wife Carole, were living this desired family life. But they weren't.

It comes then as a bit of a surprise to learn that Bauer has subjected his own children to this leftist institution—for nine years. (Bauer called daycares "Marxist")

He can explain it, he says. His use of day care was "different" and "better" because he placed his children in "home-based" day care—that is, an unlicensed center run out of a woman's living room. (It's unclear how this is better: a national review of child abuse statistics at day care centers finds that the most incidents of abuse have occurred at such unlicensed sites.) At any rate, Bauer says, a bit defensively, it's not like his kids went directly from the maternity ward to the day care nursery. His wife, Carol, waited "at least three, four months" before she returned to work. (1)

However, wife Carol remembers it differently:

"Actually, I went back to work six weeks after Elyse was born," says his wife ... At the time of her daughter Elyse's birth in 1977, Carol Bauer explains, she was a top assistant to Congresswoman Margaret Heckler; she couldn't just quit.

A lack of federal assistance programs for mothers also played a role in her decision: "There's no set leave policy on the Hill," she points out. Financial considerations entered into it, too: "We had bought a house and we had a mortgage." And then there was that other impulse that she just couldn't seem to squelch: "It wasn't just economics. I enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of the work. I loved work." She laughs. "I mean, when I had Elyse, I literally took my work with me. After I got out of the hospital, I was working the next day at home."

For years, at eight o'clock every morning, the Bauers dropped off Elyse, and eventually their second daughter, Sarah, at day care, put in a full day of work, and then picked up the girls on the way home, usually after six o'clock. The children spent so much time at day care, in fact, Carol Bauer says, that when it came time for Elyse to enter kindergarten, they enrolled her in the school in the center's neighborhood rather than their own. How did the girls feel about day care? "Oh, fine," Carol Bauer says. "They were very happy there. For them it was normal."(1)

Like Beverly Lehaye, one of the founders of REAL Women's inspiration: 'Concerned Women for America', Carol Bauer only felt fulfilled when she was working outside the home. When she finally did drop out of the workforce, Bauer found "nesting" difficult, and was only happy when she spent most waking hours doing volunteer work.

Oh, and that "family values" man, Gary Bauer.

He was alleged to have had an affair with a 26-year-old staffer (deputy campaign manager Melissa McClard), prompting nine members of his staff to quit. He denied that it was an affair, but Charles Jarvis, Bauer's campaign manager, warned Bauer several times "in the clearest possible terms" that he was creating "the appearance of impropriety" by spending "hours and hours and hours behind closed doors with a young single woman."

Canada's "family values" man, Vic Toews, lost his deniability rights, when it was revealed that he had fathered a child with a young conservative staffer, breaking up his 30 years plus marriage.

From Women's Affairs to Foreign Affairs

"For Harper, the courtship of the Christian right is unlikely to prove an electoral one-night stand. Three years ago, in a speech to the annual Conservative think-fest, Civitas, he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence.

"Even foreign policy had become a theo-con issue, he pointed out, driven by moral and religious convictions. “The truth of the matter is that the real agenda and the defining issues have shifted from economic issues to social values,” he said, “so conservatives must do the same.

"Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ... " (4)

Gary Bauer continues to work the circuit of anti-feminist, anti-gay conferences, where REAL Women of Canada make regular appearances.

REAL also promotes Bauer's new group: American Values, in his attack on "leftie" judges.

Bauer is associated with Focus on the Family, a group that conservative MPs, Rob Anders and Maurice Vellacott belong to, and who helped Stephen Harper get elected in 2006, on his "anti-same-sex marriage" platform.

But the most alarming activities for Bauer, and indeed most of the Religious Right, is their dramatic shift to foreign policy.

Bauer is a member of the Project for the New American Century, that included neoconservatives like Steve Forbes, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and William Kristol. This group helped to draft the Bush Doctrine.

They have been critical of Obama's decision not to send ground troops to Libya, instead following the UN Resolution, which does not support a "regime change".

