Paul Tuns has an article that some of you may find useful if you wish to bring friends and acquaintances up to date on the sordid history of CHRC cases and rulings.
While the high-profile complaints against Maclean’s and Levant have garnered the most attention, two other complaints were made public just before the Christmas break that should also worry Canadians. Rob Wells, an Edmonton man, has filed formal complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against both Catholic Insight magazine and the Christian Heritage Party, as well as its leader Ron Gray, over their comments about homosexuality.
Although the magazine only went public with the complaint in December, Wells filed his action against Catholic Insight last February. The nine-point complaint listed fragments of columns and news published in the magazine dating back to 1994 that are alleged to have caused offence to homosexuals. Wells did not provide any context, nor any reference even to the editions of the magazine from which the supposedly offending passages were taken, yet the folks at the magazine were expected to file a prompt reply.
[…]
The editors at Catholic Insight want to defend themselves by arguing the truth of their statements, but, sadly, truth doesn’t matter.
Rather, Catholic Insight must defend its right to report and comment on current events (freedom of the press) and the right to hold and express its sincerely held religious views (freedom of religion); that is, it must defend its Charter-protected rights against claims that expressing these facts and opinions causes offence to some supposedly marginalized groups and thus, are deserving of suppression. So there is an official view of certain issues; certain politically correct pieties must never be questioned and if that line is not toed, private citizens can utilize state-run institutions to silence and even punish those with dissenting views.
[…]
Gray, like de Valk, does not hate homosexuals, nor does he wish them any harm, but both maintain that in a free and democratic society, debates about public policies – like the definition of marriage – are precisely that: debates. By definition, debates have more than one side and Catholic Insight and the Christian Heritage Party have been presenting arguments not against homosexuals, but against their claims to marriage.
Gray told The Interim that the Canadian Human Rights Commission – or any HRC – has “absolutely no jurisdiction” to tell a political party what it can and cannot communicate and that ultimately, voters will judge the messages of a political party. “I really think this is a crucial case, because if an agency of the government, which the CHRC is, can tell a political party what it may and may not include in its political statements, we have gone way down the road to totalitarianism.”
The pro-gay marriage offensive was a two pronged attack:
1. Shut down the opponents because they feared HRC reprisal.
2. Have the pro-gay marriage media marginalize anyone who disagreed with pro-gay marriage zealots, including gays and lesbians.
The more fact-starved and irrational an ideology is, the more it needs to rely on the blunt force of the State to protect it from its detractors.
That piece is THE primer on the HRCs. Paul does his usual great job.
Actually, I stand corrected. It is three pronged:
3. Get Revenue Canada to meet with representatives of the Catholic Church and EFC to threaten and intimidate them with tax reprisal if they opposed gay marriage with any force.
If that isn’t state intervention what is?
As a supporter of gay-marriage I welcome the free expression of ideas by people who hold opposing view points. After all debate among people is where the exchange of thoughts and ideas gives an opportunity to defend your view points and change other people’s minds. I think there is a view, by many, that shutting people up is the same as winning the arguement. All it does is drive these thoughts underground and make people present one face to society whilst believing completely different things in private. I don’t think this is healthy for the individual or in fact the community. Lets all be adult enough to hear opinions we don’t share and be able to express ourselves with out attacking other people’s legitimate expression of their own opinions.
Lets all be adult enough to hear opinions we don’t share and be able to express ourselves with out attacking other people’s legitimate expression of their own opinions
Will you admit then that a fair debate about gay-marriage was undermined by instruments of the state?
Many thanks, Kate, for this.
Yes, Levant and Steyn are doing a very fine job of defending Canadians from the tyranny of the state jackboots—via our Human Rights (sic) Commissions—in their spirited rebuttals of the cases against them. But these cases are only the tip of the iceberg.
Canadians need to know that conscientious Christians, who disagree with the activist homosexual agenda and are exercising their own Charter rights, are favoured targets of the HRC bullies. (BTW, under Section 13, Christians always lose. Some rights and freedoms, eh?)
People might refer to my posts at “In many high schools” (March 9th) to see how school boards use HRC-like kangaroo courts to dissuade teachers from speaking out in favour of the traditional—nature’s model, BTW—family.
