Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 49

The Edmonton Journal, Sunday, January 24, 1999 F5 Wearing the badge of chastity "Asa member of Parliament, there are times you maybe approached by women who Alberta Reformers Jason Kenney and Rob Anders embrace chastity as a lifestyle choice and fight for a chastity group's charity status. But as legislative assistant Logan Day admits, staying chaste ain't easy when you're engaged to Miss Canada otherwise wouldn 't approach you but those are probably the ones you have to be specifically wary off." MP Rob Anders by marriage." Anders, who also has a girlfriend, admits being lured by temptation, yet says he has never succumbed. "Of course, there are temptations. If it's not questioned, you have to wonder how deeply held the belief is." Indeed, the chaste who date must navigate a slippery slope when it comes to physical contact The Challenge Team recognizes that knowing the limits of touching creates a difficult challenge for young people who opt for chastity Visser recommends viewing physical contact in terms of either affection or passioa Holding hands or friendly pecks on the cheek count as safe touching, but a lingering tonsil lock risks escalation to more libidinous pursuits beyond the scope of chastity For Rob Anders, the cut-off line falls somewhere below the lips. "For myself, I've gone as far as Glen McGregor South am Newspapers The twin virtues of charity and chastity intertwined in a most personal way for Reform MP Jason Kenney last month when he confronted a group of bureaucrats at Revenue Canada.

Shortly before Christmas, Kenney came to RevCan's Ottawa headquarters to protest the way the department treats File photoCP Miss Canada, Juliana Thiessen, is draped in a Canadian flag by Reform party aide Logan Day after he proposed to her during a set-up media scrum on Parliament Hill in Ottawa last month. She accepted if fi "I'm a practising Catholic and I take the teachings of my church pretty seriously when it comes to applying them to myself." MP Jason Kenney kissing and kind of if you will, but that's as far as I've gone." The chastity group is one of the organizations Kenney will reference when he begins his assault on Revenue Canada's charity policies once the House resumes sitting next month. "There are more and more cases like this where bona fide groups are being denied charitable status when, really Revenue Canada is making political judgments," says Kenney Reform's revenue critic. The cases that cross his desk increasingly reflect what he suspects is a bias against groups with more conservative viewpoints. He accuses the government of "blatant double-standards" in enforcing its charity laws when it rejects applications from groups like the Challenge Team or anti-abortion Human Life International, while approving pro-choice groups that give information on getting abortions.

EDUCATION ON THE OPTIONS If there is an appearance of bias, says Revenue Canada's Carl Juneau, it's because anti-abortion groups argue against the current legislation, while pro-choicers often provide education about all possible options, including abortion. "Organizations that go about their job to counsel people about what solutions there are to a crisis pregnancy are okay" says Juneau, "but the organizations that happen to be on the other side of the fence are implicitly lobbying in favour of a change in the law. That's the problem." Juneau is responsible for technical interpretations of charity law in an area tinted by grey-scales of subjectivity Ultimately groups that provide a balanced view of an issue get the green light for charity status. Those with one- sided opinions, especially in politically combustible areas like abortion, risk losing their charity designation. The Challenge Team aims to educate young people about "healthy sexuality," yet offers only a model that doesn't include the approximately SO per cent of Canadian teenagers who are sexually active.

For teens awash in hormones, says Juneau, their advice is "sort of like telling people, if you don't want to get into a car accident don't get into a car." For the Reformers who have chosen chastity the lifestyle will remain an insulating vehicle against what Day describes as "the ongoing sexual shenanigans on Parliament HilL" "If you believe the rumours and the e-mails and the stories in the restaurant I would say that male MPs and female assistants is the hottest recipe here on the Hill," Day says. 'At least, it starts out hot and ends up in devastation." Ottawa Citizen registered charitable organizations. As the public servants listened politely he complained about their decision to revoke the charity status of two anti-abortion groups, and their refusal to grant charity status to an Ottawa-based organization that educates school children about chastity These are important causes for Kenney who not only opposes abortion, but also counts himself among a small number of Reform party members who have chosen a lifestyle of chastity abstaining from sex outside wedlock. As Kenney has never married, this commitment means refraining from sex completely Although he's not entirely comfortable about discussing his chastity choice in a public forum, Kenney allows the decision takes root in his strongly held religious beliefs. "I'm a practising Catholic and I take the teachings of my church pretty seriously when it comes to applying them to myself," says Kenney In an age of polyamory promiscuity and presidential fellatio, Kenney admits his choice to abstain from physical love puts him among what many consider an "eccentric minority" But he is not alone among Reform party ranks, nor even in the Reform backbenches of the House of Commons, where he is joined by another Alberta MP, Rob Anders, who also opts for a life without sex.

