Chipping away at freedom of religion (fundamental freedoms under attack in Canada!)

National Post - Canada ^ | April 4, 2005 | Editorial (Lorne Gunter)

[GMMAC]

This state-sanctioned persecution of Bishop Henry has now been well know for more than a week and yet this is the first substantive mention of same by a significant organ of Canada's media.

Given that The Post is considerably right-of-center by our local matriarchal-socialist standards, few among us are holding our breath waiting for much additional support for this good Bishop from the remainder of the more leftist media lapdogs.

[GMMAC]

PING!

[billorites]

"fundamental freedoms under attack in Canada!"

I love Canada.

It's my favourite amongst mildly authoritarian countries.

[ANGGAPO]

Sounds like the Canadians need to start a house cleaning.

[ted_kabuka]

Enough! Anyone who has read the formal complaint knows that the complaint has not been brought forward because the Priest was against same-sex marriage or even for saying it was a sin. To suggest otherwise is false and misleading. The complaintant was even on national television stating that he respected these beliefs of the Catholic Church. It is the additional elements of the letter that call for government to interfere with the private lives of individual Canadians that lead to the complaint, which hasn't even been ruled on yet.

[northernlightsII]

So the sodomite thief Robinson can clamour for whatever kind of government intervention but no other citizen should have that right.

[CelticLord]

Canada....the frozen large pond that tries to be European
due to the Quebec Factor.
Just like Thomas the Train....."I think I can....I think
I can".........

[Mr Ramsbotham]

We now have political prisoners in the West.

[FreedomPoster]

So tell us, exactly what does the formal complaint say? If you're going to defend the State's attempt to muzzle speech, you're going to have to do a better job of it than that, around here, Mr. Newbie.

[-=[_Super_Secret_Agent_]=-]

you understand the "Quebec Factor". God bless you.

[goldstategop]

Its never been about gay marriage. Its been about destroying traditional values. That has always threatened the Left more than the question of who gets married. Right and wrong are threat to to the post-modern inquisitors morally relativistic worldview.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[Paul Atreides]

...Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary, who is being hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for arguing against same-sex marriage in a letter he sent to his flock in January.

Notice, the staggering silence from the Ward Churchill butt-kissers.

[Fudd Fan]

What the hey is going on up in Canada? Is everyone nuts?

[FreedomPoster]

This appears to be the full text of the letter for which the Bishop is being prosecuted.

In particular, it appears that this passage is what is at the crux of the prosecution:

Since homosexuality, adultery, prostitution and pornography undermine the foundations of the family, the basis of society, then the State must use its coercive power to proscribe or curtail them in the interests of the common good.

Apparently, the calls for state proscriptive measures has gotten all the Usual Suspects upset.

I guess this is what happens in countries without First Amendment rights.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[spanalot]

"It's my favourite amongst mildly authoritarian countries."

Mildly Authoritarian? What about Major Despotic as in Canada was the first to put broad swaths of its own people in Concentration Camps!

http://www.infoukes.com/history/internment/booklet01/

[ted_kabuka]

You can purchase the transcripts of the program that quotes the formal complaint, including the "offensive" sections of the bishop's letter, through Global Television, a subsidiary of CanWestGlobal Corp.

[ted_kabuka]

Actually, it just got one gay man upset.

[Tench_Coxe]

"Consider, for instance, the plight of Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Calgary, who is being hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for arguing against same-sex marriage in a letter he sent to his flock in January.

Bishop Henry's case is being pursued under Alberta's Human Rights Code. But it is not hard to imagine religious speech being chilled across the country."

I hope that the good Bishop remembers that good people in the history of the Catholic Church have suffered much more than prison for speaking out ( considering recent developments, St. Peter, for instance ).