Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 5, 2001, Winnipeg, Manitoba As ii i to i 2001 comment editor Terence Moore 6977044 Terry editorials Freedom of Trade Liberty of religion Equality of civil rights the Childs interest Manitoba like those of tether do not prohibit homosexual adults from adopting courts Are directed to determine the Best interest of the child who is being the Law does not ask courts to find out about the sexual orientation of the prospective it directs the courts to consider the safety and the needs of the a feature remains in the adoption left Over from an Era when it was presumed that homosexuals could not be Good this which Manitoba shares with several other pro Vides that when the second adult in a couple is ask ing to adopt the child of the other member of the that second Parent must be of the opposite homosexual organizations have been asking for years that this aspect of adoption Law should be removed because it is the subject has Arisen again recently because of a supreme court of Canada ruling about the prop erty rights of same sex couples who split Manitoba and other provinces Are adapting their property Laws to comply with the supreme court homosexual organizations urge that the bar to adoptions by same sex couples should be lifted at the same for a Small number of the Law As it stands in Manitoba can have unwelcome practical Conse when two adults of the same sex Are Rais ing a child As their own and the Legal Parent is the second adult is not Able to give parental such parental consent for be required by the Childs school to allow for participation in activities or May be required by a doctor or a Hospital to authorize the second adult May be a Parent in All the usual eco nomic and emotional and practical ways but is not Able to play the full Legal role of a even if everything about that adults character and conduct shows a caring the adults Gen being the same As that of the Childs prior Par absolutely bars the court from giving the second Parent the Legal authority of a Parent by adoption is a Means by which Manitoba and other provinces regulate the relations among adults and children to ensure that children Are provided with stable Homes to nurture them and ensure their the adoption Law exists primarily to serve not and Justice minister Gord Mackintosh should keep the Law clearly focused on this is done by ensuring that a judge can look at the facts of a particular proposed adoption at facts and not at presumptions or stereotypical views and arrange the Best possible environment for every child in need of because of the practical consequences for families and the children they the absolute bar to adoption by a same sex couple should be Mackintosh and the government should proceed carefully because the number of people who will Benefit is Small and the number who May be offended on moral grounds is before choosing his he should give a full hearing both to those who can show what Good May be done to families and children by changing the Law and to those who can show possible he should also recognize that same sex couple adoptions Are a Battleground in the continuing struggle Between those who would expand Homo sexual rights and those who disapprove of homosexual conduct and wish to restrict homosexual his solution on adoptions by same sex couples will be cheered or condemned by one Side or the other As a defeat or a Victory for Gay but that is neither Here nor adoption Law is better or worse As it benefits real live children and the families in which they Are and that is the Ball on which Mackintosh should keep his empty posturing the Western premiers agreed with Manitoba Gary doer last Friday that the Federal government should double its Aid to Grain and oilseed their gesture helped rescuing him from political isolation on the the Benefit to was harder to the Federal government is unlikely to be greatly impressed by the Western premiers United which asks Ottawa to Supply a second million in farm Aid the premiers neglected to press the demand for doubling of Federal farm Aid when they first covered the topic in their thursday discussions in Moose jaw last when they raised it As an afterthought on they gave no hint that provincial governments were going to put their own Money into the farm bailout they Are ask ing the Federal government to their As a seemed More ceremonial than the Federal government should take More inter est in the premiers plan to give Farmers a tax break on motor fuel they use in their High fuel prices Are a huge Cost to crop since Western provincial governments forgo tax Revenue on fuel for farm they have grounds to ask Ottawa to do the the Case for a new Federal Hal billion for farm is weak because Canadian agriculture is adjusting to Low Grain and oilseed prices and showed a Rise in net income last the Western premiers halfhearted gesture did not alter the wits of the the Art of invective the death of Simon Raven at the age of 73 after a stroke is proof that the Devil looks after his he ought by rights to have died of shame at 30 or of drink at instead he survived to produce 25 including alms to a 10volume Saga of English upper class that was the opening sen tence of the obituary of Simon the British High liver and which ran in Britain guardian newspaper last i offer it not because anyone who took an interest in Simon Raven might not have been aware of his but simply As evidence that British journalism still leads the English speaking world in the Art of in invective May not be the precise word for this perhaps it is simply a mat Ter of undiluted by a spiced by malice tinged with just a touch of admiration and free of any nonsense about not speaking ill of the if British journalists know it is that dead men cannot at any As the obituary rambles on with its chronicle of a but evidently highly enjoyable it exhibits the kind of robust Frank Ness in which the Best British journalists Excel and from which those of us in Canada tend to shy As proof of that i confess that the rest of the sentence quoted above is probably unfit for print in this at any i choose not to print though i will offer the epitaph he chose for himself he shared his bottle while still Young and his we dont appear to have any Canadian Simon Ravens on hand to spice up our obituary i cant help thinking that a larger dose of that kind of exuberant frankness would improve Cana Dian both cultural and it is of that there Are cads like Simon Raven lurking in the worlds of Canadian letters and i am aware of no hidden scandals in either though some no doubt and heaven knows the Canadian news Media have not been particularly kind to our political leaders and would be just ask Stockwell Day or even Jean and we certainly cannot fault Canadian politicians for avoiding the grandly entertaining and scandalous behaviour which has been indulged in by so Many British politicians Over the if we Lack the raw material of outrageously misbehaving political or literary figures that the British journalists we might still probe for More detail and Colour in the ones we do Britain is a More