Canada: Boissoin exonerated at last

In the Canadian system, a Court of Queen's Bench is the top court of the Province:

"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. Boissoin had argued he was simply commenting on government policy by criticizing homosexuality being portrayed positively in the public school curriculum....

The Canadian Constitution Foundation, a free-speech advocacy group, issued a news release saying it was pleased with Thursday's ruling. "Unfortunately, the law that was used against Reverend Boissoin to subject him to a expensive and stressful legal proceedings for more than seven years is still on the books," said executive director John Carpay.

That law, the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act, says no one shall publish a statement that is likely "to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt" because of their sexual orientation.

"In spite of today's court ruling, Albertans need to continue to exercise extreme caution when speaking about public policy issues, lest they offend someone who then files a human rights complaint," said Carpay. "No citizen is safe from being subjected to a taxpayer-funded prosecution for having spoken or written something that a fellow citizen finds offensive."

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