Biblcal Speech ---- Hate Speech?

This story was contributed by Bruce Timpany.  You can visit his page at Facebook.

{{{ Biblical Speech in Canada a Hate Crime }}}
If you want to understand where the LGBT movement is heading, just have a look at Canada. The gay movement wants to restrict free speech, even religious speech that opposes their sexual orientation and practices. “The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Biblical speech opposing homosexual behavior, including in written form, is essentially a hate crime.”

William Whatcott was distributing flyers explaining the Bible’s prohibitions against homosexuality in Saskatoon and Regina in 2001 and 2002. “The Bible is clear that homosexuality is an abomination,” one flyer said. Another flyer, published in response to the recommendation of the Saskatoon School Board that homosexuality be included in the school curriculum, urged that homosexuality not be taught in Saskatoon’s public schools.

The court found these to be in violation of Canada’s draconian human rights law. “The justices ruled that because the use of the word “sodomy” only referred to “two men” and not also the sex acts of heterosexuals, it was a direct target against a specific group of people.”

The court noted in its opinion that Whatcott’s use of the Bible to target homosexuals was a violation of the law. They said, “[Whatcott’s] expression portrays the targeted group as a menace that could threaten the safety and well-being of others, makes reference to respected sources (in this case the Bible) to lend credibility to the negative generalizations, and uses vilifying and derogatory representations to create a tone of hatred…”

The court also placed the [Hate Crimes] Code authoritatively above the Bible. “While the courts cannot be drawn into the business of attempting to authoritatively interpret sacred texts such as the Bible, those texts will typically have characteristics which cannot be ignored if they are to be properly assessed in relation to… the [Hate Crimes] Code.”

Canada’s “Hate Crime” Code is vague and leaves much discretion to enforcement agencies. The code outlaws material that ‘exposes or tends to expose to hatred’ of any person or group. It essentially outlaws any verbal or written communication that might incite or inspire people to treat people in a prejudicial or discriminatory way.

When gay rights advocates talk about discrimination they include religious expression, and will attempt to restrict or outlaw it if it is against their lifestyle.

The court is using Whatcott as an example to strike fear into the hearts of others who may think to do something similar. Whatcott has been ordered to pay $7,500 to two homosexuals who took offense at his flyers, and pay the legal fees of the Human Rights Commission that took him to court, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“It’s worse than I expected,” Whatcott added. “What it means is that my life is over as I know it.”

In Alberta, Pastor Stephen Boissoin was also taken to court for hate crimes because he published his beliefs about homosexual behavior in an op-ed at a local newspaper. The lower court sided with the pastor because he described a specific behavior, not a person or group of persons.

But the Supreme Court of Canada declared that “oftentimes, it is impossible to say that one loves the sinner and hates the sin. It asserted that the hatred of the act was inseparable from hating the person or person group.”

“In instances where hate speech is directed toward behavior in an effort to mask the true target, the vulnerable group, this distinction should not serve to avoid [the hate-crime clause of the Code],” the court said.

In the United States, a number of incidents in recent years have shown that America is headed in the same direction. Several American businesses have been punished in one way or another for refusing to accommodate the homosexual lifestyle, such as the photographer in New Mexico who refused to shoot a same-sex commitment service, Vermont bed and breakfast owners whose employee told two lesbians that they could not hold their commitment service on their property, and a Kentucky t-shirt company that refused to fill orders for t-shirts that were to be worn at a local homosexual pride parade.

“And they said, Stand back, And they said again, This one fellow [Lot] came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them [the two angels]. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.” Genesis 19:9http://christiannews.net/2013/02/canadian-supreme-court-rules-biblical-speech-opposing-homosexual-behavior-is-a-hate-crime/

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