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Alberta Human Rights Tribunal Rules Against Christian Pastor Boissoin

REAL Women leader calls for curtailment of power of Canada's Human Rights Commissions

By Hilary White
 
RED DEER, Alberta, December 3, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A complaint against a young Alberta pastor to the Alberta Humans Rights Commission brought by a homosexual activist has been ruled in favour of the complainant, the Canadian Press reports. The Tribunal ruled Friday that letters written in 2002 by Stephen Boissoin to the Red Deer Advocate, exposed homosexuals to “hatred and contempt” and may even have been indirectly responsible for the beating of a homosexual teenager.
 
Lori Andreachuk, commission panel and chairman, said both Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition to which he belonged had broken the law. “I find that there is a circumstantial connection between the hate speech of Mr. Boissoin and the CCC and the beating of a gay teenager in Red Deer less than two weeks following the publication of Mr. Boissoin's letter,” she wrote.
 
Boissoin, the full time pastor of a Red Deer youth ministry, wrote a letter to the editor of his hometown newspaper in which he said homosexuality is immoral and physically dangerous for those involved in it. Boissoin particularly criticized the homosexual political lobby that worked to teach children in schools about the practices of the “gay lifestyle”.
 
Boissoin was upset that “children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.”
 
In the extrajudicial courts of the Canadian Human Rights Commissions, the complainant’s expenses are paid for by the state, but the defendant must pay for his own defence and the rules of evidence, normal in the regular courts, do not apply. In nearly every case in Canada brought against Christians who criticize the homosexual subculture, the Tribunals have found in the complainant’s favour. A defendant may follow the case up with an appeal to the legal courts, but again must pay his own expenses.
 
In Boissoin’s ministry with youth, he had frequent occasion to help those suffering from the homosexual disorder.
 
The case, however, has highlighted to Canadians the means by which the “grievance culture” created by the Human Rights Commissions, are quashing freedom of expression. In 2005, Boissoin told LifeSiteNews.com that that he had received “a barrage” of supportive phone calls from the US and Canada about his case.
 
REAL Women of Canada, a free speech advocacy and human rights group, commenting on the Human Rights tribunals, said “The time has come in this country to curtail the power of these people.”
 
Gwen Landoldt, the group’s Vice-President, told LifeSiteNews.com, the decision is “typical of the Human Rights Commission. If a complaint is laid against you, you’re automatically found guilty.”
 
She said bluntly, “Something has to be done to curtail the power of these commissions,” she added. “People in a democracy should be able to have an opinion on homosexuality or on gardening or on anything without being charged or paying money out to protect oneself.”
 
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Alberta Christian Pastor Hauled Before Human Rights Tribunal for Letter to Editor on Homosexuality
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/sep/05090204.html

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