"... consider other countries that do not have a problem with AIDS ... Why is that? Homosexuality is considered to be a grave evil. If anyone is caught in the act, body parts are lopped off. That shouldn't be a surprise: they cut off hands of thieves. This has been verified and it's a pretty powerful inducement to abstain or leave the country if one must have one's kicks. "
Jean Ferrari, Canadian Christian Women's League

Legal - Canada

March 18, 2003

Gay Marriage? How about no rights at all?
Canadian Christian Women's Organization For Life

"Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I hope you won't feel that this is going from the sublime to the ridiculous when I finish."

So began the recently released Feb. 13 testimony of Ms. Jean Ferrari, representing the Canadian Christian Women's Organization For Life. Ridiculous seems to be a very generous way to describe what came next.

"Basically, only three things are essential for life: air, food, and water," Ferrari said in a vision of impoverished existence. "Sex designed by the Creator for the preservation of the species is good in its place ... but it is not a requisite for life, never has been, and overemphasizing its importance threatens our civilization with the same fate that befell the Roman and Greek empires. Let me explain."

"Somebody should tell UN AIDS about the unreliability of condoms," Ferrari said. "At an AIDS conference held during the world summit on social development in Johannesburg, South Africa, September 2002, Dr. Piot, its director, and colleagues were still promoting condoms, this on a continent where AIDS is ravaging the population, except in Uganda. A Harvard study reveals that Uganda has reduced its incidence of AIDS by 50% over the years 1992 to 2000 by promoting abstinence before marriage and marital fidelity."

Ferrari should know that infections have been fought by overcoming her views. Uganda has been ravaged by AIDS, and its suffering has been prolonged by those who advised abstinence as the only way to fight the disease. Anglican and muslim leaders in that country have been critical of the Catholic Church, and those who hold Ferrari's views. Fortunately, more accurate information has taken hold: Ugandans use 80 million condoms a year.

Christian Women's embrace of amputation

But Ferrari expressed other startling and monstrous things in her testimony. The fight against AIDS is linked to her fight against gays.

"... consider other countries that do not have a problem with AIDS. For example, in Qatar there's never been a case of mother-child transmission. In all of Morocco there may be 200 cases, and the story is the same in other Muslim countries. Why is that? Homosexuality is considered to be a grave evil. If anyone is caught in the act, body parts are lopped off. That shouldn't be a surprise: they cut off hands of thieves. This has been verified and it's a pretty powerful inducement to abstain or leave the country if one must have one's kicks."

It would seem that Ferrari has other methods in mind, beyond abstinence, to deal with the AIDS. But gays weren't entirely responsible, in Ferrari's thinking, for AIDS.

"After weighing the evidence," Ferrari said, "I am convinced that HIV/AIDS is a designer virus that has developed as a result of passaging. Passaging is a technique used in labs to alter viruses, for whatever reason--think Saddam Hussein."

The Christian Women's vision for a Canadian gulag

The Christian Women's Organization For Life accuses gays of destabilizing society, not only through gaining access to marriage, but, it would seem, through our very existence as long as we have any rights at all.

"In Canada, in a great display of magnanimity, we have granted rights to accommodate vocal, affluent minorities, not on the basis of common sense, but in a show of tolerance. In so doing, we have opened the gates to a disease that has reached endemic proportions and shows no signs of abatement ... In Canada we've legalized this lifestyle, but thank God, bad laws can be repealed ... Where does one draw the line in granting rights? A man has the right to swing his fist until it comes in contact with someone else's nose, then he loses the right. Granting any group a right that will destabilize society is not an option. Laws based on bad cases are bad laws. Thank God, they can be repealed. No judge worth his salt will judge a case based on emotionalism, the quivering lip and the teary eye, or on invective labelling whoever is considered to be the enemy hateful. This is not logic."

Logic indeed. Not a single member of the committee questioned Ferrari about the above statements. Their silence can be interpreted in many ways, however Ferrari was unambiguous in her use of the Justice Committee to state such things about gays and lesbians.

Details about Parliament's Marriage Committee Hearings