Friday, April 4, 2008

"Sadistic baby killers"?

It's been forty years since Martin Luther King was murdered. No point adding to what's already been said by so many.

Today's confrontation on the French island of St. Pierre, off the coast of Newfoundland, was bizarre to say the least. But the anti-sealing protest was made worse by Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Society. Commenting on last week's deaths of four sealers from Québec when their boat capsized, Watson referred to "sadistic baby killers" and "vicious killers who are now pleading for sympathy because some of their own died while engaged in a viciously brutal activity."

Sadistic baby killers? That's the kind of comments you expect from the pro-life lobby -- which is why I disavow any association from them while remaining personally pro-life. It just doesn't advance the issue. And saying something like that won't bring the dead fishermen back.

Elizabeth May, head of the Green Party, today quit her role in the Sea Shepherd Society in disgust. Good for her.

No matter how one may feel about sealing, this kind of talk when no fewer than three agencies are investigating what happened and families are mourning severe losses is just plain mean. There is a time to speak and a time when one should just shut up.

As for Watson's boat, the Farley Mowat, being unmoored by French fishermen -- well, he was in France. He shouldn't expect any sympathy from PMS. For one thing, their environmental agendas are completely different; for another, Steve won't support Canadian prisoners on death row in Montana.

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