By Peter J. Smith
Ottawa, Canada, June 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new bill has just been introduced for the consideration of Canada’s House of Commons that would revise the Human Rights Act toÂprotect the behavior and lifestyle of transsexuals.
The New Democratic MP, Bill Siksay of Burnaby-Douglas, British Columbia has submitted a private member’s bill that would make discrimination on the grounds of “gender identity or expression” among the many prohibitions in the Human Rights Act. The bill, dubbed “a top priority” by Egale, Canada’s largest homosexual civil rights group, is a re-introduction of C-392, which Siksay had set before the House of Commons in 2005,Âand whichÂhad to be scrapped due to the elections following the collapse of Paul Martin’s Liberal government.
Siksay has demanded that Canada protect transsexuals and cross-dressers from harassment and discrimination saying, “this intolerance must end.”
“Transgender and transsexual people are often victims of violence and face discrimination on a daily basis, this is unacceptable and the inequity in protections for trans people must be immediately addressed by Canadian laws.”
The legislation would mean that those who refuse to cater to transsexual behavior, such as male transsexuals in female bathrooms, or who condemn cross-dressing behavior could be denounced by the Human Rights Commission.
“Human rights is not a limited-size blanket”, said Egale Executive Director Gilles Marchildon. “When stretched to cover additional people, it becomes stronger, not weaker.”
However, it seems that the Human Rights blanket doesn’t quite stretch far enough to tolerate those who object to homosexual behavior. Canada’s Human Rights tribunals increasingly investigate denunciations of persons, businesses, and churches that conscientiously object to endorsing homosexuality, and has placed heavy restrictions on any speech critical of homosexual behavior.
The momentum for protecting transsexuals and cross-dressing increased when the Northwest Territories prohibited discrimination on “gender identity” in 2002, and began to set up their own Human Rights Commission to enforce the new law. The last great change to the Human Rights Act occurred in 1994, when Canada prohibited discrimination based on “sexual orientation”, and made protecting homosexual behavior a top priority of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.