A rchive Date
[ 17-11-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[In God we don't trust
By STEVE MADELY - Ottawa Sun
November 17, 2000
The documentary unit of the CBC needs an immediate, emergency infusion of cash in massive amounts. The revelation that has shocked the CBC - that Stockwell Day believes in the creationist version of Earth's origin - launches our nation on a bold journalistic journey.
The network's broadcast on Wednesday night, featuring a mocking account of Day's fundamentalist interpretation of creation, introduces a whole new precedent in election reporting.
The people's network has assigned itself the daunting task of determining which religious beliefs render candidates suitable for public office, and which do not. Clearly, in the eyes of the CBC, anyone who believes humankind is only 6,000 years old, is such a fruitcake, such a nutcase, as to be unfit to lead.
What doors this opens! What resources it will require!
Henceforth, it must be the business of The National to probe the teachings of a candidate's faith in order to render judgement on his or her sanity. In the spirit of this quest, documentary teams would be dispatched to assess, as urgently as possible, and certainly before the Nov. 27 election, all other religious faiths. One can never know what beliefs the CBC will determine are not sufficiently mainstream to endorse as politically correct.
Let's see, where should they start?
How about reincarnation? All who believe that at death one's soul passes to another human or animal body will have to do some serious explaining. All Buddhists, Hindus, many of our native peoples, and anyone who has been reading Shirley McLean would be investigated.
As for belief in miracles, well that too requires examination. At what point, the probe would want to determine, does the candidate confuse the power of positive thinking with divine intervention? Anyone with literal beliefs in apparitions, angels, answered prayer, or ancient religious accounts of inexplicable occurrences would be suspect.
Acceptance of the actual Holiness of prophets might be next. Jews would be interrogated on belief that prophecy ceased in the 5th Century BC, and what about those ancient laws?
Muslims would be put to the test on Christ and Mohammed, and modern Islamic fundamentalism.
And Christians - well, we've gone full circle haven't we - would be the most fair game for unrelenting interrogation. Just what do they mean by The Son of God, Immaculate Conception, resurrection, original sin, heaven, hell, evangelism?
This is a dangerous road opponents to the Canadian Alliance have decided to travel.
It is perfectly valid to ask whether a candidate would impose religious beliefs on others in the form of legislation.
It's legitimate to question Day's beliefs on gay rights and abortion, and his policy on referenda. But one's interpretations of the Book of Genesis, Revelations, or which biblical translation one ascribes to, surely do not fall under the category of public domain.
The highly orchestrated campaign of innuendo, mockery and slurs the Liberals have stooped to takes us to a new political low in Canada. The CBC's broadcast on Day's religious beliefs takes us to a new journalistic low.
Madely can be reached at (613) 739-5133 ext. 412 or by e-mail at madely@cfra.com. ]
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