The Harper Doctrine has no such limitations, and in fact is very specific that only a regime change will do.

However, even more alarming is Bauer's new pet project: Emergency Committee for Israel's Leadership, an aggressive extension of Christians United for Israel, who support extended military engagement in the Middle East.

Jim Flaherty's pal, Charles McVety, heads up the Canadian chapter.

This group, like most in the movement, are Apocalyptic.

So what does it mean when they not only provide foot soldiers for Harper's war on women, but dictate his foreign policy? Or what Harper himself calls 'putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments'.

Yet another reason why the media has to start paying attention.

Drop the 'Tory' nonsense, and report from the Neoconservative/Religious Right/Tea Party reality.

Sources:

1. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, By Susan Faludi, Crown publishing, 1991, ISBN: 0-385-42507-4, Pg. 263-267

2. "R.E.A.L. Women, Anti-feminism and the Welfare State, By Lorna Erwin, Resources for Feminist Research, 1988

3. Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, By D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-19-532666-6

4. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

How Focus on the Family is Losing Their War Against Familes

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

For more than three decades, James Dobson and others like him have been touting the same message. Only nuclear families are legitimate and any other family structure is detrimental to children. As we see in the video, they cherry pick or distort legitimate studies to try to prove their point.

But as suggested, gay and lesbian parents have to work harder to have a family, so there are no "accidents". They are not as a rule "teen" parents and when they apply for adoption, as with any other applicants, must prove that they can provide a stable and loving home.

In his book the Rights Revolution, Michael Ignatieff discusses family issues:

What conservatives see as the collapse of the family, liberals view as its mutation into new forms. Nowadays, there are many types of good parents and many types of good families: nuclear, extended, single-parent, same-sex. The fact that there are many types of families does not mean that there are no longer any fixed standards about what a good family is. The test of goodness is loose but evident: it's a community where each member receives and displays lifelong moral concern for the well-being of everyone else .... an enduring moral commitment.

A child needs to feel that her development matters intensely to another person, and that this person will stay the course with her to ensure that she develops as best she can. What a liberal insists upon is the idea that it is possible to reconcile a commitment to absolute standards of care and responsibility in family life with a faith that these standards can be met by a wide variety of persons and a wide variety of possible family forms.

So-called family values, as propagated in the rhetoric of North American popular entertainment, pulpit sermonizing, and political homily, are a downright tyranny. They make people feel inadequate, ashamed, or guilty about their inability to conform to what is in fact a recent, post-war suburban norm of family domesticity. (1)

That's what defines a family, not it's structural makeup. By hammering the idea that a child can only develop properly with a married mother and father, risks making some children feel inadequate, not in the home but within society. Because what children of "family values" parents hear at home they will repeat on the schoolyard or playground.

Most Christians, whether on the left or the right, will agree that children are a gift from God, so why can't they accept that maybe he (or she) just chooses a variety of gift wrapping?

The results of a study on children raised by lesbian couples finds the opposite to what Dobson preaches:

A study that has been following children raised by lesbian parents for the past 24 years has concluded that not only are the children healthy, they’re generally smarter, nicer and better behaved than those raised by male-female couples.

The results of the US National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study were published today in Pediatrics magazine and found that “daughters and sons of lesbian mothers, all conceived through donor insemination, were rated higher than their peers in social, academic and overall competence, and lower in aggressive behaviour, rule-breaking and social problems, on standardised assessments of psychological adjustment”. While there have been many studies about the children of gay and lesbian parents, this is the first one to follow children from conception through adolescence. (2)

This doesn't mean that we should aspire to having all children be raised by two moms, only that it's OK for children to be raised by two moms, or two dads, or one mom or one dad, or any other combination. And to do that we need to redefine "family values".

