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 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/
