VANCOUVER, BC, December 11, 2001 (LSN.ca) – A Canadian Evangelical Pastor of over 50 years is due before a BC Human Rights Tribunal next Monday for the continuation of hearings into a complaint by a homosexual activist that an ad placed by the pastor in a national newspaper in 1998 was hateful. Reverend Ken Campbell, a frequent speaker at pro-life events, was previously acquitted of the same complaint before the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
Rejecting arguments that the case incurred double jeopardy, the tribunal is set to hear arguments in the case December 17-21. Rev. Campbell told LifeSite he is pleased that the hearing will enable him to determine for the public whether “sexual orientation trumps religious freedom in Canadian jurisprudence.” He also wonders whether there “is room in current Canadian ‘pluralism’ for expressions of the competing teachings of ‘religion’ and of ‘sexual orientation’.” Campbell says he welcomes “the challenge of championing, in the name of Christ, the Liberator, the freedom of expression and freedom of religion, guaranteed by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Campbell noted the irony of the case saying the human rights commission “should have been protecting me from discrimination based on ‘religion’ instead of supporting the complainant in his assault on my citizenship rights.” He noted, “militant homosexuality is bent on making the world its closet and on banning from public life and public schooling the teachings of Moses and Jesus and of the all major world religions as to the destructiveness of homosexual conduct.”
Whatever the outcome of the hearing, Rev. Campbell says he has no intention of “paying a penny” of the over $80,000 in “remedies” sought by the complainant. “I am quite prepared for the apparent, inevitable imprisonment which will result from my non-compliance with an order to extract any financial ‘remedy’ from me for simply fulfilling my ordination vows as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”