PRO-LIFE MESSAGE OFFENSIVE, CLAIMS BC TRANSIT WHILE BANNING PAPER

VANCOUVER, Sept 14 (LSN) – On Saturday the Vancouver Sun reported that BC Transit has banned the free BC Christian News publication from its property claiming that the paper’s pro-life and pro-family stance “would be deemed derogatory and offensive.” According to BC Transit property supervisor Jim Frank, the publicly owned corporation will not permit religious material which promotes a specific ideology, ethic,  point of view, policy or action, which, in the opinion of BC Transit might be deemed to be prejudicial to other religious groups or offensive to users of the transit system.”  BC Transit willingly permits about 25 other free publications to be distributed on their premises including those which express pro-abortion and pro-homosexual views. Some of them, reported the Sun, include lurid ads for male and female “escorts” (prostitutes), and one, The Georgia Straight, “includes a regular sex-  advice column that is full of graphic sex material and four-letter words.”  After an interview with BC Transit Vice President Brian Hollingshead the Sun revealed that “the 15-year-old evangelical Christian Community newspaper is the only publication that has ever been refused a free-  distribution box in a BC Transit depot.” Hollingshead claimed that the paper’s views against abortion and the practice of homosexuality were offensive and demeaning but the Sun notes that during the interview “Hollingshead could not point to specific articles or statements in the newspaper that BC Transit found offensive or demeaning.”