That observant Christians, who are law abiding Canadian citizens, are fodder for the “progressive, YOUR-rights-don’t-count” mill, aided and abetted by homosexual activists, who, like radical Muslims—WHAT an irony!—use the arbitrary power of the state to force feed their agenda, is a travesty. It’s also incredibly hypocritical: if homosexual activists are as fair and balanced as they’d like us to believe, why aren’t they going after the Muslim imams, who would, if they could in the West, see practising homosexuals jailed and/or beheaded?
It’s time for the HRC Hydra to have all its heads chopped off!
Has anyone else noticed this coincidence?
HRC = Human Rights Commission
HRC = Hillary Rodham Clinton?
Cut from the same cloth?
scosan, I altogether agree with you. Thanks for your post.
You’ll notice that, implicitly, I ask of you the same question posed by JohnnyJJ.
This is a sick and pathetic abuse of power and rights, really beyond words. Donate and support champions against the HRC in Canada folks! Use your power of vote and your money to be taken seriously. Speak out publicly and freely about this despicable abuse with family, friends, colleges, and anyone else with a set of ears. It’s for us all.
What I’d like to know is WTF is happening with PHSH especially given his previously expressed views on HRC’s:
“In 1999, Stephen Harper, then head of the National Citizens Coalition, said: Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society It is, in fact, totalitarian. I find this is very scary stuff.”
Thus far the only politician who’s spoken against HRC’s is Keith Martin with total silence on the part of the government.
Right now PMSH has been a disappointment as he’s done nothing to reduce the millions of firearms criminals created by the Lieberals, has embarked on junk-science based “environmental” programs that no-one voted for and is not doing nothing to defend basic human rights from the predations of HRC’s.
I was thinking this may have been due to the minority status, but given the powerful opposition, might as well try and implement the ‘hidden agenda’!
PMSH is now an elected politician; i.e. one who does not have time for principles, truth, or reality – votes are all that matter. But, things would be much worse if the Lieberals were back in power.
I am not optimistic about the future of Canada. The so-called Human ‘Rights’ Commissions are disgusting at best; but they are entrenched, and the PC ‘victims’ know how to work them.
PMSH is quietly chopping the underpinnings out from under these Liberal wankers. He’s working with a minority and a HOSTILE media who would rather bow to their CHRC overlords than see Harper win an election, so he’s chopping quietly.
If you want the chopping to be quicker, don’t stint in your letters to MPs from ALL the parties. Harper ain’t yore momma, he’s not going to save YOUR freedom all by his lonesome.
Hell, in some countries you get shot for trying to be free. No whining.
CHRC was a good thought, and it’s gone sour
what my opinions on gay marrage, the RC church, and the Heritage party are are irrelivent to the fact that we need to shut the CHRC down completely, and start from scratch to re-establish an agency to do the function it was ment to do!!!!!!
Trudeau calls homosexuality a sin why can’t Catholics? Tommy Douglas thought they need counseling.
Now how can I download this?
Give PMSH some slack: IF the Conservatives speak out against the HRCs, they’ll be accused, BIG TIME, by the lying, weasel MSM and the Liberals, of being against human rights–for everyone.
I agree with Phantom, that the CPC is chipping away at this problem. Until–one can hope–the Conservatives get a majority, they need to tread very carefully.
OK,everyone take a deep breath,I think that Rob Wells is actually the real name for ‘Ricky’ fron the “Trailer Park Boys”. Someone may just be having a bit of fun,on the other hand ,maybe spending time drinking beer and blowing bubbles means something else altogether.
if the cons open fire on the homoritescomms then steffie and his pregressives, the media and assorted mentalcases will torch them, and the worst could happen–an effing liberal guv–. I think they’re doing the right thing, for now.
that’s pretty funny wallyj, beats the hell outta drinkin beer and eating popcorn
I’ve just read Paul Tuns’s fine article. It’s long, but describes very well, with documentation, the creeping totalitarianism in this country.
The main victims, so far, have been observant Christians, a group, I believe, not particularly supported here, at SDA.
However, be that as it may, as the rights of these citizens go, so go the rights of all other Canadians. This issue is not peripheral. The rights of every one of us is at stake.
Oooooooh I so want to get in on this.Is it too late?
What isn’t touched on here is how often the groups whose causes are being championed by the HRC, are the same groups whose strategy was bought and paid for by the Court Challenges Program.
The CCP used state resources to figure out how, where and when to change laws in those groups’ favour using the court system.
