http://www.wcr.ab.ca/columns/markpickup/2008/markpickup061608.shtml).
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Ezra Levant on the human-rights show trial of Posted: June 11, 2008, 1:12 PM by Marni Soupcoff
What could Mark Steyn’s punishment be, if he and Maclean’s magazine are convicted of “Islamophobia” by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal?
It could look like the order issued by the Alberta government against a Christian pastor named Stephen Boissoin.
Rev. Boissoin wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate, in which he denounced homosexuality in no uncertain terms. A local teacher — who wasn’t gay — filed a complaint with Alberta’s human rights commission, claiming that Rev. Boissoin and the newspaper were “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.” The newspaper accepted a plea bargain, but Rev. Boissoin didn’t. So, like everyone else charged with that vague offence, he was found guilty. His punishment was announced two weeks ago.
It’s right out of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Lori Andreachuk, the human rights commissioner who issued the order, started off by acknowledging that “there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward.”
The complainant was the town scold, an anti-Christian activist named Darren Lund with an axe to grind. Andreachuk’s first order was that “Dr. Lund, although not a direct victim, did expend considerable time and energy and suffered ridicule and harassment as a result of his complaint. The Panel finds therefore that he is entitled to some compensation.”
So a busybody with no standing spends his time filing complaints — and gets a tax-free reward for doing so. For his “suffering” — not at the hands of Rev. Boission, but “as a result of his complaint.” People in Red Deer ridiculed Lund for being a tattle-tale and a censor — as they should. But Rev. Boissoin must pay for that.
Her order continued: “Mr. Boissoin … shall cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on
the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.”
Boissoin can never communicate anything “disparaging” about gays again. It’s a lifetime ban — and it applies to every conceivable medium, including his private e-mails and public sermons.
Nothing “disparaging” means nothing critical. She didn’t order him not to communicate anything “illegal” or even anything “hateful.” She ordered him to say nothing disparaging. For the rest of his life.
And then she declared that Rev. Boissoin is “prohibited from making disparaging remarks in the future about Dr. Lund or Dr. Lund’s witnesses relating to their involvement in this complaint.”
Lund, a political activist, is “protected” not just from Rev. Boissoin’s alleged anti-gay remarks, but from any other criticism. Forever.
But Andreachuk was just getting warmed up. Rev. Boissoin must “provide Dr. Lund with a written apology for the article in the Red Deer Advocate, which was the subject of this complaint.” The Alberta government couldn’t convince a Christian pastor that he’s wrong, so it will just order him to condemn himself. Other than tribunals in Stalin’s Soviet Union and Mao’s China, where is that considered to be justice?
This is like a Third World jail-house confession — where accused criminals are forced to sign false statements of guilt. But jail-house confessions pretend to be real. Not here. Andreachuk just comes out and says it: You’re going to say you’re sorry, even if you aren’t.
In the final insult, Rev. Boissoin was ordered to “request [his] written apology for the contravention of the Act be published in the Red Deer Advocate.”
Rev. Boissoin doesn’t just have to issue a false apology to Lund. He has to publicly humiliate himself, by publicly declaring his contrition — contrition he does not feel — and his abandonment of his deeply-held religious beliefs.
So a pastor cannot give a sermon he actually believes in. Instead, he must give a false sermon; he must apologize to his accuser for his Christian faith. And then that pastor is ordered to declare to his entire city that he has renounced his faith, even though he has not.
And then he’s fined $7,000.
This wasn’t just the work of a rogue human rights commission. The Progressive Conservative Government of Alberta sent a lawyer to intervene in the hearing — against Rev. Boissoin.
That’s how human rights commissions work in Alberta, allegedly the freest province in Canada.
How will they work in B.C.?
See the Alberta Human Rights tribunal decision against Rev. Boissoin at http://albertahumanrights.ab.ca/Lund_Darren_Remedy053008.pdf.
4 comments:
Does anyone know what Boissoin is going to do?
How bad do thinks have to get before we find our courage?
Lydia: Lydia: I am not sure what Pastor Boissoin is doing. I am afraid that this will have a chilling effect on other pastors from declaring Biblical truth when there's a risk of offending fashionable sensibilities. With rare exceptions (like Pastor Boissoin and Calgary's Bishop Henry, the clergy is a timid lot. They are apt to retreat within insular church communities. Christians are increasingly viewed with contempt in officialdom and the media.
Adolf Hitler said this about Germany's Christians: "You can do anything you want with them," he said. "They will submit. ... They are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs, and they sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them."
Canadian officials and human rights tribunals seem to view orthodox and evangelical Christians with similar contempt, although they are not so bold to say it with such bluntness. They are banking on timid and dutiful submission and silence when ordered.
I fear they may be succeed.
Mark Pickup
If it helps any, here's a link to Stephen Boissoin's blog.
http://stephenboissoin.blogspot.com/
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