We need family values all right, but the ones we actually need must be pluralistic. We need to understand that the essential moral needs of any child can be met by family arrangements that run the gamut from arranged marriages right through to same-sex parenting. Nature and natural instinct are poor guides in these matters. If good parenting were a matter of instinct, families wouldn't be the destructive institutions they so often are. It is frequently the case that perfect strangers turn out to be better parents or step-parents than natural ones.

... The point is not to invalidate one type of parent. Instead, it is to insist that ideology will not help us here: if we insist that one category or type of parent will always do a better job than any other, we are certain to be wrong. Same-sex parents have taught us that there is no necessary relationship between heterosexuality and good parenting. The question to be asked in every case is not what kind of sexual creatures these parents are, or even what kind of biological or other relationship they have to these children, but what kind of parents they are. The test of goodness here is the capacity for sustained moral concern and to be willing to make reasonable sacrifices for the sake of children's interests. (1)

Religion is being used and abused for financial and political gain. As such it has narrowed discourse to single issues, like abortion and same-sex marriage, instead of looking at the broader picture, and examining faith from a variety of concerns. E.J. Dionne, in his book Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right, states:

... reducing religion to politics or to a narrow set of public issues amounts to a great sellout of our traditions. It is common to speak of religion as "selling out" to secularism, or to modernity, or to a fashionable relativism. But there is a more immediate danger .. of religion selling out to political forces that use the votes of religious people for purposes having nothing to do with a religious agenda—and, often enough, for causes that may contradict the values such voters prize most. It is a great sellout of religion to insist that it has much to teach us about abortion or gay marriage but little useful to say about social justice, war and peace, the organization of our work lives, or our approach to providing for the old, the sick, and the desperate.

Religion becomes less relevant to public life when its role is marginalized to a predetermined list of "values issues," when its voice is silenced or softened on
the central problems facing our country and our government. (3)

The neoconservative movement that has tapped into religion, has been able to deflect attention away from the things we should be focusing on, including those mentioned above, but also on health care, education, poverty, homelessness, etc. This has worked to their advantage because those are all the things they really want to avoid having to deal with.

The religious right, left and everything in between, need to start working together on the things that really matter, and not allow the politicians who choose to exploit, or those in the lucrative "business" of selling faith, to set the agenda.

Sources:

1. The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, By Michael Ignatieff, Anansi Books, 2000, ISBN: 978=0-88784-762-2, Pg. 102-103

2. The Secret To Having The Perfect Child: Be A Lesbian, By Brian Moylan, The Defamer, June 8, 2010

3. Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right, By E.J. Dionne, Jr., Princeton University Press, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-691--13458--1. Pg. 3

How Focus on the Family is Destroying Children

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

James Dobson is the founder of Focus on the The Family, and one of the leading members of the Religious Right. He not only spent thousands of dollars campaigning for Stephen Harper's fight against equal marriage, but he provided four and a half million dollars to start a Focus on the Family in Canada.

Harper's assistant chief of staff, Darrel Reid founded the group, and several of Harper's MPs, including Maurice Vellacott, Rob Anders and Brad Trost, belong to it.

It is one of the oldest of these so-called "values", "families" groups, and is certainly one of the most profitable. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most damaging.

Brian Elroy McKinley, a former Christian, has launched a website, that not only exposes FOTF, but also acts as a support group for others who have been damaged because of Dobson. He doesn't feel that Focus are alone but speaks of how "... the illness of judgementalism, and prejudgementalism has infected the ranks of the faithful." (1) This should help to serve as their wake up call.

