McGill Prof: Canadian transgender bill a ‘Trojan horse’ to ‘reorganize’ society’s view of sex
MONTREAL, Quebec, December 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Canadian bill seeking to enshrine protections for “transsexuals” is a “Trojan horse” focused on “reorganizing the way we approach sexual issues,” said a noted professor and public commentator at McGill University in Montreal. According to Dr. Douglas Farrow, the bill will “undermine the integrity of Canadian law and civil society.”
Farrow, Professor of Christian Thought, urged Members of Parliament in an open letter this week to reject Bill C-389. “It will entrench in Canadian law the notion that sex and/or gender are basically social constructs, products of a series of human choices, based not in the natural order but in more or less arbitrary acts of interpretation,” he wrote.
The private members bill, authored by New Democrat MP Bill Siksay, seeks to add “gender identity” and “gender expression” as prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canada Human Rights Act, and as identifiable groups in the Criminal Code’s hate crimes section.
The bill, which has been strongly opposed by religious and pro-family groups, sailed through committee last month and will likely see a final vote in the House of Commons by February, and possibly this month. If passed, it will head to the Senate.
The professor said that unlike categories such as sex or race, which are “objective conditions,” the terms proposed by Siksay’s bill are “subjectively determined.” They are “mere attitudes towards oneself, or attitudes combined with behaviours (cross-dressing, say, or elective surgery) intended to express or alleviate those attitudes,” he explained.
By moving into the realm of such subjective conditions, there will likely be “no logical stopping point” and the list will “grow longer and longer, until the whole idea of such laws becomes meaningless,” he added.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews on Thursday, he said that, “This is a different kind of category altogether. It’s invented by people who take a strictly constructionist approach to sexuality.”
The addition of “gender identity” and “gender expression” would actually undermine the current protection based on sex, he said. “This new addition … is saying ‘Well, that’s not actually quite right. It’s not a matter of whether you’re a male or a female, it’s a matter of various degrees or configurations in between. It’s a matter of how you perceive your maleness or femaleness.’”
He pointed out in the letter that Canada already began on this path by adding “sexual orientation” to the Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code. “How far will we go?” he asked. “Good law and sound public policy cannot be built on the shifting sands of the subjective.”
The professor warned that the bill has “large-scale implications” for law and public policy and said its impact is “difficult to overestimate.”
“It’s another step along the path to the deconstruction of the set of restraints that Western civilization, under Christian influence, has placed around public sexual behaviours,” he told LifeSiteNews. These were instituted, he said, “for the purpose of strengthening the social fabric, protecting children, protecting women and so forth.”
Should the bill pass, children will be taught that “what was formerly regarded as disordered ways of life are in fact healthy or well-ordered,” he noted.
He also told the MPs that the bill will have “immediate disruptive consequences.”
“There will be various lawsuits brought. This is certain. It’s the pattern we have seen several times before,” he told LSN. He noted that the bill could see men gaining access to women’s bathrooms, while institutions like churches, businesses, and schools could be forced to provide unisex bathrooms.
“We need forethought, prudence, and courage from the people’s representatives in dealing with this legislation,” he concluded in his letter. “I urge every MP who still has something of the requisite virtues to stand up and vote against this bill.”
View Douglas Farrow’s open letter here.
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Justice Minister Rob Nicholson
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