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

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

[GMMAC]

Chipping away at freedom of religion

Lorne Gunter
National Post - Editorial

April 4, 2005

Like everyone else, members of Canada's political establishment are making a great show of respect for the passing of Pope John Paul II. But even as they are doing so, the forced secularization of Canadian society is continuing apace.

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.

Last year, when Parliament was debating former MP Svend Robinson's private member's bill -- C-250 -- to add sexual orientation to the list of traits protected against hate speech, many religious organizations warned such a law would limit the right of priests, rabbis and imams to recite their faiths' teachings that homosexuality is a sin. BR>
They were scoffed at, and their concerns dismissed as paranoia -- especially since the legislation was drafted in a way that appeared to protect religious speech.

Even though the law clearly makes it a criminal offence to "communicate statements in any public place" -- presumably including houses of worship -- that would "wilfully promote hatred against any identifiable group," the faithful were reassured the bill would never impinge their right to believe or pontificate as they wished.

Calgary Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz scoffed at the "Christian fundamentalists" she saw pushing opposition to the legislation. "Nobody will be prosecuted for expressing disapproval of homosexual behaviour," she wrote. "People are free to say that they find such behaviour repulsive. They are free to cite the Bible as much as they like."

More telling was her contradictory caveat in the next paragraph, warning that "one's right to freedom of speech ends where another person's right not to be treated as inferior and undesirable because of race, religion or sexual orientation begins."

Svend Robinson himself chimed in: "It has been suggested that this bill might in some way threaten freedom of speech or lead to the banning of the Bible or other religious texts. Nothing could be further from the truth."

His bill's purpose? Only to "save lives" threatened by gay-bashing attacks.

Similar assurances have been made to quiet concerns that the current same-sex marriage bill will compel churches to marry gay and lesbian couples.

At House of Commons justice committee hearings in February, John Fisher, executive director of the gay-rights group EGALE, insisted religious Canadians had nothing to fear. "The rules set by particular faiths are protected by freedom of religion."

More ominously, Ontario's Human Rights Commissioner told the committee "it would still be discrimination" for churches and other religious institutions to refuse to marry gays. "But it would be lawful discrimination."

How is that ominous?

Can you imagine a human rights commission or federal court tolerating for long even "lawful" discrimination? The prohibition against same-sex marriage itself has been lawful for 100 years. Has that stopped Mr. Norton or judges from persistently chipping away at it?

Admittedly, in its opinion on Ottawa's recent gay marriage reference, the Supreme Court ruled that "state compulsion on religious officials to perform same-sex marriages contrary to their religious beliefs would violate the guarantee of freedom of religion." But would that protect Bishop Henry in speaking out against homosexuality, or merely keep Ottawa from forcing him to perform gay marriages?

Besides, this was an opinion in a reference. The SCC might well decide differently when an actual case comes before it. And in any case, the court has been known to change its mind on gay rights. In the mid-1990s, it ruled that Parliament had the right to award benefits unevenly to different family groupings -- including heterosexual couples versus gay ones -- depending on the legislative goals it was trying to achieve. Less than five years later, it ruled its own earlier distinction was anathema to an equal, democratic society.

Yes, I know, our very own Prime Minister, Paul Martin, has insisted that if a court were "going to force ... churches, synagogues, mosques or temples to redefine marriage in a way that that particular religion did not want to, then I would use the notwithstanding clause" to protect freedom of religion.

But does anyone really believe he has that kind of courage?

Besides, prime ministers change. The one who replaces Mr. Martin could well be less willing even to promise to protect freedom of conscience.

Nor is Bishop Henry the only religious figure who has been put upon for his stance against gay marriage.

St. Simon's Anglican parish, in the lush little North Shore community of Deep Cove, across Burrard Inlet from Vancouver, has been evicted from its church building by the Diocese of New Westminster for opposing the diocese's decree that Vancouver-area Anglican churches must bless same-sex unions.

The Catholic service club, the Knights of Columbus, in Port Coquitlam, B.C., is being hauled before provincial human rights inquisitors for refusing to rent their hall to a lesbian wedding reception.

Nor does the list stop there.

I am not opposed to same-sex marriage. I am also not naive enough to believe official reassurances that those of faith who oppose same-sex marriage will have their right to dissent protected by lawmakers and the courts.

© National Post 2005

[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 ).