From one testimonial:

For fourteen years I attended church three times a week with my parents. This particular church seemed to have a very intimate relationship with Focus on the Family. I was taught women didn't deserve the same respect as men because they were not equal to them. This and other "values" were ingrained into my young, absorbent mind from the nursery to youth group. As a female, this contributed to my low self-esteem. My self esteem, in turn, led to my silence after my rape (my youth pastor convinced me it was my fault and that I was "ruined") and a relationship with an abusive boyfriend. My experiences drove me to reject Christianity as a whole. I would like to give my life back to Christ, but I can't let go of my haunting memories. I also can't separate Christianity'steachings from those of Dr. Dobson. (2)

And Another:

I was raised as a child by the Dobson's methods. I went to a Christian School whose idea of sexual education was to put on a Dobson tape and tell us to take notes. I was given "tough love" because my parents were confused with certain aspects of my personality that Dobson claimed was "passive rebellion". Ergo, I was given "spankings" (the details of which I will spare you, but I understand that not even Prisoners of War, according to the Geneva Convention, should be treated in such ways). It was all done by the book (Dobson's books) and his radio shows were always on the radio.

Three nervous breakdowns, years of therapy and support groups, and a lost childhood later, I am just starting to learn what Mr. Dobson's theories have done to me. Despite this, millions continue to listen and adhere to his destructive approach to parenting. For years, I thought I was alone in this opinion. My parents and I have made our peace over the past. But, it churns my stomach to know he carries on. (2)

And still another:

I am a gay man. Many years ago, I listened to Focus on the Family. They had a news show called 'Family News in Focus.' It was the only thing that I found that addressed homosexuality..albeit in a negative light. Their radio program really worked on me. I nearly killed myself before finally accepting myself as I am. A friend of mine was less fortunate and became obsessed with Bob Larson's 'Talk Back' program and later committed suicide.

After this happened, I started researching the Religious Right and found them out to be a very scary bunch. Bob Larson has a fan club these days. But, as you are seeing, it's hard to criticize them, because then you're the 'enemy' who is 'attacking' Christianity. It's a catch-22, and I know that it's not Christianity that you wish to attack! I have come across some 'Christian' sites and have sent letters to their editors when they come across so extreme, trying to get them to consider what they are saying. But I only get a bible verse back, and a polite letter that doesn't address what I said to them at all.

"Love the sinner but not the sin" is what I'm told. I asked one of them why don't they think that it's a sin using homosexuals in fundraising letters in order to stir up anger toward us (to get 'love gifts' from their followers)?

I'm hoping that one day being a Conservative Christian means things other than attacking homosexuals, focusing on abortion and prayer in schools. (2)

Groups like Focus marginalize anyone who doesn't fit into their narrow little definition of what a person or a family should be. And they have an almost cult like following.

Susan Greene, a columnist for the Denver Post discovered just how much of a cult following Dobson had, when she wrote criticizing his endorsement of spanking children.

Having been called all sorts of names as a columnist, I've got to hand it to some members of the religious right for their spirited invective. A column I wrote over the weekend criticizing James Dobson for his advocacy of corporal punishment prompted one reader to call me a "Jezebel," another a "dyke." Five men and two women have lobbed the c-word my way. And I have been called a "retard" three times and a "moron" twice since Sunday.

All purportedly in defense of Dr. Dobson and the moral righteousness of his teachings. Several readers took umbrage with my use of the verb "hit" as a synonym for "spank" — as if spanking were more virtuous, see, because it is focused on the family.

...Reader Charlie Haynes called to tout how effective he found it to have bitten his troubled young daughter and hit her head on the ground. Scott from Castle Rock phoned to threaten me with a spanking (with me wearing bobby socks, as he bothered to imagine it). No joke. Walter Smetana decried my criticism of Dobson as illustrative of a "mindless, bestial, even Satanic banality of evil."

...And Walt Morrison sent his warmest and fuzziest anti-Semitic regards, using the debate about discipline to launch into a hateful rant about the need to exterminate Jews. Way to spread the love, Mr. M!

What touches me, I mean really touches me, are all the good folks who have called to say they're praying for me and my hatefulness. That's code for insinuating that I'm headed for damnation because I don't spank my kids and am dubious when readers claim their own grown children have thanked them for whacking them.

