Given that our good host strives to keep us all up to date on the latest attacks on free speech in the Western world, I figure it’s only right that I do my best to ensure we have the latest, most accurate information.
Which is why I am very happy to bring you this:
EDMONTON – A Court of Queen’s Bench judge has ruled an anti-gay letter written by a former Alberta pastor in 2002 was not a hate crime and is allowed under freedom of speech.
Justice E.C. Wilson overturned a 2008 ruling by the Alberta Human Rights Commission that the letter by Stephen Boissoin that was published in the Red Deer Advocate broke provincial law.
At the time, the commission said it may even have played a role in the beating of a gay teenager two weeks after it was published.
The commission had ordered Boissoin to refrain from making disparaging remarks about homosexuals and to pay the complainant, former Red Deer high school teacher Darren Lund, $5,000 in damages.
Neither order can now be enforced, as Wilson declared them “unlawful or unconstitutional.”
The letter carried the headline “Homosexual agenda wicked” and suggested gays were as immoral as pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps.
Boissoin had argued he was simply commenting on government policy by criticizing homosexuality being portrayed positively in the public school curriculum.
On Thursday, Boissoin said he was thrilled with the judge’s ruling, calling it a victory for “freedom of speech and religious expression in Canada.”..
There’s an interesting dissection breakdown of the judgment here, which some of you might enjoy. Rebekah sees the judge as having a very active sense of humour and a complete and utter contempt for the Alberta HRT ruling. I don’t know if I would go that far but to each her own.
I can tell you that the court found that the so-called “hate speech” section of the Act is not some vague, general prohibition against speaking badly about someone but is only directed at eliminating statements which are also likely to cause others to engage in any of the discriminatory practices listed in the Act. As opposed to speech that might lead to violence, which is rightly governed by the criminal law power reserved solely to Canada’s federal, not provincial, governments.
And “hate speech” is not actionable unless it actually influences someone to a hateful or discriminatory act or is likely to do so. In other words, it must be linked to actions. It ”applies only to hateful expression that itself signals an intention to engage in discriminatory behaviour, or seeks to persuade another person to do so”.
For any so-inclined, the actual decision can be found here.
My point is simply this – as much fun as it may be to blast Canada’s human right laws sometimes, so far the system appears to be working as advertised. First, poor old Ezra Lavnt is successful in defending the hate speech complaint brought against him. As were Mark Steyn and MacLeans. And I’m pleased to report that there hasn’t been much anything heard from Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal lately, either. Which, thankd the Lord for that last one.
So now you know the rest of the story. And like I’ve said before, don’t count us out. It ain’t over ’til it’s over.