With their seemingly antiquated views on sex, both MPs find themselves aligned with chastity advocate the Challenge Team. They echo the group's mantra of fostering respect for a "healthy sexuality" by abstaining from sex outside marriage. "Chastity is not about not having sex," says Harold Vlsser, adirector of the Challenge Team. "It's about saying, 'Sex is something very significant, so I want to have sex at a time in my life that's truly beneficial' VTsser married Rebecca Morcos, formerly of Edmonton, in October, 1997. Both are directors of the Challenge Team.

Since 1993, Morcos has visited scores of schools across the country preaching a simple message: Chastity is cool. The secular organization, which operates out of borrowed office space in an upscale Ottawa neighbourhood, sends its volunteer members across the country each spring to speak in high schools and elementary schools about the advantages of chaste living. They talk about prevention of disease and pregnancy chastity brings, but stress the freedom to plan for the future and build good relationships that, Visser claims, chastity gives young people The group funds these chastity drives with honorariums from the groups it addresses, and While his friends were out drinking or "chasing skirts," Anders felt no such distraction and, as a result he says, he was able to get elected MP at the age of 25. "I just decided it wouldn't be fair to a woman I was involved with to be involved sexually and leading them on with no intentions to settle down," explains Anders of his chaste choice. He concedes that his policy "probably deprived me of a few interesting experiences along the path, but I've had good relations with all the girls I've dated.

None of them have ever felt jaded because I had used them sexually" The chaste Reformers recently found an ally in abstinence in another party member, Logan Day son of Alberta treasurer Stockwell Day and controversial legislative assistant to Reform MP Cliff Breitkreuz. Last February, Day riled House of Commons Speaker Gib Parent by trying to give a Canadian flag to a Bloc Quebecois MR He found himself barred from Centre Block over the stunt Day flouted the Speaker's ban last month by sneaking into Centre Block to propose to his girlfriend of five months, Juliana Thiessen. The 19-year-old Thiessen holds the title of Miss Canada Universe and writes a weekly column for the Calgary Herald. In a carefully orchestrated media event, Day draped a flag over her shoulders and popped the question in in the rotunda beneath the Peace Tower. She consented, but the rules of their engagement follow an agreed upon course of chastity "For us, we believe it will lead to a greater chance for a truly trusting and intimate relationship with each other," says the 26-year-old Day He won't discuss whether he has followed this course all his life, saving only that he and his 19-year-old fiance drew on their observations of "what works and what doesn't" in their previous relationships.

Echoing the secular slant of the Challenge Team, Day says his choice is more pragmatic than a matter of belief, but admits a certain amount divine intervention in his upcoming marriage. 'Anyone who knows me and saw the headline, 'Miss Canada engaged to Logan Day' will believe in miracles," he says. "I believe she's a gift from God and I want to treat her that way" But Day fears he and Thiessen will also require the firm hand of the Almighty to keep their chastity pact intact until they walk the aisle Aug. 21. "Only by the grace of God will we be able maintain that position until we are united as one would like to make those donations tax-deductible by winning charity status from Revenue Canada.

But the government claimed the Challenge Team taught a one-sided approach to sex education and, because of a "perceived bias" that disqualified it as an educational organization, rejected the application for charity status. Now, with Kenney failing to convince the bureaucrats to grant status, Visser has no other recourse than to take his case to federal court As his organization cannot afford a lawyer, he expects to represent himself in court, perhaps as early as May His chances in court seem remote. In March, the same court found in Revenue Canada's favour when they revoked the charity status of anti-abortion group Human Life International in a case that raises some of the same issues the Challenge Team will address. Raising Public Profile At the very least, the Challenge Team appeal could pump the group's public profile in the absence of public figures speaking out on their behalf. Though not secretive about their chastity neither Kenney nor Anders believes they should use their posif ions as MPs to advance their own opinions about this very personal subject "Thinking about the whole Bill Clinton thing, I decided it confuses the role of legislator to discuss private life on that level" says Kenney But both recognize that America's most famous fellatee exemplifies the kind of abuse that the aphrodisiac of political power can cause.