"My daddy belted me. I belted my son. And God willing, my son will discipline his own boy," Paul White, a reader and self-described amateur pastor, phoned to tell me Monday morning. "It's called backbone. It's called firmness," he continued. Maybe, Mr. White. But it's also called abuse and repetition compulsion and being a big old bullying blow-hard, plain and simple. Now put your belt back on. (3)

Yes, it also churns my stomach to know that there are people out there like this.

Sources:

1. A More Honest Form of Faith, A Former Christian's Perspective, By Brian McKinley

2. People directly damaged by Focus and the people who follow them, Letters of Support

3. James Dobson evokes storm of responses, By Susan Greene, The Denver Post, March 2, 2010

Catechism and the Indoctrination of Children

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

When I was about nine-years-old I met a girl about my age, who had just moved into the neighbourhood. It was at the beginning of summer vacation and for the next two months we were inseparable.

Sleepovers, shared meals and shared lives. We had become like sisters.

Until the day I uncovered a "secret" that changed everything.

One of our favourite places to play had been in a nearby public schoolyard. The paved area was perfect for skipping and they had a swing and a climber. Things not found at my school, which was some distance away.

One day in late august, we ventured a bit closer to the school building and walked around the parameter. My friend would peer into the windows and remark on the things she saw inside.

Finally as she reached the windows to a room without juvenile pictures on the wall, she said "I wonder if that will be my classroom." I was mortified. We had never discussed religion or school all summer, but on that day, I discovered that my new friend was a Protestant.

I was Catholic and we were taught not to trust Protestants, because they were not going to Heaven and may try to lure us to their wicked ways.

Up to that time I had been very careful to choose my associates wisely. However, many of my regular playmates lived closer to the separate school I attended, so we didn't see each other much in the summer. I had let my guard down and was terrified of the consequences.

So when Sunday rolled around, I couldn't wait to get to Church. Throughout the Latin mass, I fidgeted until the time for Confession. I practically fell to my knees before my executioner, hurrying through the "Bless me father for I have sinned ... " I'm sure I included the usual laundry list of a nine-year-old sinner. "I told a lie, I hit my brother, I 'accidentally' dropped my sister's transistor radio into a sink full of suds because she wouldn't let me listen to it."

But then came the whopper. The one I was sure would shake the rafters of the church and cause the statue of the Virgin Mary to weep. "And I played with a Protestant."

I have to admit the reaction from the old priest was not what I had expected. He chuckled. He actually laughed at my demise. And when handing down my sentence of five Hail Marys and as many Our Fathers, he left me with a bit of advice. "Instead of a friend become not an enemy to thy neighbour: for an evil man shall inherit reproach and shame..."

Actually, I don't really remember if that was the quote he used, though it was probably something from Ecclesiasticus, because he often mentioned that in his sermons. The only part of the mass I remembered, because it was the only time he spoke English.

But whatever it was, it translated to "lighten up". However, my Catechism had trained me well, and I never saw that girl again, except in passing. She found other friends from her school, and I got on with my life.

It was only later that I realized that the Catechism that was drilled into my head for the first hour of every school day was an indoctrination, not a teaching. And for that reason I never sent my own children to separate schools, even though I know they don't teach that way now. I did have them all baptized Catholic, however, so I guess a little of the "guilt" stayed with me.

Public Schools Thine are my Enemy

At the 1991 Reform Party Assembly, a guest speaker was William Gairdner, author of the book The Trouble with Canada, which journalist Murray Dobbin stated ".. helped lay the groundwork for Reform Party policy." (1) Reform Party policy which was then being drafted by Stephen Harper.

The Reformers gathered in Saskatoon saved perhaps the loudest cheers, whistles, and applause for Gairdner's last shot: 'And my favourite proposal, by the way, is returning choice to education by privatizing every school in the country'.(1)

Public schooling has long been a target of the Religious Right, both here and in the United States. Part of the reason is their belief in a social Darwinism, with a clear societal structure. Stephen Harper has always been against any social programs that promote universality, forgetting that things like universal health care and public education helped many Canadians to rise to the top.

