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Thursday August 21, 2008
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Levant Target of Latest Human Rights Complaint By Homosexual Activist
By Pete Vere
EDMONTON, August 21, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Homosexual activist Rob Wells has filed a human rights complaint against Calgary lawyer and publisher Ezra Levant.
Wells filed the complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) on June 26, accusing Levant of exposing homosexuals to hatred on the Internet after Levant republished a 2002 letter by Pastor Stephen Boissoin to the Red Deer Advocate.
The letter was critical of homosexual activists promoting same-sex marriage and a homosexualist agenda in the public school system.
Levant republished the letter on his blog (EzraLevant.com) after the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal levied a $7,000 fine against Boissoin, ordered the pastor to apologize publicly, and prohibited him from making future criticism of the homosexual lifestyle and the provincial human rights process to which he was subjected.
This is not the first time Wells, a member of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Pride Center of Edmonton, has used Canada's human rights commissions to try and silence criticism. Wells has previously initiated human rights complaints against Alberta Christian activist Craig Chandler, the Christian Heritage Party and its leader Ron Gray, and Catholic Insight publisher Fr. Alphonse de Valk.
However, the complaint against Levant is different in that Levant told LifeSiteNews.com he takes no position on same-sex marriage itself, but was merely criticizing the process whereby a government agency was persecuting a Christian pastor for his faith.
Similar concerns over the Alberta tribunal's "chilling effect" also led Xtra, Canada's largest homosexual newspaper, to republish Boissoin's letter, Levant said.
The blogger only found out about Wells' complaint after receiving a registered letter on CHRC letterhead in mid-August, Levant said.
The letter invited Levant to respond, but neither the author nor any other commission employee is identified in the letter, except through an illegible signature.
Levant invited his audience to read the letter and Wells's complaint at the following weblink:
http://ezralevant.com/Wells%20v.%20Levant%20redacted.pdf
CHRC media adviser Mark van Dusen told LifeSiteNews.com that the signatory was Natalie Dagenais, and that her signature clearly appears on the letter addressed to Levant.
Dagenais is reportedly the CHRC's director of investigations.
When asked whether her signature was legible to people who do not work with the commission, van Dusen replied that other information on the letter identified the sender as the CHRC's investigations division and that Levant could contact the commission to identify the signatory.
Van Dusen denied that it was CHRC practice not to identify the signatories to correspondence sent out by the commission. The missing information was a single instance of an oversight on the commission's part, van Dusen claimed.
Asked whether the oversight may have been intentional due to Levant's public criticism of the commission, van Dusen told LifeSiteNews.com to ask Levant.
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