Photo courtesy of the National Post. URL http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/1012-whatcott.jpg?w=620
I have personally never met Bill Whatcott, nor have I seen him talk in front of a camera, so it would be impossible for me to judge whether Mr. Whatcott is a homophobe and a bigot. I don’t really know whether him distributing anti-gay pamphlets and calling homosexuals sodomizers and child molesters can be really classified as hate speech.
Apparently this is the quagmire which the Supreme Court of Canada is faced with as it debates whether or not Mr. Whatcott has broken Saskatchewan’s hate speech laws. The problem facing the judges is a classic case of a clash between religious freedom and gay rights.
This is my take on this:
I think it is not within the powers of the state nor of the judiciary to enact laws which regulate what I may or may not think, or wish to think about. So I very well may want to think of homosexuality as a disease.
But just as it is with other things faith based or purely of opinion, I should keep such thoughts to myself. This is the secular principle and spirit of our Constitution.
Does Mr. Whatcott have proof that homosexuality is a disease, medical proof? Of course he doesn’t. He just has himself and his beliefs motivated by his religious indoctrination.
So then let’s let the Christian cat out of the bag. What about witchcraft, those who practice Wicca, what about Hinduism and other religions, what about people that are, through no fault of their own, transgender, what about abortion etc.? Are these things to be held to Mr. Whatcott’s standard of morality also?
Quick to hide behind their constitutional right of religious freedom, people like Mr. Whatcott regularly criticize others when they decide to exercise their constitutional rights. It’s as if they are the only ones entitled to them and are the supreme morally authoritative voice in society. Everybody else and their beliefs is trash.
Can anyone imagine letting these people get their way? Having religious freedom carry more weight constitutionally than protection against harm, illegal search and seizure and perhaps even freedom of speech.
All of the above currently carry equal weight in the constitution and they should and will stay equally balanced.
As far as I’m aware, there is no active proselytizing being done by the gay community. No pamphlets are distributed calling the condition of being straight a disease or a disgusting practice, despite the obvious and extreme difference in sexual preference between gay and straight individuals.
Allowing one group to harass another purely based on the one group’s personal beliefs would be akin to invite a fox in a hen’s den. By morning there will be no hen’s left.
What if the Supreme Court judges allow Mr. Whatcott to continue on his crusade of dislike and loathing of LGBT individuals? We all know that Christians loathe many other minority groups based on some of their teachings that are divisive and anciently obsolete.
Will the Supreme Court of Canada open the floodgates of discrimination and classify them under banner of religious freedom for protection? or will they say: You can think it, you can say it, but you cannot spread or teach it!
This issue isn’t as divisive as it seems. The only thing making it divisive and controversial is Mr. Whatcott’s own Christian oriented beliefs.
For more on this story, check out this article in the National Post http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/12/canadian-hate-speech-laws-too-vague-to-be-enforced-lawyer/