EMBRACE THE SANCTITY, DIGNITY AND EQUALITY OF ALL HUMAN LIFE

Many years ago I was given a task: Tell whoever would listen that every life is sacred and deserves protection, care and love. I took that message across North America. I believe that simple task was my life's work. For whatever reason, God put me in a wheelchair to deliver it. That message has been given and now I'm tired. In one of my last speeches, I summed up the message:

“I am convinced that, if a society does not embrace the sanctity, dignity, and equality of all human life (and North American society does not), any barbarity is possible. A truly civilized society includes in its tender embrace every human life—every child developing in the womb, every person with a mental or physical disability, those with terminal conditions, derelicts, the old, and people who are not wanted or even loved by anyone. Impossible, you say? Perhaps, but I’m a sucker for hopeless causes. Maybe it comes from having what many consider a hopeless disease. Love is what defines an enlightened and civilized society. But love needs the divine. The brotherhood of man needs the Fatherhood of God. Love without God becomes selective, coercive, and arbitrary—turning the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable into hell on earth. Yes, I am convinced that human enlightenment is impossible without God.”

Leonard Cohen wrote a song called "Anthem." In many ways, it is an anthem for the past 25 years of my life. Love is a choice—it is the last chance for survival of our dying western Christian civilization.