"As a member of Parliament there are times you may be approached by women who otherwise wouldn't approach you," says Anders, "but those are probably the ones you have to be specifically wary off." Anders, who also abstains from alcohol, feels his choice of chastity at a young age allowed him to channel his energy into other avenues, politics in particular David Evans Empty threats vs Milosevic situation normal I A perpetrators of, and apologists for, awful things can make them last If we didn't have tobacco, or nuclear weapons, or refugee Maybe you did too. On Tuesday we have written ourselves, without true international consensus, we can ourselves be accused of using might to make right We may set precedents for future military interventions (by Saddam in Kuwait?) we may dislike. Almost by definition, military action against sovereign states disturb international order in ways that can not be predicted. In 1914, Austria- Hungary's ill-advised intervention in Serbia obviously had consequences, not just Austro-Hungarians had reason to regret But for starters, if our concern is genuine, we should remember that the Milosevic regime is no Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, and that the current Russia, which has accepted NATO enlargement and been defeated by the Chechens, is not a very credible threat It's true, Canada can not act decisively on its own against distant Serbia. But when we think about it those of us who don't really want our children in Balkan gunsights that's a good thing, not a bad one.

We can present a principled stand for action to our allies, knowing how unlikely it is that any will ever be taken. David Evans is a member of the Journal 's editorial board framed by suicides. And above all Don't want to do something? With a crocodile tear, tell the big lie that you can't Unless we accept the idea that sovereign governments can impose their rule by might and under that rule, slaughter people in its jurisdiction as a matter of domestic right the answer to what should be done in Yugoslavia (and what should have been done in Rwanda, and Cambodia, and in the mass-murdering Soviet Union) is simple: After almost a decade of repeated offenses and broken promises, an effective grouping of the international community should apply law and police enforcement to stop it Of course, there must be limitations, but they should flow from answers to the question "Why not?" rather than from the unspoken feeling "Don't really want to." Is it physically possible? we must ask. And do the likely consequences, overall, make the cure worse than the disease? For those who are itchy to get Uncle Slobodan in NATO sights, it's true the answers to these questions may be more subtle and complex than we might like. By intervening on rules people, murdering the credibility of post-Holocaust ideas about genocide, and (with some current help from Saddam Hussein) murdering the idea that the United Nations stands for anything more than the myopic, short-term comfort of the populations of its most powerful members.

Even worse, using against us our desire not to be bothered or embarrassed, they are murdering our ability to tell right from wrong. For its only by a willingness to blame the victim like someone willing to see both sides when a man stabs his "nagging" wife that we have lost clarity on the prime catalyst of slaughter in former Yugoslavia. We find ourselves in a world in which problems are solved, not by moving forward from facts and the question "what should be done?" but rather by moving backward, in a process that stands facts and principles on their heads, from the question "What are we willing to do?" Don't want to fight genocide? Simple declare the slaughter isn't one. Don't want to task someone for murder? Simple. Accept your banishment from the crime scene, and be open-minded toward the killer's suggestion he was morning I drove to work in growing fury at the latest news about Serb slaughter of civilians, rebuffed international observers and scuttling NATO generals "trying" to resolve the crisis.

On Wednesday, I couldn't bring myself to write about the subject again. If there was ever a case of "same old, same old," it is criminal behaviour by the Serb entity and simpering, dishonest responses from the international entity known as us. But on Thursday the anesthetizing medication that always seems to accompany well established horrors began to slip again. If Slobodan Milosevic can get away with things for nine years things that would finish him and his bungling, gutless prosecutor if they were crimes against a state rather than by one why shouldn't I keep complaining about them? Why is it that our capacity for outrage slips (and our capacity for acceptance grows) the longer camps in the Middle East or a Russia teetering on the brink of some new lunatic dispensation, if we weren't already used to these things, we'd be bouncing off the wall Indeed, the way we are about such things, if Milosevic and his henchmen can just keep up the slaughter, refugee generation and ethnic cleansing for another few years, we might get to the point where we'll worry more about disruptions to world order if he stops. And so, with the rationalization of warding off that evil day let's have another go at the Yugoslav puzzle.

Despite all efforts to pretend otherwise, the core of the problem is both familiar and simple: On behalf of a population in thrall to a paranoid, extreme-nationalist world view, a state and its henchmen are committing crimes against individuals, against a fragile world order, and against rules of international order bought at the price of two terrible world wars. That is to say with our effective acquiescence, they are murdering.