Alberta judge rules anti-gay letter not hate speech

[Metric System]

Ugh:

Alberta judge rules anti-gay letter not hate speech
The Canadian Press
Date: Friday Dec. 4, 2009 7:12 AM ET

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.

More at link:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20091204/alberta_letter_091204/20091204?hub=Canada

[Sebastian Doyle]

1. "Alberta" - Canadian for "Texas"

Sadly, not all that surprising.... :(

[Name removed]

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[paulsby]

7. at least in the USA we don't criminalize "hate speech"

so whether it was hate speech or not, wouldn't even come up in a court of law.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

11. Maybe We Should Think About It...

the homophobic shit spewed by the reich wing has and will continue to get GLBTQ people killed. I'm tired of the reich wing whining about free speech using it to get one of their morons to go out and deck someone just for being GLBTQ.

[Name removed]

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[paulsby]

15. sure, just throw away the 1st amendment

anti-civil rights types are always using some sort of argument to justify gutting our 1st amendment.

and it's always wrong.

[Name removed]

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[Metric System]

5. Traditionally in Canada protecting minorities trumps hate speech.

[Name removed]

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[paulsby]

8. canada (unlike the US) criminalizes hate speech

they don't consider hate speech to be free speech

as orwellian as that sounds, that;'s the way it is

[msongs]

4. so ity's now legal to call Stephen boisson as immoral as pedophiles and pimps! Yay! nt

[MrModerate]

6. I think this speaks more to the difficulty of legislating hate speech effectively . . .

Without impinging on free speech. Unquestionably, the letter would strike any reasonable person as hate speech. But actionable? Maybe the law needs to be rewritten.

[joeybee12]

9. Obviously a sick letter...so why did the newspaper publish it?

If they can prosecute hate speech, shouldn't the newspaper have been as equally responsible.

[Name removed]

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[Bluenorthwest]

14. In the USA, such speech qualifies a person to be surrogate

for Senators running for President, so there you go. Many people from Obama's Faith Parade or whatever they called it have used all that language, on TV and all over the place. The guy Obama selected to be his host and only speaker has said on TV that gay people are 'trying to kill our children'.
I'd be happy if decent society stopped considering such speech as acceptable and worthy of glorification.

[One_Life_To_Give]

16. Did anyone read the editorial?

I don't care for what he wrote. But IMO hate speach requires some level of pushing/coercing/cajoling violence.
Most political parties these days have probably said similar about their opposition.

If you have a stomach for it here's the editorial

canadianpastor.blogspot.com

[Ukonkivi]

17. Ah, that old hate speech issue, I'm afraid I'm a bit too Libertarian for some.

I believe in free speech, in that it is absolute. Meaning that I believe it includes hate speech. I don't think that a free speech that doesn't allow hate speech is real free speech. It's speech limited by an agenda. To tell people what to say is absolutely authoritarian. Whether it's forcing people to say kind things about groups or mean things. I personally don't feel, as a bisexual, supportive of someone not being able to give hate speech against me and other members of the LGBTQ community. They can hate me as much as they like and they don't have to keep it inside their head. I don't necessarily have to respect their opinions, but they deserve their right to say them.

That being said, that statement is most certainly, obviously hate speech. If you're going to treat hate speech in a certain matter, it should apply to ALL hate speech.

[One_Life_To_Give]

18. My personal favorite quote in his editorial

the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality

He does truly understand the Militant Gay Agenda though. Our secret is out, that we want to be treated like everybody else. The absolute horror to them that we should be treated as equals tells me everything I need to know about them. And really such statements should be highlighted to the world IMO.

p.s. Bolding added by me