The HRC uses the system to silence the dissent to those challenges.
The media activists treat the radical run HRC and CCP as reflective of mainstream opinion.
The tab is, as ever, picked up by all Canadians.
Systemic abuse of resources.
Sorry – I was away from my computer. In reply to JohnnyJJ and lookout: Yes I do agree that there is no place for government organisations to get involved in the exchange of ideas. There is a place for them to get involved in the attempt to force others to believe as we do or attack those who believe differently. That is where the police are best able to use existing laws. The HRCs actually appear to be trying to make thoughts and views “illegal”. All that does is stifle debate and convinces nobody.
one could not ask for a better election issue than the hrc fiasco – conservatives standing up for canadians in plain tangible terms – freedom from persecution by politically correct charter usurpers.
the conservatives own this issue from way back:
“Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society…It is in fact totalitarianism. I find this is very scary stuff.” — Stephen Harper, January 11, 1999
Pull out of the UN and oppose the NORTH AMERICAN UNION we must stop the commies
Judge Métivier noted that Mr. Warman is a lawyer, a profession for which a reputation for integrity and trustworthiness is imperative. “His professional reputation continues to be of paramount importance to him now and in the future.”
he’s a botton feeding phony lying conniving ambulance chasin’ wannabe kinda lawyer.
Paul Tuns writes: “Catholic Insight must defend its right to report and comment on current events (freedom of the press) and the right to hold and express its sincerely held religious views (freedom of religion); that is, it must defend its Charter-protected rights against claims that expressing these facts and opinions causes offence…”
In a nutshell, why the He** should either Catholic Insight or Gray have to defend rights THAT ARE ALREADY THEIRS UNDER THE CHARTER and at their own expense?
What use is a Charter of Rights, if citizens are put in the position of having to justify rights, already theirs, before a “tributanl” of unelected boobs who use draconian measures to get their and the complainants’ pound of flesh from people whose ideas they don’t happen to like?
This is the height of idiocy–actually, worse than that, the height of totalitarian manipulation and bullying.
Canada is becoming a Gulag, which should be an alarming thought to all fair-minded, law-abiding citizens, whether or not they agree with de Valk and Gray. As lookout points out, it’ll be your group in the cross hairs next.
This is no small matter. So, why is it only being reported in The Interim, a small, yet valiant, pro-life newspaper?
Our usual intrepid reporters in the MSM are remaining true to form: ‘Never touch an issue that might look like support for people whose ideas they consider retrograde. BUT, guys–are you listening Probe and Fail, TorStar, CBCpravda?–this isn’t just about de Valk and Gray, it’s about our whole so-called “justice” system… WAKE UP!
batb…this info has been covered for many years in the Reality mag, not mainstream of course, but well covered.And the link between tax funded CCP and the HRC has been exposed by Gwen Landolt many times.
Warman is not stupid enough to take on Gwen Landolt, tho I would love to see him try. She’d put him where he belongs.
Yeah, bluetech, that Gwen Landolt, she’s some smart lawyer!
REALity, the publication of her non tax funded women’s organization (but many men are very welcome honorary members), REAL Women, has been exposing, for decades, the taxpayer funded shenanigans of the HRCs, courts, Court Challenges Program, LEAF, Law Reform Commissions, etc., which have been used by the left to twist out of all recognition the moral landscape of this country.
REAL Women is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. It sustains itself entirely on donations. Feminist organizations fold as soon as the government teat’s removed. For those who’ve only heard the undeserved smears against REAL Women—who, for 25 years, have been as viciously attacked by the left as the Conservatives now are—I highly recommend its web site, where its well written, thoroughly documented, reasonable, and intelligent positions on all kinds of topics are available.
If only Canada had more original thinkers and women of courage like Gwen Landolt! And, of the two, who has the Order of Canada: Michele Landsberg or Gwen Landolt? You guessed it! (Who said life is fair?)
And that is EXACTLY what they were designed to do.
Yes, indeed, entirely reordering the morals and rules of engagement of this country is exactly what all those government funded, feminist- and gay activist-run agencies set out to do and have accomplished, generally behind the backs of ordinary Canadians.
This is democracy?
lookout, batb:
See you in September?
I have been saying for years that Liberals have made Canada a soft dictatorship.
Hard dictatorships imprison, torture and execute.
