Certain passages of the Bible can be construed as hate literature if placed
in a particular context, according to a Canadian provincial court.
The Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatchewan upheld a 2001 ruling by the province's
human rights tribunal that fined a man for submitting a newspaper ad that included
citations of four Bible verses that address homosexuality.
A columnist noted in the Edmonton Journal last week that the Dec. 11 ruling
generated virtually no news stories and "not a single editorial."
Imagine "the hand-wringing if ever a federal court labeled the Quran hate
literature and forced a devout Muslim to pay a fine for printing some of his
book's more astringent passages in an ad in a daily newspaper," wrote Lorne
Gunter in the Edmonton, Alberta, daily.
Under Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of Regina, Saskatchewan,
was found guilty along with the newspaper, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, of inciting
hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500 Canadian dollars to each of the
three homosexual men who filed the complaint.
The rights code allows for expression of honestly held beliefs, but the commission
ruled that the code can place "reasonable restriction" on Owen's religious
expression, because the ad exposed the complainants "to hatred, ridicule,
and their dignity was affronted on the basis of their sexual orientation."
The ad's theme was that the Bible says no to homosexual behavior. It listed
the references to four Bible passages, Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus
20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 on the left side. An equal sign was placed between
the verse references and a drawing of two males holding hands overlaid with
the universal nullification symbol - a red circle with a diagonal bar.
Owens, an evangelical Christian and corrections officer, said his ad was "a
Christian response" to Homosexual Pride Week.
"I put the biblical references, but not the actual verses, so the ad would
become interactive," he told the National Catholic Register after the 2001
ruling. "I figured somebody would have to look them up in the Bible first,
or if they didn't have a Bible, they'd have to find one."
Leviticus 20:13, says, according to the New International Version, "If
a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what
is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
"Owens denies that, as a Christian, he wants homosexuals put to death,
as some inferred from the biblical passages," the Catholic paper said.
He believes, however, that "eternal salvation is at stake," both for
those engaging in homosexual acts and for himself, if he fails to inform them
about "what God says about their behavior."
Exposure to hatred
Justice J. Barclay wrote in his opinion that the human-rights panel "was
correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing
homosexuals to hatred or ridicule."
"When the use of the circle and slash is combined with the passages of
the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation, vilification and disgrace,"
Barclay said. "In other words, the biblical passage which suggests that
if a man lies with a man they must be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred."
In the 2001 ruling, Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry commissioner
Valerie Watson emphasized that the panel was not banning parts of the Bible.
She wrote that the offense was the combination of the symbol and the biblical
references. Owens, in fact, published an ad in 2001, without complaint, that
quoted the full text of the passages he cited in the offending 1997 ad.
But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sides with Christian groups that
criticize the panel for stifling free speech. Opponents of the ruling say it
illustrates the dangers of a bill currently in Parliament that would add "sexual
orientation" as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate crimes
legislation.
That legislation would make criminals of people like Owens and others who have
been charged under provincial human rights panels, they argue.
Two years ago, the Ontario Human Rights Commission penalized printer Scott Brockie
$5,000 for refusing to print letterhead for a homosexual advocacy group. Brockie
argued that his Christian beliefs compelled him to reject the group's request.
In 1998, an Ontario man was convicted of hate crimes for an incident in which
he distributed pamphlets about Islam outside a high school. In one of the pamphlets,
defendant Mark Harding listed atrocities committed in the name of Islam in foreign
lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.
Janet Epp Buckingham, legal counsel for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada,
says cases like this are worrisome precedents that an expanded hate law could
build upon, reported the Hamilton, Ontario, Spectator newspaper.
"Mark Harding really went overboard," Epp Buckingham said. "He
said some quite nasty things about Muslims - that they are really violent overseas
and that Muslims in Canada are the same and people need to be careful of them.
"But the court almost ignored the religious exemption," she said.
"Harding himself said he wasn't trying to incite violence against Muslims.
But the court said he did promote violence and hatred against Muslims and therefore
the exemption doesn't apply, that it was not a good faith expression of religion."
She said that, at the very least, Bill C-250 could place a significant chill
over the Christian community and, at worst, it could cause undue restrictions
on religious expression.
Art Moore is a news editor with WorldNetDaily.com.
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.