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TORONTO STAR FEMINIST COLUMNIST, M. LANDSBERG, FOUND UNFAIR TO EVANGELICALS

Ontario Press Council upholds complaint

TORONTO, June 12, 2002 (LSN.ca) - The Ontario Press Council upheld a complaint by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) against the Toronto Star for a column which unfairly attributed the promotion of violence and hatred to evangelical Christians. The complaint concerned a column by radical pro-abortion feminist Michelle Landsberg, published June 2, 2001. The commentary in question was regarding a proclamation by the mayor of Regina of Heterosexual Family Pride Day, saying the motives were "to try to enshrine one Christian or 'missionary' brand of sexuality as the only official and legal style of union."

In the column, Landsberg wrote: "Seems these evangelicals feel all shook up unless the state enforces their form of belief. Their idea of social stability, however, is just what threatens us all. It creates the kind of parents who teach their children to hate and taunt their schoolmates who are children of lesbians or gay men. It gives licence to the kind of thugs who would beat a Matthew Shepard to death because he was gay. It breeds the toxic intolerance that drives gay youths to a 30 per cent higher suicide rate than other teens."

Janet Epp Buckingham, general legal counsel for the EFC, said the fellowship's concern was that the article "targets evangelical Christians and tends to engender bias and hatred toward them." She stated, "While the reference to evangelicals occurs fairly late in the article, once the link is made to evangelicals, all the epithets used against anyone in the article seem to be linked to evangelicals. It appears to be a direct attack against evangelicals."

While the Star responded by dismissing the concerns and inviting letters to the editor to clarify matters, Buckingham replied that the EFC chose not to write a letter because it would highlight the article. Noting such references as "evangelical Christian heartland of the U.S.," and "one Christian or 'missionary' brand of sexuality," the Press Council accepted the contention that the column targeted evangelical Christians.

The Council decision concluded: "The Ontario Press Council is on record as declaring it believes columnists deserve wide latitude in expressing their opinions, no matter how controversial or unpopular. But, despite the newspaper's contention that the column was using the word "evangelicals" to mean "zealots" and was not intended as criticism of "any formal religious body," the Council regards the term in the column's context as an unnecessarily hurtful reference to an identifiable group and upholds the complaint."

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