timeimmortal

I see that York University’s student government is once again trying to ban pro-life groups from the campus, on the grounds that “pro-life organizations seek to deny women of their basic human right to choose.”

Of course, Gilary Massa, the vice president of the YFS, doesn’t call them “pro-life” — she prefers the term “anti-choice.”

One of the ladies at ProWomanProLife points out an obvious problem with that misleading label:

I always am skeptical of a body that insists on calling a pro-life organization “anti-choice.” It pretends abortion to be the only valid ‘choice.’ (Note to pro-abortionists: Choice and abortion are NOT synonyms.)

Then again, perhaps in the minds of many pro-abortionists, abortion is the only valid choice out there; after all, Canada’s dismal birth rate has to come from somewhere.

The plain fact of the matter is that the YFS is just looking to censor those with whom they disagree; this isn’t really about human rights or women’s rights. Pro-life groups have no power to deny anyone access to anything in particular — most are only interested in introducing additional information back into a discussion that has become increasingly one-sided (and then in favour of rampant birth control use and pro-abortion advocacy). It’s becoming increasingly difficult to discuss pregnancy in a university campus’ health centre without having the option of abortion rammed down one’s throat as a first option.

If anyone here is anti-choice, it’s those who would deny pro-life groups their right to hold and articulate a contrary opinion. What’s truly odious is that at no time has abortion been legally declared a human right in Canada. Meanwhile, the freedom of expression of these pro-life groups, which York University is seeking to deny, is enshrined as a human right, and is being taken away in favour of a demand that York students only be exposed to approved opinions.

It’s funny, isn’t it, how the truth is precisely the inverse of the rhetoric of the progressive elements in this story?

Update: What the heck?

I was extremely shocked to discover that the increasingly notorious Gilary Massa is a hijab-wearing Muslim woman. I mean, radical pro-choice activist does not bring the hijab to mind. Islam is against abortion. But one thing I unfortunately do associate with Islam in Canada right now (but not all Muslims, of course, and especially not the ones I know personally) is assaults on Canadian freedom of speech. In Halifax. Against Ezra Levant. Against Mark Steyn. Against the MCC, which suffers death threats from fellow Muslims. Ditto Irshad Manji. What, I ask, gives here?

Maybe she’s a progressive Muslim, you know? One of those moderates we keep on hearing about in the various mythologies that percolate through political discourse these days? She’s just fine with the hijab and what it represents, but don’t you dare get between her and the right of a woman to “control her own body.”

Sorta like those pro-choice Catholics, O Reader. Except, in a headscarf.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

The former may exist. The latter, as Mark Steyn points out, does not:

What the west calls “moderate Muslims”, Islam regards as apostates. Sometimes, as with Dr [Wafa Sultan], they’re atheist apostates; sometimes, as with Miss [Irshad Manji], they’re lesbian apostates; and sometimes, as with Magdi Allam, they’re Christian apostates. To Islam, it doesn’t matter which branch of apostasy you opt for: As the Prophet [Muhammad] puts it, “Whoever changes his Religion, kill him.” All four principal schools of Islamic jurisprudence agree. So do the 36 per cent of young Muslims in Britain who believe apostasy should be punished by death. But, to the west, which branch of apostasy has most appeal to Muslims is an interesting question.

There are two main reasons why I feel myself compelled to take such a hard-line stance against Islam, its false prophet, and the various violent excesses of many who hold to that religion. The first, of course, is that Islam is, itself, a false religion, and is worthy of opposition on those grounds alone.

Equally, though, I cannot comprehend how one could view Islam as being in any way compatible with Western, Christian-founded ideals like human rights, equality before the law, equality before God, and other fundamental tenets of what we call “freedom.” In Islam, none of these things exists. There is no free will; there is only the will of Allah. There is no equality; there is Sharia. There is no freedom; there is only submission.

And ultimately, there is no love either; there is only hatred. Whether that hatred is directed at the Jews or at those who are not sufficiently “Islamic” in their character shifts week to week, but the hatred itself is ever-present.

On the one hand, Magdi Allam’s conversion is bad news…on the other hand, it’s good news in that it suggests the most effective strategy against a resurgent, radicalized Islam may be the oldest of all — an evangelizing Christianity.

The response of Europe to its progressive Islamicization has been a predominantly secular one that has sought to push Christianity even further toward the sidelines. In Canada, Muslim lobby groups (like the Canadian Islamic Congress, headed by terror-supporter Mohamed Elmasry) use human rights commissions to silence and censor those who dare to articulate any views that holds Islam suspect. In America, CAIR attempts to do the same through the civil courts.

And for the most part, when the West has roused itself to push back, it has done so through secular avenues. And while it is good to meet the enemy on the battlefield, whatever form that battlefield might take, it is not enough to merely win at the secular side of the game, because that is the distraction, the feint. And indeed, becoming too entrenched in a secular response to Islam will be our undoing, because Islam’s advantage is its ability to proselytize into the void that secularism leaves in its wake.

A strong, expanding religion like Islam can only be met, and subsequently thrown down, by a strong, vibrant religion that exists in opposition to it. Traditionally, this has been Christianity.

And so it must be, again.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!