closely knit society than is Canada and everyone there tends to know every one else or at least think they that situation has helped produce the tabloid press which represents at its worst the Nadir of Jour even the so called Quality papers Are a lot less impressive than they used to the sunday which once was a Leader in investigative now fills up Many of its pages with celebrity gossip and self indulgent there is an Energy about the British press which newspapers elsewhere find it hard to which explains when Canadas nation Al newspapers find themselves in bitter compete they tend to import journalists from Fleet Street to spice up their those imports appear to bring with them a cer Tain Affinity for the celebrity gossip and Selfin dul gent columnists which they left of the Simon Raven which got me thinking about the admirable qualities of much British is an example of celebrity gos it celebrity gossip raised to its highest form above a wonderful Hacks Given the Pinkie san Franciso mayor Willie Brown stood us shunning a Motley Crew of newspaper columnists from across North America in order to have his nails weve been snubbed by better people but rarely with such a confidently flagrant the National society of newspaper a 400strong collection of professional scribblers with Hearty held its Twenty fifth annual Confer ence this weekend in the City the late Herb Caen dubbed Baghdad bythe we were promised an appearance by Phil Bron executive editor of the san Francisco Chroni Cle More to the husband of Sharon we were guaranteed Ben for Mer managing editor of the Washington Post and now a staunch critic of Media fellow columnists would speak the air would ring with tips and Bronstein sans the author Adair Lara and columnist Jon Carroll snared their we swapped complained about editors and went for drinks at the Fairmont hotels Tonga drop Ping eight Bucks for a Beer and the Chance to gawk at both the swell men in tuxes and the polynesian rec room but Willie Brown didst make his office of and mumbled something about conflicting we were forced to Call on new York Post columnist Andrea Peyser to Pinch which she did proudly explaining that she had broken the Story of new York mayor Rudy Guiliani we could Only sigh in the real reason for mayor Browns absence was revealed in the saturday chronicle in one of those wonderful news stories that makes a Gal wish she lived in a City with a More outrageous heres the Lead mayor Willie Brown had his head Cut off in san Francisco it was inside a Green Box at Fisherman the mayors body was in a Union Street clothing store and two of his fingers were in City some of us Reading the Story feared that Nsncy president Peter fed up with Las minute had it was a complicated it had some thing to do with Wax the Cut of suits and the Way the mayor feels about his the Story explaining that a likeness of Brown was being sculpted for the cites Wax this the sculpting hit a when the mayor was shown the Wax hands that the museum proposed to attach to his Wax the hands were missing the distinctive Bend in the Large joint of the mayors an anomaly from at the moment when Brown should have been addressing a room filled with newspaper he was sitting in his pinkies stuck in two plastic cups filled with molding com the new pinkies Are to be attached to the Wax hands this theres nothing glamorous about this Brown was quoted As that the controversial mayor of a Large City would rather sit with his fingers in goo filled Dixie cups than meet a roomful of newspaper columnists surprised no Many right minded people would willingly Dangle other parts of their Anatomy in a Dixie cup to be spared lunch with a Gaggle of opinionated shocked the not noted for their sartorial was that anyone would spend on a even if it is intended for a Wax we dont really mind being stood that an occupational but being stood up by the pinkies of a Man who spends on suits what Ive spent on now that o iin4or.rtynold8@lreepres8.mb.ca defence Deal hinges on the details the following editorial appeared in the Washington Post yesterday the Bush administration now has completed its first round of consultations with allies and other nuclear Powers about its missile defence initiative and has received mixed China and Russia have been negative India has been remarkably somewhere in the Middle Are the who acknowledge that ballistic missiles pose a threat but who Are reluctant to aban Don existing arms such As the treaty that bans missile at a nato meeting last week in Secretary of state Colin pow Ell suggested that the administration is taking All the feedback into this is not a phony he that that is True is evidenced by one of the main complaints heard from european which is about the Lack of detail in the administrations though it says it wants to move Forward As quickly As the White House has yet to spell out what sort of missile defence it would like to it has a Range of technologies to choose All of which carry their own set of technical and political prob More administration officials also have not yet fleshed out the new framework for global nuclear Security that president Bush promised last the president sketched an ambitious concept in which missile defence would be blended with Sharp reductions in offensive nuclear weapons and More aggressive Tion in the result would be a new Means of achieving strategic balance among the nuclear Powers and heading off threats from rogue states Post cold that is a bold and worthy but officials concede that they Are not yet ready to Back it up with specifics such As How Many weapons the would or what guarantees would be offered to Russia in lieu of the anti ballistic missile without such the administration cannot expect to win real support for its not to mention the sceptical democratic senators who now head the Senate foreign relations and armed services in the heart of the plan will lie in those details they will show whether the administration is focused narrowly on defending the from attack from a rogue state or on try ing to gain a new strategic advantage Over Russia or China whether it truly can replace the cold War Security order with something that offers improved stability and to reach the latter president Bush will have to accept elements that some of his top policymakers have expressed discomfort such As negotiated limits with Russia on both offensive nuclear weapons and the prospective defensive he also will have to address China and its legitimate Security the president has made Clear that he will not Grant other nations veto Power Over defence but if the consultations on missile defence have made one thing it is that the cannot pursue this momentous leap in weapons technology unilaterally and still achieve increased Security for itself not to mention the rest of the Winnipeg free press press est 1872 Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 vol 129 n0175 2001 Winnipeg free a division of newspapers division of Thomson Canada limited published seven Days a week at 1355 Mountain Ivy Nioba r2x pm 6977000 a member o die Manitoba press Council Rudy publisher email editor ;