Finally, good news on 'human rights'

News reports from the past few months has turned the phrase "human rights" into something of a joke. On the one hand, a group of Muslim activists has gone before four separate human rights commissions in a high-profile bid to censor critics of militant Islam -- realizing the worst fears of critics who, years ago, predicted that "human rights" would become an instrument of thought control. On the other hand, the places in Canada where real human rights are most at risk -- dysfunctional native reserves controlled by self-serving clans -- have long been explicitly exempted from the provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act (HRA). Efforts by the Conservative government to fix this native loophole (which was supposed to be "temporary" when it was created in 1977) have met with shameful resistance from self-interested aboriginal leaders, as well as their Liberal and NDP apologists.

But good news is at hand. On Friday, it was announced that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint filed against Maclean's magazine by Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC). Supporters of free speech should be careful to put this victory in context: A similar complaint against Maclean's is still being adjudicated in British Columbia. Moreover, the very fact that human rights bureaucrats presume to sit in judgment as to what can and cannot be published in this country is appalling in itself. Still, it is nice to see the CIC's gag squad get handed a loss.

On First Nations, too, some good news is at hand. Thanks to changes finally pushed through by Stephen Harper's Conservatives, natives living on reserves will now enjoy the same rights under the HRA that non-natives have taken for granted for more than three decades. As of now, band members will be able to file human rights complaints against Ottawa and their tribal leadership (though bands will have 36 months to adapt to the new legislative changes). We are particularly gratified on behalf of native women -- who often are subject to the sort of institutionally sexist treatment that went extinct in Western society almost a century ago.

What is needed now is similar root-and-branch reform of the Human Rights Act -- beginning with the elimination of Section 13, which bans the electronic transmission of material that bureaucrats judge "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination." Provincial human rights codes should be similarly amended. As Maclean's declared on Friday: "No human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation's media."

“likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
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Can someone who is fluent in gobbledygook please translate this into English, I cannot figure out what it is supposed to mean.

Can someone who is fluent in gobbledygook please translate this into English, I cannot figure out what it is supposed to mean.

Sure
Section 13, which bans the electronic transmission of material that bureaucrats judge "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination."
It means that material which makes you not like someone (the dreaded "hatred") or have no respect for them ("contempt") if that someone happens to be a member of a protected class.

It doesn't explicitly say so, but protected classes include:
blacks
sometimes Hispanics
Asians only in terms of housing, not in academia
other persons of color as long as they are not too pale
Muslims
liberal Jews, as long as they neither live in nor support Israel
liberal women
lesbians
gay men
cross dressers, transvestites, transgendered folk and anyone confused about their sexuality
Christians are NOT included

If someone from the above list says or writes something hateful or contemptuous, it does not count - unless they are quoted by a white male or conservative. Then said white male is guilty.

Actual actions by members of the above groups do not count either, no matter how much hatred and contempt results from such actions. However, reporting or commenting on such actions is forbidden if done by white males or any conservative.

Material which is likely to expose white males, Christians and/or conservatives to hatred or contempt is allowed because feelings of hatred or contempt for those people is the natural order of things and to be encouraged.

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