Naomi Biesheuvel
Naomi Biesheuvel is an editor, writer, teacher, and producer who specializes in social media.
Bio last updated May 24th, 2022.
Articles by Naomi Biesheuvel
Porn and Public Health
By Cordelia Anderson with Naomi Biesheuvel
October 1, 2015
The very idea of human trafficking can raise our hackles, yet we may be lulled into overlooking an even more fundamental public health and social justice issue.
Why do we see so many young boys committing acts of sexual abuse and sexual harm and filming them? And expecting girls to take pictures of themselves to send them? Adult men taking their sons to prostitutes as a transition into manhood or show them porn so that they know they're fit, hyper-masculine men — and actually wondering what's wrong with them if they're not using this material Cordelia Anderson: I promote sexual health and I know a lot of people who work in that fi eld are also defenders of pornography as harmless, "just sex When we treat women and children as sexual objects and commodities to use, abuse and then toss away — not even recycle, just use up and toss away — and get to the next because they're all interchangeable and it doesn't matter, that creates a problem not only for the people that are directly depicted but for everyone else The reason I mention children is, even though we recognize that child sexual abuse images are not protected free speech (that that is documentation of sexual abuse and thereby victimization), the reality is that the number one — or number two depending on the research you look at — type of pornography searched for worldwide is "youth C: Convivium publishes from the perspective of faith in common life, and I think a lot of people in faith communities react to pornography mostly out of guilt or shame, and go, "Oh yeah, that's bad CA: I frankly believe that exposing our children to pornography is a type of sexual abuse It's also the whole mainstream depiction that really hyper-sexualizes young people and makes it look as if it's okay and expected for adult men to be looking at them as if they are sexual objects, okay to view in that way and use in that way
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The Cost of Driving
Naomi Biesheuvel
July 24, 2015
I’ve been steadfast for nearly 20 years in my views that driving is overrated and overpriced, so those who know me well are pretty surprised that I’m taking steps to get behind the wheel And I’ve always lived in cities, where public transit is a viable—if often slow and occasionally frustrating—opti...
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Stolen Sisters
Naomi Biesheuvel
June 9, 2015
on the need to respect Indigenous spirituality in its own right, the history and legacy of residential schools and the roles of the church parties in that system, the history and legacy of religious con?ict in Aboriginal families and communities, and the responsibility that churches have to mitigate...
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Looking at the End of Life Differently
Naomi Biesheuvel
April 30, 2015
According to research in "Death Is Natural," a report released by Cardus yesterday, 73 percent of Canadians look toward their final days with a sense of fear that their needs will not be adequately met ...
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The Argument for Argument
Naomi Biesheuvel
April 10, 2015
And the fellow would typically look at me and say, “Well, that’s true for you but it’s not true for me It’s the same with topics like democracy, freedom—all the other topics in my book, fourteen in all—they come down to irresolvable differences in the belief systems or philosophical approaches to li...
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The Argument for Argument
Naomi Biesheuvel
April 10, 2015
Author William Gairdner discusses his latest book
It’s the same with topics like democracy, freedom—all the other topics in my book, fourteen in all—they come down to irresolvable differences in the belief systems or philosophical approaches to life And the fellow would typically look at me and say, “Well, that’s true for you but it’s not true for ...
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Are Private School Students Just Privileged?
Naomi Biesheuvel
April 2, 2015
And it does show that graduates of private schools, as a whole, compared to the public school sector, look back more favourably on their education and consider it more crucial to adult life, which confirms the StatsCan report One of the things we know from the research associated with independent re...
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Total Victory?
Naomi Biesheuvel
March 20, 2015
“The minority judgment would have granted Loyola High School, as a religious corporation, the right to religious freedom,” she explains, but “the majority did not rule on that point In the 4-3 split, the minority was in considerably stronger support of religious freedom than the majority, explains E...
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On the Table
Naomi Biesheuvel, with Robert Joustra, Dan Postma, Ray Pennings
February 1, 2015
We're renovating these pages in 2015 to open them up to you, our readers. Each month, we'll send out a question via our weekly emails, Twitter account (@conviviumproj) and our Facebook page (facebook.com/conviviumproject). The next step is up to you: we want to hear your opinions about the topics we're discussing in these pages.
In this issue of Convivium, Andrew Bennett, Ambassador for Canada's Office of Religious Freedom, recounts this tale from his October 2013 visit to Turkey, during which he met with all the different religious communities and had conversations with the ecumenical patriarch, with the Jewish community i...
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Transparency for the Common Good
Naomi Biesheuvel
December 18, 2014
"In fact, we're asking for the liberty to do good things in the public, to serve our neighbours, and to obey conscience: duty to something higher than ourselves ...
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Thinking With Your Hands
Naomi Biesheuvel
December 3, 2014
Crawford, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, was the featured guest speaker at Cardus's latest Hill Family Lecture Series, which took place as a component of the Building Meaning Project ...
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New Cardus Education Survey to be released
Naomi Biesheuvel
September 4, 2014
The event will feature Cardus's Ray Pennings, along with Sean Corcoran of New York University; Kathy Jamil, founder of Islamic School's League of America; and Ashley Berner of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy ...
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Don't Kill the Messenger
Naomi Biesheuvel
May 13, 2014
Social media are simply new forms of institutions, no better or worse than institutional forms of ages past And, for better or worse, Facebook is for today what faith-based institutions were for many communities not too many years ago: places for social interaction, event announcements, worship, con...
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The Light and Dark of China's Church
Naomi Biesheuvel
February 1, 2014
Naomi Biesheuvel says Christianity is growing despite difficulties
Li is a Chinese-Canadian Christian who has travelled to and spoken at many churches — both official and unofficial — in China over the last several years, and she describes Chinese Christians as "hungry and thirsty Wang, "this kind of misunderstanding was caused by the different missionary policies ...
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Trading Up: Women and the New Industrial Revolution
Naomi Biesheuvel
January 24, 2014
Kellie Leitch, Canada's Minister of Labour and Minister of Status of Women, who pointed out the continued relevance of this issue: "We don't have the right people in the right places doing the right things And following Minister Leitch was Rosemary Sparks, another of the few remarkable women who bel...
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Cardus Daily's Greatest Hits of 2013 - Part 2
Naomi Biesheuvel
December 31, 2013
Happy New Year, and look for more great content on the Cardus blog in 2014! ...
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Cardus Daily's Greatest Hits of 2013 - Part 1
Naomi Biesheuvel
December 30, 2013
Ray Sawatzky outlined three essential questions on freedom of speech in Canada, following the Supreme Court's Whatcott decision ...
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Allies or Enemies? I don't buy it
Naomi Biesheuvel
October 31, 2013
But what stood out to me were the surprisingly astute questions the Guardian posted to encourage commenting from the general public: "Is Morrissey right in refusing to pigeonhole his sexuality? Is our sexuality simple enough to be confined to binary categories? Does it change over time? Are there be...