|
Conservative
Christians are worried about a federal private member's
bill to include sexual orientation as a protected category
under Canada's hate-crime legislation. They believe it
will contribute to suppressing the Bible's teaching on
human sexuality and silence public debate on homosexual
behaviour.
Canada's
pro-faith and pro-family organizations -- such as the
Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, Focus on the Family,
REAL Women of Canada and the Canada Family Action Coalition
-- are pessimistic about their ability to block or soften
the legislation, backed by a homosexual lobby group and
buoyed by past court rulings.
"The worst thing about this bill is its total lack
of clarity about what hate is, what propagation of hate
is, and what sexual orientation is," said Brian Rushfeldt,
director of the Calgary-based Canada Family Action Coalition.
"If I'm talking about the morality of homosexual
acts or the medical effects of sodomy, I have no way of
knowing if what I'm saying is a crime. If I simply express
a high standard of sexual morality, referring to homosexual
behaviour, I could end up charged."
Rushfeldt cited a number of cases in recent months where
public agencies have suppressed comments about homosexuals
in the name of sexual orientation, even without benefit
of a hate-crime law:
- Saskatoon Christian Hugh Owens was fined $4,500 for
publishing an ad in his local paper, citing biblical quotations
that condemn homosexual acts;
- Christian printer Scott Brockie of Toronto was fined
$5,000 for refusing a print job from a gay advocacy group,
contrary to his conscience;
- Christian teacher Chris Kempling faces expulsion by
the B.C. College of Teachers, for publicly objecting to
the BCCT's promotion as classroom resources of Xtra West,
a gay newspaper;
- Prince Edward Island Christians Dagmar and Arnost Cepica,
running a bed-and-breakfast in their home, were forced
to close their business and pay a fine to two offended
gays, for refusing a P.E.I. Human Rights Commission order
that they rent rooms in their home to the practicing homosexuals.
Existing law bans "wilful promotion of hatred."
But it also has a good faith clause that seems to exempt
religious or public policy discourse from prosecution.
Yet, Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has
said she doubts that any "hateful speech" could
be defended successfully as being uttered in "good
faith." So the defence may be only hypothetical.
"The problem with this bill is that it doesn't distinguish
between (condemning) the person or the behaviour,"
said Evangelical Fellowship of Canada spokesman Bruce
Clemenger.
"We're opposed to violence against anyone, for any
reason," he says.
But the proposed bill "could ban any sort of public
discussion about the morality or immorality of sexual
activities."
Clemenger said evangelicals are divided on whether they
oppose the whole notion of speech-limiting hate-crime
laws altogether, or simply want hefty safeguards to protect
religious speech from charges. So, as a diverse coalition,
the EFC's main legal concern
has been limited to protecting the Bible, if someone uses
it as anti-gay hate propaganda.
For example, Clemenger said, the Old Testament book Leviticus
(20:13) says, "If a man lies with a man as one lies
with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable.
They must be put to death; their blood will be on their
own heads." So, if a single fringe preacher such
as Rev. Fred Phelps of Kansas uses Leviticus in his campaign
against gays themselves, would his conviction on a hate
crime charge effectively ban the text?
(MP Svend Robinson uses the Kansas-based Phelps, his www.godhatesfags.com
Web site, and his "Pink Swastika" anti-gay propaganda
as his primary example of the need for his law.)
Calgary lawyer Gerry Chipeur, a religious freedom specialist,
said that if Christians oppose Bill C-415/250 simply on
religious freedom versus sexual orientation grounds --
"us but not them" -- they will lose. The real
problem, Chipeur said, is the whole notion of hate-crime
laws altogether.
"This isn't about religious rights; it's about preserving
a free society. Censorship laws strike at the very heart
of our democracy," Chipeur said. "Christians
in a free society must allow homosexuals to say Christians
are cannibals, if they want to, because Christianity flourishes
in a climate of freedom."
Chipeur said religion is protected in Canada's existing
hate-crime law, but Christians shouldn't want it there.
Despite a mountain of anti-Christian defamation in the
popular culture, there has never been a prosecution of
an anti-Christian hate crime, he said.
"Christians and homosexuals both must be prepared
to have a free debate with hate-mongers. If we aren't
prepared to debate with hate-mongers, we can't have a
free society," he said.
"You can't criminalize hatred. You can condemn it,
belittle it, criticize it, marginalize it. But a law against
hate is a law against free speech. This law already violates
everyone's free speech."
Conservative gay activist John McKellar, the Toronto-based
director of Homosexuals Opposed to Pride Extremism, said,
however modest Bill C-250 seems, his group opposes it
as part of a larger pattern of gay radicalism, seeking
to suppress traditional religious values.
McKellar says the radicals -- those who agitate for public
affirmation or celebration of their fringe lifestyle --
are a tiny fraction of Canada's homosexual population.
"Gay radicals see a rational public rejection of
their extreme and dangerous sexual conduct as akin to
racism or bigotry," said McKellar.
"Among radical gays, the rhetoric is so childishly
hostile to religion, because sexual orientation has become
their religion. These guys should really lighten up and
stop bitching about sincere Christians, Muslims and Jews."
Kansas preacher Fred Phelps is one of very few preachers
of extreme anti-gay hatred in North America, McKellar
said. He called it a sign of radical gay "provincialism"
that they use Phelps as a foil to push human-rights legislation
-- likeC-250 -- to limit discussion of their behaviour.
McKellar believes "virtually every society in history
has resisted the spread of homosexuality," because
it is destructive of stable family life. The radical push
to win legal affirmation will disrupt already shaky public
standards.
McKellar worries the radical push for political affirmation
through laws like C-250 will prove self-defeating. He
believes gay political aggressiveness will eventually
provoke a popular backlash that -- regardless of any law
-- will sour the widespread grassroots toleration of their
private lives.
CFAC's Rushfeldt likewise said he thinks the proliferation
of publicly sanctioned "sexual identities" is
eroding family life. He repeated that the issue was not
the right of Christians to spread hatred of homosexuals,
but rather the right of society as a whole to enshrine
a public norm for nurturing the next generation of healthy
citizens.
"The issue isn't whatever homosexuals do in privacy;
I think it's sad, but it's their choice," Rushfeldt
said.
"Frankly, I wish they'd simply do away with the hate-crime
law altogether, or maybe keep it only for race,"
Rushfeldt said.
"I mean, the church is going to preach the moral
truth whether it's persecuted or not. So the whole hate
crime thing just becomes a platform for promoting private
behaviour."
woodardj@theherald.southam.ca
|