So we are a soft one, but still a dictatorship, the HRC being the most obvious proof of it.
Now, leaning more to the libertarian, I support equal rights for gays and can’t for the life of me understand why straight people find them such a threat.
That said, the idea that the state should have the power to crush the rights of religious publication and political parties (on top of individual freedoms) is worthy of armed rebellion.
Mussolini ended up hung by his feet. I can see no reason why jackbooted totalitarian state thugs of all sort don’t deserve the same.
Either you believe in freedom and liberty or you don’t. Of course, some of the people who are claiming to be outraged over their speech rights want the state to persecute gays so there are many wrongs to go around…
I’m gay, I’m married, We have a son, a daughter, and one granddaughter – a family. And anyone who wants to speak against that has every right to their thoughts and words. I can easily debate anyone in a civil matter on the issue, and they don’t have to agree with me in the end.
I am also a Conservative. I believe the individual’s right to liberty is of paramount importance and that gov’t should exist to make people’s lives easier, not harder.
I also have the right to say that anyone who is in a second or third marriage, with a surviving ex-spouse, is an adulterer according to the Bible and adultery was punishable by being stoned to death. Adultery is one of the Ten Commandments, which lets you know that God places it in high priority.
The Bible teaches that should a person have to leave a marriage, then God will grant them the grace to live a celibate life. How many heterosexuals who are against gay marriage live up to that? Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are 2 with multiple divorces/marriages that spring to mind.
If someone’s position is Biblically-based, then let’s really debate the position the Bible takes on heterosexual divorce and celibacy. If we are talking about sexual sin, why is it not important to bring heterosexual sin into the debate?
At least the Catholics recognize that Biblically, sex after divorce is a sin. Unless you are powerful enough to buy an annulment, then you magically get a free pass on that one and get to start over.
Will someone please tell me how heterosexual second, third, forth, or fifth marriages should be allowed in our society if gay marriages are not?
The divorces separate families and cause havoc with the kids, do they not?
kyla…you are right on! The truth has been washed down over the years so that the whole concept originally set apart as marriage has been lost.
You also have a very good grip on the Truth that Jesus said:
“he who is without sin can cast the first stone.”
It has it been too simple for Christians to be offended by gay lifestyles and ignore our own sins.
All the sexual sins hurt children and families. Our society has been so brainwashed about sexual license, that sexuality and one’s “right to choose” any which kind with whomever is an area that’s now considered “non debateable”. It’s not.
Kyla, I hear you with some sympathy and good for you, if you and your partner have held together a strong and loving family. I have friends who are gay, they are welcome in my home, and I certainly don’t wish them to be persecuted. The interesting thing, however, is that, in attempting to have homosexuality “normalized” in our society, homosexual activists and their allies have used the jackboot of both hideous propaganda and the arbitrary power of the state to gag and intimidate those with whom they disagree. Whatever happened to the concept of “diversity and equality”?
Gay activists and their myriad allies in the MSM, the school system, and just about every other public institution in this country have totally marginalized observant Christians: our jobs and reputations are at stake if we dare voice an opinion contrary to the now received wisdom that homosexual unions are equivalent to heterosexual ones in every way—even when they demonstrably are not, at least not from either a traditional, religious (Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc.) or biological point of view.
The state has arbitrarily declared that heterosexual unions—which are now routinely disparaged and insulted by both feminists and homosexual activists in the most vitriolic ways—and homosexual unions are equal: the state has that right, in law, but it doesn’t make such use of its power either right or true. However, like declaring, let’s say, identical twins as one person before the law because they look quite alike, doesn’t, in fact, make it true. Promoting fictions as truth is both unjust and dangerous.
BTW, I can certainly accept legal contracts between homosexual partners, which confer on them the entitlements it’s the state’s right to give. I cannot accept the idea that religious institutions, which are not agents of the state, be both harassed and forced—check out the HRC case against Bishop Henry and the B.C. Knights of Columbus, to name only two—to do that which is against their freedom of belief, expression, and association Charter rights. It always takes me aback at how those so solicitous of homosexual rights—homosexuals are now a feted and protected minority in the West—seem both ignorant of and utterly uninterested in the routine marginalization and persecution of observant Christians in this country. (And, isn’t it interesting, that certain religions, e.g., the Muslims, who are far less tolerant of homosexuality than Christians, get a free ride on this. This is actually a very dangerous oversight for all of us, but particularly homosexuals, for obvious reasons: think Pim Fortuyn and Theo Van Gogh.)