In a speech to the National Citizens Coalition in 1994, while still MP for Calgary West, he crowed over public policy changes that he attributed to the Reform Party’s influence:

"The Liberal government in Ottawa has announced... no new major social spending programs," he said. "Universality has been severely reduced: It is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy. The family allowance program has been eliminated and unemployment insurance has been seriously cut back." (2)

Later when he was running the NCC, he endorsed a private school tax credit proposed by the Ontario government of Mike Harris, and told the Hill Times that "pulling their children from 'union-run' schools should be a viable option for all parents." (3)

So should it come as any surprise that the Canada Action Plan included 26 million dollars being funnelled to private Bible schools? (4)

Because that is the real reason why movement Conservatives, like Stephen Harper and many members of his caucus and staff, oppose public education. Religion or lack thereof. They are afraid that the concept of secularism is depriving their children of an education drafted within a Biblical framework.

And this is why they prefer home schooling or private faith based schools, which are often an indoctrination, more than an education that will prepare children for the real world. That will allow them to interact with people of all faiths, even if that faith does not include their God or any god at all.

Religious leaders are well aware of the vulnerability of the child brain, and the importance of getting the indoctrination in early. The Jesuit boast, 'Give me the child for his first seven years, and I'll give you the man,' is no less accurate (or sinister) for being hackneyed. In more recent times, James Dobson*, founder of today's infamous 'Focus on the Family' movement," is equally acquainted with the principle: 'Those who control what young people are taught, and what they experience – what they see, hear, think, and believe – will determine the future course for the nation. (5)

And Marcie McDonald also writes of James Dobson and his views on public education:

In the United States, Dobson has urged parents to abandon the public school system, which he sees as a breeding ground for secular humanism, hostile to the Book of Genesis and prayer. “I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools,” agreed Jerry Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority that helped sweep Ronald Reagan into power.

“The churches will have taken them over again, and Christians will be running them.”Those may be long-term aspirations, but the US religious right has learned that patience pays off. (6)

Jim Flaherty: the Man on a Mission

In Flaherty's 2007 budget, he slipped in a little gem, that allowed our tax dollars to fund tuition fees for private religious schools.**

He and Stephen Harper defended the move, by saying that it would also apply to public schools. But public schools don't charge tuition:

The Harper government is giving a tax break to families who send their kids to elite private schools, raising the ire of public education advocates.

Under a little-noticed measure in last month's budget, scholarships and bursaries to attend elementary and secondary school will now be fully tax exempt. Finance officials estimate the new exemption will mean "significant tax savings" for about 1,000 students – or, by extension, their parents.

Officials insisted that the exemption applies to scholarships for either public or private schools. But they couldn't supply any examples of public schools – which are funded from the public purse and don't charge tuition fees – awarding scholarships or bursaries. (7)

This despite the fact that Canadians have consistently stated that they do not want their tax dollars funding these "elite" schools. In fact it cost John Tory the election in Ontario, because he proposed funding religious schools. And I actually liked John Tory, though I still bear the scars of the Mike Harris regime, so won't be voting conservative again anytime soon.

But anyone who has followed Jim Flaherty's career knows that this has long been a goal of his.

I already mentioned the fact that Stephen Harper's National Citizens Coalition threw their support behind his move to grant huge tax credits to this country's religious elite, who could afford to send their children to private Bible schools.

When he was running against Ernie Eves for the provincial leadership in 2002, an American freelance journalist wrote of Flaherty:

His full-bodied, conservative platform of tax cuts, privatization, and school choice, first caught the attention of grassroots conservatives with his unexpected announcement in last year's budget of a $3,500 ($2,300 USD) per-child tax credit for parents who send their children to independent schools. The measure, according to Laura Swartley of the Milton*** and Rose D. Friedman Foundation for School Choice, is the most generous education tax credit in North America. It alone has won Flaherty the support of social conservatives and minority religious groups. (8)

Ernie Eves responded by suggesting that the education tax credit would help religious schools that "teach hatred."

