Six months ago<\/a>, I suggested that the Ontario government\u2019s omnibus Bill 28 had defined the natural family unit out of legal existence.\u00a0 It was an unprecedented assault on human identity.\u00a0 Like Aldous Huxley\u2019s dystopian society Brave New World<\/em>, the words \u2018mother\u2019 and \u2018father\u2019 no longer had any legal standing in Ontario.<\/p>\n If a historic precedent were to be sought, the one that occurred to me as a Mohawk was the atrocious treatment of native Canadians in the residential schools<\/a>.\u00a0 Some have described their treatment as \u2018cultural genocide\u2019 and a \u2018bludgeon to kill the Indian in the child.\u2019\u00a0 The height of the atrocity wasn\u2019t the physical and sexual abuse by authority figures, as awful as that was, but the official policy of \u2018forcible enfranchisement.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Forcible enfranchisement\u2019 was the disgraceful euphemism used to justify violating native families.\u00a0 Children were simply taken from their parents.\u00a0 The government believed its violation justified because it was saving the children\u2019s souls.\u00a0 \u2018Enfranchisement\u2019 dehumanized the parents by likening them to slave owners.<\/p>\n I suggested that Bill 28 would have a similar effect.<\/p>\n To this day, I suspect that most Ontarians are oblivious to the fact that the spine of the body politic in the province, i.e. the families that constitute it, has been forcibly extracted in family law.<\/p>\n Who would suspect it?\u00a0 Politicians weren\u2019t elected to enact theological experiments, nor were their legislative intentions even considered by the unsuspecting electorate.\u00a0 The official line is that these changes are little tweaks, inclusive accommodations to bring legislation up to date.<\/p>\n Only radicals would ever consider using the tools of government to enact Frankenstein legislation on the basic social unit of the body politic.\u00a0 And make no mistake:\u00a0 the Liberals have used their legislative power to do nothing less than to redefine human nature before the law.<\/p>\n They have had absolutely no scruple about \u2018imposing their values\u2019 on the unsuspecting populace.<\/p>\n Families too preoccupied with paying their bills and keeping their heads above water won\u2019t notice the effect of the back surgery on the body politic and every family within it until they try to stand up in opposition, and find themselves impeded by a justice system that has disabled them.<\/p>\n What I warned about has now been swiftly enacted in Bill 89.<\/p>\n Bill 89 \u2013 the teeth set against the family, and Christians<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Bill 89, the \u201cSupporting Children, Youth and Families Act,\u201d is yet another omnibus bill which, this time, has repealed and replaced the\u00a0central tenets of the Child and Family Services Act<\/em>, those that govern child protection, foster care, and adoption services.<\/p>\n Rejecting what every<\/em> society throughout human history has acknowledged, i.e. the pre-political natural legitimacy of families, and the natural relationship of individual persons within the family unit, Bill 89 avoids the language of family and personhood, and substitutes identity group<\/em> terms in its stead.<\/p>\n Henceforth, the agencies that care for families and the courts in Ontario are to operate according to a child\u2019s \u201crace, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, family diversity, disability, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.\u201d<\/p>\n Not just the novel and objectively unverifiable notions of gender identity and expression, but the entire laundry list of identity group characteristics is without legal precedent.<\/p>\n And the reason why isn\u2019t because of systemic bigotry.\u00a0 It is because of the high value placed on the individual; whereas regarding identity groupings as determining factors of a person\u2019s basic humanity repudiates the core convictions of Western civilization<\/em>: that every single human being without exception <\/em>is a person who bears the image of God, and ought to be nurtured by a natural family, either directly or through adoption.<\/p>\n The family is what God intended as a person\u2019s birthright.<\/p>\n Lest people conclude that this is a partisan political complaint, it should be noted that the Bill repudiates liberal convictions as much as it does conservative ones.\u00a0 There can be no freedom for the individual in a country where the sanctity of the person has no legal status.\u00a0 And people are not creatures of the state, they are begotten of their parents.\u00a0 It is part of their individual identity.<\/p>\n By changing this core assumption about human identity, this presumptuous legislation rejects the (Christian) assumption of a common humanity in favour of the sorts of tribalistic divisions which, as we are daily seeing, animate campus radicals to violate others basic freedoms.<\/p>\n Practical effects of making group rights prevail in family law<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Practically speaking, by rejecting the equality of individuals under a common law, the state has now enabled itself to intervene without legal impediment <\/em>on behalf of these \u2018marginalized\u2019 groups.\u00a0 And it will doubtless justify its forcible enfranchisement of children by claiming it is \u2018protecting\u2019 them from the natural families and religious objectors who have been dehumanized by the loss of their privileged legal standing <\/em>as parents.<\/p>\n In the past, as ARPA\u2019s summary<\/a> has noted, Child and Family Services were governed by the principles of \u201crespecting a child\u2019s need for continuity of care and stable family relationships, involving the child and his or her relatives and community members, and respecting cultural, religious, and regional differences. These principles supplement the central purpose of the Act, which is \u201cto promote the best interests, protection, and well-being of children.\u201d<\/p>\n Bill 89, however, redefines these principles to make them amenable to group rights, and to exclude the natural family.\u00a0 Furthermore, and most tellingly, unlike all the identity group characteristics that will be protected, the \u201creligious faith, if any, in which the child is being raised\u201d has been removed. \u00a0If any doubt about how stark the change is, the religious identity of the child had been a vital consideration in the previous legislation.<\/p>\n Accordingly, Bill 89 also removes the requirement that a court determine, as soon as possible, the child\u2019s religious identity in the course of a child protection hearing.<\/p>\n This pattern continues in determining who can foster or adopt children. Prospective parents who reject gender ideology on principle will no longer be deemed suitable.\u00a0 Since the adoption of children is a practice with particular theological significance to Christians, the application of the Bill could not be clearer.\u00a0 Needy children will be the greatest losers of the Bill.<\/p>\n Moreover, the natural children of parents who refuse to affirm their gender identity may also be considered \u201cin need of protection\u201d. \u00a0Even a child \u2018at risk of suffering\u2019 mental or emotional harm or whose parents do not provide \u2018treatment or access to treatment\u2019 may receive the enfranchisement of the law.<\/p>\n Finally, the Children\u2019s Aid Society<\/a> must<\/em> investigate evidence that children may be in need of protection. And a court can make orders governing the care of children deemed to be in need of protection.<\/p>\n Summary<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n For me, Bill 89 is a prescription for \u2018religious genocide\u2019, and a \u2018bludgeon to kill the Christian in the child.\u2019\u00a0 It is the equivalent of an official policy of \u2018forcible enfranchisement\u2019 for our time.\u00a0 Its consequences for religious liberty are obvious, as are its threat to families at odds with the government\u2019s theological position on human nature, i.e. Christians.<\/p>\n It must be repealed, for families, and for the sake of the children that ought to be protected within their confines, as God intended.<\/p>\n You can support a petition to repeal this Bill here<\/a><\/p>\n