Boissoin case to go before top court in Canadian province

Adverse verdict likely to be set aside. Penalizing body not willing to defend its actions.

"When Rev. Stephen Boissoin takes his case before the Court of Queen's Bench on Sept. 16, the court has a golden opportunity not only to right the wrong done to Boissoin, but also to strike down the law that gives the Alberta Human Rights Commission jurisdiction over matters of free speech. Boissoin published a letter in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002 in which he criticized the representation to impressionable schoolchildren of homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle choice. Boissoin used strong language and said this would lead to desensitizing kids and recruiting them into the gay lifestyle. One can agree or disagree with Boissoin's opinions, but what he said is irrelevant to the larger issue, which is his inalienable right to say it.

University of Calgary education professor Darren Lund complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, on the grounds that under Section 3 of the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, Boissoin had made gays a target for contempt and hate.

Boissoin was fined$5,000 and ordered to "cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals." No society which calls itself free should tolerate an individual being ordered by a semi-judicial body using no rules of evidence, to stop making "disparaging remarks" in perpetuity about anyone or anything. Boissoin ended up being punished, even though the commission's decision specifically stated its goal is "ameliorating the effects of discrimination, rather than punishing the perpetrator." Muzzling someone's right to free speech ameliorates nothing-- quite the opposite, in fact. It erodes basic Charter freedoms, and erosion of those freedoms is something which cannot be considered to have an ameliorating effect in a democratic society...

The HRC has chosen not to participate in the September court hearing, at which the constitutionality of its ruling will be debated; the case will really be Boissoin versus Lund. Both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which has stated it finds Boissoin's letter "abhorrent" and the Canadian Constitution Foundation will appear as interveners on Boissoin's behalf.

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