My point exactly.

Footnotes:

*James Dobson is the founder of Focus on the Family and one of the most prominent members of the U.S. Religious Right. His group is mostly anti-gay, anti-abortion , anti-Muslim and anti-women's rights. He provided 1.6 million dollars to establish a Focus on the Family in Canada, which was started up by Stephen Harper's current deputy chief of staff, Darrel Reid, and many members of Harper's caucus belong to it.

**If you think that Flaherty is somehow a "Godly" man, check out this story by BCer in Toronto. It would appear that Flaherty and his wife cashed in on the budget, by allegedly cheating taxpayers out of almost a million dollars. He has a lot of documentation.

*** Milton Friedman was Ronald Reagan's financial guru and both he and his wife were longtime supporters of the Fraser Institute, the voice of the Reform movement . If you want to read a good book that follows the money to that institute, I recommend Not a Conspiracy Theory: How Business Propaganda Hijacks Democracy, By Donald Gutstein, Key Porter Books, 2009, ISBN: 978-1-55470-191-9

Sources:

1. Preston Manning and the Reform Party, By Murray Dobbin, Goodread Biographies/Formac Publishing, 1992, ISBN: 0-88780-161-7, pg. 165-166

2. Will the real Stephen Harper please stand up? A citizen’s guide to comparing election campaign promises to deeply held beliefs, By Murray Dobbin, January 10, 2006

3. So What DID Harper Say? The Conservative Leader's sound bite file on everything from taxes to Iraq, health care, gay marriage, nature, left wingers and keeping, By Tom Barrett, The Tyee, May 20, 2004

4. The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, By: Marci McDonald, Random House Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-307-35646-8, Pg. 46

5. The God Delusion, By Richard Dawkins, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006, ISBN: 13-978-0-618-68000-9, Pg. 177

6. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada's religious right, By Marci McDonald, The Walrus, October 2006

7. Private school families get tax break, Toronto Star, April 03, 2007

8. Looking North: Election time in Canada. By David Curtin, March 18, 2002

Spanking and Dominionism, From Kelly Block to James Dobson

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In October of 2009, Reform-Conservative Member of Parliament, Kelly Block, sent out a tax-payer funded flyer to her constituents that asked the question, "Are Parents Criminals?” The intent of this was to drum up support for her opposition to a senate bill that would see parents charged for inflicting corporal punishment on their children.

According to the Star Pheonix:

“The Liberal dominated Senate already voted to approve this terrible idea last year,” the mailout says. “(The bill) is designed to make moms and dads into criminals for using the traditional punishment of spanking to teach their kids right from wrong.”

Block did not return multiple interview requests seeking comment.

What Block was referring to was Liberal senator Céline Hervieux-Payette's, Bill S-209. Believing as many do that spanking or any form of corporal punishment can encourage violent behaviour, the senator felt a need to introduce consequences.

She includes the following video on her site:

While section 43 of the criminal code, prohibited spanking, it did not allow for criminal charges to be laid against the person inflicting the harm.

Kelly Block was not the only member of the Religious Right to be upset.

Charles' McVety's Family Action Coalition, suggested that "... section 43 of the criminal code [is] to be rescinded. That section allows parents to use "reasonable force" to correct behaviors of their (not the state's) children. If that allowance for spanking was rescinded then any parent who reasonably spanks a child could face criminal charges of assault."

REAL Women of Canada had already presented their views on their website:

The arrogant political left, which looks contemptuously down on those who disagree with its supposedly enlightened views, is attempting to revive the spanking issue. Apparently the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada on the subject, handed down a year ago, was only a stopgap in the onward journey to ban the spanking of children in Canada. (2)

I'm not sure what 'arrogance' has to do with wanting to protect children, but spanking has come to mean something more to the Christian nationalist movement.

