|
On
Monday, the Senate is likely to pass Bill C-250, an act
making it illegal in Canada to oppose gay rights publicly.
Its sponsor, Burnaby NDP MP Svend Robinson, denies vehemently
that the bill will outlaw freedom of speech.
Nevertheless
it will. At especial risk are Christians, particularly
conservative Catholics and evangelicals who seek to preach
the biblical condemnation of homosexuality as a sin.
Robinson
has been very clever. He has drafted C-250 so it looks
like a bit of motherhood legislation - something no sane
person could oppose.
Robinson's
law appears to amend only that Criminal Code section that
forbids promotion of genocide against an "identifiable
group." However, by altering the anti-genocide section,
C-250, by default, alters the next section, too.
By
adding "sexual orientation" to the categories
protected from mass, state-sanctioned extermination, Robinson's
bill also de facto makes it a federal offence to "communicate
statements in any public place" that would "wilfully
promote hatred against any identifiable group."
Time
and again in recent Canadian court cases and human rights
decisions, hate has been determined to be in the ear of
the hearer, not the mind of the speaker. If a member of
an identifiable group - most notably gays - feels someone
else's words are hateful, judges and human rights tribunals
have backed up those feelings with legal and administrative
penalties, regardless of the defendant's intent or not.
Robinson
surely knows this. His reassurance that his bill will
not limit religious opposition to the gay agenda is naive
at best, disingenuous at worst. (For an insight into Robinson's
believability, consider that he testified before a Senate
committee last week that "No leader of a major religion
in Canada ... has voiced opposition to this legislation,"
when he knows full well the Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops is on record against it.)
You
may already be familiar with the 2002 ruling by a Saskatchewan
court that declared the Bible to be hate literature. In
1997, a particularly zealous evangelical Christian by
the name of Hugh Owens bought an ad in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix.
The ad cited, but did not quote, four Bible passages condemning
homosexuality. Then it showed an equal sign. Finally,
there were two stickmen holding hands, circled, with a
line drawn over them - the international symbol for "forbidden"
or "no entry." The court affirmed a Saskatchewan
Human Rights ruling that stated the red circle and slash
itself "may not ... communicate hate." "However,
when combined with the passages from the Bible ... the
advertisement would expose or tend to expose homosexuals
to hatred or ridicule." In other words, the Bible
pushes the ad over the line, not the forbidden symbol;
i.e. the Bible is hate literature.
Because
of the ad, the three gays who brought the complaint had
"their dignity affronted" and "suffered
in respect of their feelings and self-respect." The
court determined Owens was guilty of a hate crime, even
though Saskatchewan law expressly protects religious speech.
Indeed, the judge employed some particularly perverse
logic to supersede the religious speech protections: Every
major religion preaches love, not hate, he explained,
so therefore if their sacred texts are used in hateful
ways they cannot be religious and thus are not protected.
You
may already have heard of Scott Brockie, too, a Christian
Toronto print shop owner who was forced against his religious
convictions to do printing for a gay and lesbian advocacy
group. The Ontario Human Rights Commission judged that
Brockie was "free to hold his religious beliefs and
to practise them in his home, and in his Christian community,"
but not in public.
But
I'll bet you've never heard of Chris Kempling. Kempling
is an erudite and educated man. He is a high school counsellor,
holds advanced degrees, is a candidate for a PhD in psychology
and has been the head of a central B.C.
public
health board. He has strong views against homosexuality,
views with which the psychological establishment disagrees,
but views that are always thoroughly researched and dispassionately
argued. In February, however, a B.C. court upheld Kempling's
suspension from his teaching job for one month without
pay for writing letters to his local paper, the Quesnel
Cariboo Observer, outlining his belief that homosexuality
is a lifestyle choice, not a genetic orientation, that
it is often unhealthy and promiscuous and that it can
be treated - that gays can be counselled to be straight.
These letters alone, the judge ruled, were "sufficient
evidence" to pronounce Kempling was a bigot. Since
in three of his many letters to the Observer, he had also
identified himself as a teacher or counsellor, he was
thereby guilty of "conduct unbecoming a teacher"
and the B.C. teachers' college was within its authority
to discipline him. Kempling never proclaimed he would
not serve gay and lesbian students objectively. Indeed,
he was never accused of discriminatory acts at all, merely
of having the wrong thoughts. But in B.C., that's enough.
Mere objection to the politically correct line on homosexuality
- that it is great, good and healthy - is enough to establish
guilt.
Robinson
can rail all he wants that C-250 has nothing to do with
limiting religious expression, but I have no doubt that
once it is passed, activist judges will use it to make
scores of new Owenses, Brockies and Kemplings.
_______________________
Lorne Gunter
Columnist, Edmonton Journal
Editorial Board Member, National Post
tele: (780) 916-0719
fax: (780) 481-4735
e-mail: lgunter@shaw.ca
Edmonton AB
|
