Thursday December 20, 2007
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Toronto Catholic Magazine Faced with Human Rights Complaint by Homosexual
Catholic Insight magazine accused of “targeting homosexuals”
By Hilary White
TORONTO, December 20, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Another Canadian publication has come under attack for its opinions through the agency of the government-funded Canadian Human Rights Commissions (HRC). Closely following an uproar in the media against government-sponsored censorship via HRC against Maclean’s magazine and columnist Mark Steyn and an Alberta HRC judgment ordering Alberta news media to not publish any comments on homosexuality by a Christian pastor, Toronto’s Catholic Insight magazine has reported they stand accused in an HRC complaint of “targeting homosexuals”.
Catholic Insight is a Catholic political and cultural general interest magazine that regularly and accurately expounds orthodox Catholic teaching, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on homosexuality as well as harmful consequences to individual persons and society of the active homosexual “lifestyle”.
The magazine now reveals that Rob Wells, a homosexual activist associated with the Pride Centre of Edmonton, in February this year filed a nine-point complaint against Catholic Insight. Wells alleges that the magazine made “negative generalizations” about homosexuals; portrayed them as preying upon children, as dangerous and “devoid of any redeeming qualities and…innately evil”.
Catholic Insight (CI), however, bases its editorial policy very strictly on Catholic Church teaching which is at pains to separate what it says is the deviant behaviour and disordered inclination of homosexuality from the person.
Wells’ complaint cites articles from Catholic Insight dating back to 1994 but Catholic Insight counters that the citations are “without context” and do not give an accurate picture of what the magazine has actually published. “In fact,” the magazine said in an editorial, “most of them are even out of context from the sentences from which they were taken.”
The magazine considers the complaints unfounded and “made with the intent to harass” and will “defend itself vigorously should the CHRC proceed”. CI continues to emphasize with the Catholic Church, however, that “homosexual acts are ones of grave depravity and intrinsically disordered. They are contrary to the natural law, close the sexual act to the gift of life, do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity and cannot be approved under any circumstances.”
The Human Rights Commissions have become a powerful tool available to homosexual activists to silence critics of their lifestyle and opponents of their political agenda. With a complainant’s expenses fully paid by tax payers and no requirement to follow normal judicial rules for evidence or due process, there is little to lose and in nearly every case, the HRC Tribunals have found in favour of the complaints when it has been homosexuals against Christianity.
In only one case amongst many, in November this year the Alberta HRC ruled against a Christian pastor, Stephen Boissoin, executive director of the Concerned Christian Coalition, who had published an article in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002 saying that the homosexual political movement’s goals were “wicked” and harmful to young people. Boissoin wrote as a Christian minister against a political movement that he feared was corrupting young people and Canadian society, not against particular persons.
The Human Rights Commission compliant, made by Dr. Darren E. Lund a long time homosexual political activist, claimed, however, that the article had incited “hatred against homosexuals” as individuals. He told the Commission panel that he was “fearful that the writings of Mr. Boissoin are likely to expose people to hatred and contempt as well as the potential for physical danger” and “foster an atmosphere of violence and intimidation for people, based on their sexual orientation”. He said he viewed Boissoin’s letter as a “call to arms letter.”
The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of Lund who demanded that Boissoin “apologize for submitting the article and for his views on homosexuality.” If he did not, the Commission panel has the power to “provide an Order disallowing the publication of Mr. Boissoin’s views on homosexuality in any of the major print media in Alberta,”
The ruling listed the media outlets subject to its order as the Red Deer Advocate, Red Deer Express, Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun and Lethbridge Herald.
See Catholic Insight website
https://www.catholicinsight.com/online/index.shtml
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Alberta Human Rights Tribunal Rules Against Christian Pastor Boissoin
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07120306.html
Quebec Mayor Suggests All “Organized Religion” Should be Subject to Government Control
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121805.html
Mark Steyn Case Wakes Up Canadian Press to Human Rights Tribunals’ Threat to Free Speech
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121902.html
Catholic Activist “Banned for life” From Publicly Criticising Homosexuality
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/dec/07121306.html
Christian Political Party Before Human Rights Commission for Speaking Against Homosexuality
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07112706.html
Human Rights Complaint Dropped Against Canadian Conservative Website
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07080313.html
Human Rights Complaint Filed Against Catholic Bishop for Defence of Traditional Marriage
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/mar/05033001.html
Homosexuals Seek to Shut Down Canadian Pro-Family Websites
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jul/06073106.html
CHRISTIAN COUPLE FORCED TO SHUT DOWN B&B FOR REFUSING HOMOSEXUAL COUPLE
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/may/01052302.html
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