In real life, there are hierarchies: like it or not, social engineering or not, that’s the way nature is set up. I find it very interesting that the left more and more insists on conserving and “going natural”, EXCEPT, it seems, where sex and the family are concerned.
Let’s look at families in, as William Gairdner proposes, “good, better, best”. In general: homosexual and unformed—where the identity of one of the biological parents is considered irrelevant—or broken families can be good, no doubt about it. (I have some of these models in my extended family.) Family situations, where children know who their biological parents are and have an opportunity to know and interact with both, even if they don’t live together, are generally better than models where knowing both parents is not the case. However, and proven in study after study, in general, the best model for children is to live with their own biological parents, e.g., the abuse rate in such families is much lower than that in families where unrelated adults live with the children of their partners—always the situation in casual, step, and homosexual relationships. The success rate of children living with their biological parents, measured by all sorts of indicators, is significantly higher than that of the often at-risk children in deconstructed families.
And why, if this is the case, would radical feminists and homosexual activists work so hard to suppress the truth and harass and persecute their opponents? This fact is very telling. As the MSM and most public institutions are collaborators in this bullying, it’s deliberately kept out of sight: observant Christians are the Cinderellas of our “tolerant, compassionate” society. It’s a shameful scandal.
And so is the fact that our selfish, childish, consumerist society—“I can have any sex partner or lifestyle I want and the rest of society must sanction it”—sacrifices the rights of vulnerable children to security and safety on the altar of adult sexual license. (Warwick, perhaps that answers your question about the “threat” of the homosexual—and other alternate—lifestyles.) The damage being done in our society by the deconstructed family is huge: we can see it everywhere. Think, for one, of the Jamaican drug gangs: the lack of a responsible father’s authority has everything to do with this problem—but one’s not supposed to mention it. How crazy is that? And how utterly dishonest and counterproductive.
As long as the lies about, and the intimidation and persecution of, traditionalist, Christian Canadians are allowed in this country, we are all diminished. Until all Canadians are allowed to express their opinions, free from arbitrary persecution of the state, the rights of all of us are at risk.
BTW, Canadian homosexual activists and their allies have played a dirty game against their opponents over the last few decades. Quite deliberately and happily they have used such taxpayer funded agents as Law Reform Commissions, the Court Challenges Program—run by a lesbian lawyer—to fund their court costs, LEAF (the feminist Legal Education and Action Fund), all kinds of feminist (often, read lesbian) agencies, funded by the Status of Women (sic: read Radical Feminist), and the HRCs, in order to force their agenda on Canadian society. (In the case of a high court judge, who should have recused himself from involvement in a key homosexual rights case because one of his children is homosexual, there is a picture of him celebrating the homosexual “win” at a party with the plaintiffs in the case. Impartiality, either real or perceived, anyone?)
NONE of the vast taxpayer resources used by the homosexual lobby, some beyond the reach of Parliamentary scrutiny, has been available to traditionalists, who have had to bear the considerable costs of litigation on their own dime. And, like Section 13 HRC cases, in the courts of this land, although both religious rights—included in the original wording of the Charter in 1982—and homosexual rights—deliberately excluded in 1982, but arbitrarily “read in” to the Charter much later by activist judges—are supposed to be equally protected, homosexual rights have trumped religious rights EVERY time. THIS demonstrates tolerance, equality and fairness? So, add to the problems with the homosexual agenda a gargantuan dose of hypocrisy.
In a nutshell, one of society’s most sacred trusts is to nurture and protect its children. When adult, sexual license—in general, writ large in the homosexual community, but more and more evident and accepted in many other adult sexual choices, not unconnected to the propaganda surrounding the normalization of homosexuality—trumps children’s rights to know their own parents and to live secure lives, then, Houston, we have a problem.
‘Too bad I’m supposed to keep this to myself.
Where’s Amnesty International on the HRCs? Are they at all concerned that Canadians’ rights are being jeopardized by these tribunals?
lookout…very well said.
Hope we hear from you again kyla.
Thanks, bluetech.
What will it look like under DARTH(OBAMA)VADER this guy sacres me he is a sith lord using the darkside of the force