[PHOTO] A church gone condo in Little Italy

A church gone condo in Little Italy
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

[DM] Some demographic news links

I've got a post up at Demography Matters that has links to various news stories on population, everything o debate on the ddrivers of Australia population growth to trends regarding Sudanese migrants in Egypt. Go, read.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the failure of marriage conservatives to recognize same-sex marriage as conservative

This news story has gotten a fair bit of coverage, both among m blogospheric friends and by the mainstream newsmedia.

When Tim Hortons decided to peddle its coffee and sugary treats in the northern U.S., the chain was betting that no one ever went broke overestimating the appetite of the American public. But in its cross-border expansion, Tims was not prepared to feed a political controversy.

The company is now reckoning with the quagmire of American family values politics, after creating a stir with its plan to sponsor an anti-gay marriage event in Rhode Island.

After local blog the Providence Daily Dose reported Tim Hortons' sponsorship of the event, the negative attention reached the company's head office in Oakville and it withdrew its support. “It has come to our attention that the Rhode Island event organizer and purpose of the event fall outside of our sponsorship guidelines,” the company said in a statement released Monday afternoon .

“Tim Hortons can not provide support at the event,” the release said.

The Marriage Day Celebration, which is to be held this Sunday in the shadow of a stately mansion in Warwick, R.I., is organized by the National Organization for Marriage, a group that lobbies against the legalization of gay marriage, and the sponsors behind an ad campaign released in April that famously equated the gay marriage lobby to a gathering storm. Plans for the event include a barbecue dinner and an ice cream social, as well as live worship music.

Tim Hortons' sponsorship guidelines specify it does not sponsor “religious groups” or “political affiliates.” The regional office in Rhode Island originally approved the sponsorship.

“Major error by the regional manager, here,” said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University's Schulich business school. “This is an operational slippage by Tim Hortons. Sex, religion and politics are things you try as a corporation not to engage in. This is particularly thorny because it deals with all three.”

The issue also highlights how difficult it can be for companies such as Tim Hortons to market themselves in local, national and international arenas simultaneously, while keeping a consistent brand image across the board.

I'm glad that Tim Horton's stood up for same-sex marriage rights. I'm also peeved that the National Organization for Marriage has deemed same-sex marriage a threat to marriage. By definition, doesn't the interest of two people to establish a marriage strengthen marriage? What could possibly be more conservative than wanting the ability to establish a legal relationship--something that can be done by legal officials and ministers in pro-gay churches, not in denominations with problems--that would secure property and inheritance rights as well as adoption? It's not as if The Onion's article "Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders All Citizens To Gay Marry" is going to come true.

Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 5-2 Monday in favor of full, equal, and mandatory gay marriages for all citizens. The order nullifies all pre-existing heterosexual marriages and lays the groundwork for the 2.4 million compulsory same-sex marriages that will take place in the state by May 15.

"As we are all aware, it's simply not possible for gay marriage and heterosexual marriage to co-exist," Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall said. "Our ruling in November was just the first step toward creating an all-gay Massachusetts."

Marshall added: "Since the allowance of gay marriage undermines heterosexual unions, we decided to work a few steps ahead and strike down opposite-sex unions altogether."

[. . .]

Hundreds of confused but vocal protesters lined the street outside the statehouse Monday night, waving both American and rainbow flags. Their chants, which broke out in pockets up and down the street, included, "Hey hey, ho ho, homophobia's got to go, but frankly, this is fucked up" and "Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve, but not Adam and Some Random Guy." Others held signs that read, "On Second Thought, Boston Christians Are Willing To Consider A Compromise."

According to police reports, demonstrators were vocal but orderly.

"The unholy union of people of the same gender destroys the only type of romantic love sanctioned by Our Lord in Heaven: the love between a man and a woman," 54-year-old protester Rose Shoults said. "Me and my new partner Helene are going to fry in hell."

Silliness.

[LINK] "The world's worst-hit economies"

CBC hosts Forbes' Joshua Zumbrum's article on those national economies worst hit by the current recession.

The economy is bad in North America and Western Europe, but at least economists stopped saying the Great Depression II is at hand.

Other countries aren't as lucky. While the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that much of the world economy "is beginning to pull out of a recession unprecedented in the post-World War II era," the economies of Latvia, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland and Lithuania won't be coming along for the ride, with gross domestic product falling by more than 10 per cent — the standard yardstick for a depression —this year.

And though most of the world is enjoying low inflation, with high unemployment keeping wage and price growth in check, Seychelles, Iceland, Venezuela, Ukraine and Jamaica, saddled with huge government debt burdens, are drowning in it.

Worse, all five countries have weak GDP, creating the ugly phenomenon known as "stagflation," familiar to millions of Americans who weathered the 1970s. In Iceland, the economic collapse led to 8.5 per cent inflation and GDP that fell 10.5 per cent. Call it a stagflationary depression.

The entire article's worth reading.

[LINK] "Kerala Angered Over FTA With ASEAN"

Inter Press Service's Ranjit Devraj reports on how public and official opinion in the Indian state of Kerala is turning strongly against India's recent free trade agreement with ASEAN, the Southeast Asian trade and diplomatic alliance. These Keralan groups fear that Southeast Asian competition in agriculture and fisheries will overshadow whatever gains that India might make in exports to Southeast Asia.

With the Indo-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) now slated to become operative in Jan. 2010, agricultural experts, fishermen’s representatives, trade union leaders and Kerala’s Marxist Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan have been at pains to convince the pro-reform central government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the deal should be postponed or scuttled.

India is a dialogue partner at ASEAN - which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. ASEAN already has FTAs with three other dialogue partners - China, Japan and South Korea.

"The centre has bypassed its constitutional duty to take Kerala and other states into confidence before deciding to go ahead with this deal," Achuthanandan told IPS soon after a meeting with Singh in the national capital this week to discuss the issue. "We are yet to see a copy of the proposed pact which, if signed, will undoubtedly affect the fisheries and plantation sectors."

It does not help that Kerala - a state of 32 million people, with high human development indices - is ruled by the Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), which is bitterly opposed to the pro-liberalisation polices of Singh’s Congress party-led government.

[. . .]

Also with multilateral trade agreements under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) having hit an impasse there is a new emphasis on bilateral and regional trade agreements. As for competition there is a need to improve productivity and quality as India gradually integrates into the global market.

"Such arguments are all very well but the ground realities are very different," says Thomas Verghese, a distinguished agricultural scientist and chairman of the Kerala State Prices Board. "There are huge differences in productivity, labour costs and inputs in the participating countries which cannot be easily bridged."

Speaking with IPS over telephone from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital, Verghese said while the productivity of pepper is 380 kilograms per hectare in India it is 1,000 kilograms per hectare in Vietnam and 3,000 kilograms per hectare in Indonesia. "If this FTA goes through, pepper may cease to be produced in Kerala, the land where it originated."