James Dobson, Dominionism or Destruction

James Dobson is the Founder of Focus on the Family and a leading member of the American Religious Right movement. He provided 1.6 million dollars to help set up the Canadian Focus on the Family group, founded by Stephen Harper's deputy chief of staff, Darrel Reid.

He has written extensively on the issue of spanking, and though he is a child psychologist, it's never from a scientific argument, only Biblical.

In his book, The Strong Willed Child he makes an extraordinary case to justify harsh discipline. In it he speaks of his small dog Siggie, who he claims to love very much, but when he was away for awhile, the dog had picked up some bad habits. And when he disobeyed him, Dobson retaliated. He describes the scene:

“At eleven o’clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which is a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed.

“On this occasion, however, he refused to budge. ...“I had seen this defiant mood before, and knew there was only one way to deal with it. The ONLY way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me ‘reason’ with Mr. Freud.”

“What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt. I am embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him to bed, only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!” (3)

What the good Mr. Dobson describes is animal cruelty and the fact the he outweighed him 200 to 12, makes the whole scene even more horrific. That man clearly should not own a pet.

He goes on from "destruction" being the only thing the dog understood, to the need to discipline children, and even uses capital letters:

"JUST AS SURELY AS A DOG WILL OCCASIONALLY CHALLENGE THE AUTHORITY OF HIS LEADERS, SO WILL A LITTLE CHILD — ONLY MORE SO.” (3)

And he doesn't just say a child but "a little child ", like the little 12 pound dog. And after describing ways that children will challenge their parent's authority, he states:

“Perhaps this tendency toward self-will is the essence of ‘original sin’ which has infiltrated the human family. It certainly explains why I place such stress on the proper response to willful defiance during childhood, for that rebellion can plant the seeds of personal disaster.” (3)

Nothing clinical befitting his profession, but children and "original sin".

You do get some insight into the reasons for his disturbing behaviour from this bio:

Dobson's own family was a bit out of the ordinary. His father was a preacher who often told the story that he had tried to pray before he could even talk. His mother routinely beat their son with her shoes, her belt, and once, a 16-pound girdle. His parents somehow instilled so much guilt in young Dobson that he answered his father's fervent altar-call, weeping at the front of a crowded church service and crying out for God's forgiveness for all his sins, when he was three years old. "It makes no sense, but I know it happened," Dobson still says of being born again as a toddler.

This would certainly prove senator Céline Hervieux-Payette's belief that children learn what they see. However, the spanking issue may be more complex.

For those who have studied the Christian nationalist movement, which is also referred to as 'Dominionism', submissiveness is required to make it work.

In a politico-religious context, dominionism (also called subjectionism) is the tendency among some conservative politically-active Christians, especially in the United States, to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action. The goal is either a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law. (4)

Movement conservatives see the end result as a nation whose laws are based on the Old Testament. There can be no exception. And they are very clear in their understanding that fundamentalist Christians must assume control of all levels of government, beginning with school and municipal boards. It stems from Genesis, where God commissions man to exercise "dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

George Grant, one of their founders (and I will be writing a lot more on this) states:

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after. World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ." (5)

It's up to us to decide what kind of Canada we want for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren. This is not a movement with any flexibility and it does not represent Canadian values. When Stephen Harper decided to exploit the religious right for political gain, I'm not sure if he understood just what that meant. He is a "born-again" Christian, but I believe he worships on the altar of capitalism. This is now out of his control, I'm afraid.

Sources:

1. MP favours spanking, Star Phoenix, October 5, 2009

2. ATTEMPT TO REVIVE SPANKING ISSUE, REAL Women of Canada, Jan/Feb 2005

3. The Strong Willed Child, By James Dobson, Living Books, 1992, ISBN-10: 0842359249

4. Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, By Michael Frost, Hendrickson Publishers, ISBN 1565636708, Pg. 235

5. The Changing of the Guard, By George Grant, 1987, as quoted in "American Theocracy: Who is Trying to Turn America into a Theocracy?