- Certain passages of the Bible can be construed as hate
literature if placed in a particular context, according to a Canadian provincial
court.
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- The Court of Queen's Bench in Saskatchewan upheld a 2001
ruling by the province's human rights tribunal that fined a man for submitting
a newspaper ad that included citations of four Bible verses that address
homosexuality.
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- A columnist noted in the Edmonton Journal last week that
the Dec. 11 ruling generated virtually no news stories and "not a
single editorial."
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- Imagine "the hand-wringing if ever a federal court
labeled the Quran hate literature and forced a devout Muslim to pay a fine
for printing some of his book's more astringent passages in an ad in a
daily newspaper," wrote Lorne Gunter in the Edmonton, Alberta, daily.
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- Under Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of
Regina, Saskatchewan, was found guilty along with the newspaper, the Saskatoon
StarPhoenix, of inciting hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500
Canadian dollars to each of the three homosexual men who filed the complaint.
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- The rights code allows for expression of honestly held
beliefs, but the commission ruled that the code can place "reasonable
restriction" on Owen's religious expression, because the ad exposed
the complainants "to hatred, ridicule, and their dignity was affronted
on the basis of their sexual orientation."
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- The ad's theme was that the Bible says no to homosexual
behavior. It listed the references to four Bible passages, Romans 1, Leviticus
18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 on the left side. An equal
sign was placed between the verse references and a drawing of two males
holding hands overlaid with the universal nullification symbol - a red
circle with a diagonal bar.
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- Owens, an evangelical Christian and corrections officer,
said his ad was "a Christian response" to Homosexual Pride Week.
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- "I put the biblical references, but not the actual
verses, so the ad would become interactive," he told the National
Catholic Register after the 2001 ruling. "I figured somebody would
have to look them up in the Bible first, or if they didn't have a Bible,
they'd have to find one."
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- Leviticus 20:13, says, according to the New International
Version, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both
of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their
blood will be on their own heads."
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- "Owens denies that, as a Christian, he wants homosexuals
put to death, as some inferred from the biblical passages," the Catholic
paper said. He believes, however, that "eternal salvation is at stake,"
both for those engaging in homosexual acts and for himself, if he fails
to inform them about "what God says about their behavior."
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- Exposure to hatred
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- Justice J. Barclay wrote in his opinion that the human-rights
panel "was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively
be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule."
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- "When the use of the circle and slash is combined
with the passages of the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation,
vilification and disgrace," Barclay said. "In other words, the
biblical passage which suggests that if a man lies with a man they must
be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred."
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- In the 2001 ruling, Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of
Inquiry commissioner Valerie Watson emphasized that the panel was not banning
parts of the Bible. She wrote that the offense was the combination of the
symbol and the biblical references. Owens, in fact, published an ad in
2001, without complaint, that quoted the full text of the passages he cited
in the offending 1997 ad.
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- But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sides with
Christian groups that criticize the panel for stifling free speech. Opponents
of the ruling say it illustrates the dangers of a bill currently in Parliament
that would add "sexual orientation" as a protected category in
Canada's genocide and hate crimes legislation.
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- That legislation would make criminals of people like
Owens and others who have been charged under provincial human rights panels,
they argue.
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- Two years ago, the Ontario Human Rights Commission penalized
printer Scott Brockie $5,000 for refusing to print letterhead for a homosexual
advocacy group. Brockie argued that his Christian beliefs compelled him
to reject the group's request.
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- In 1998, an Ontario man was convicted of hate crimes
for an incident in which he distributed pamphlets about Islam outside a
high school. In one of the pamphlets, defendant Mark Harding listed atrocities
committed in the name of Islam in foreign lands to back his assertion that
Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.
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- Janet Epp Buckingham, legal counsel for the Evangelical
Fellowship of Canada, says cases like this are worrisome precedents that
an expanded hate law could build upon, reported the Hamilton, Ontario,
Spectator newspaper.
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- "Mark Harding really went overboard," Epp Buckingham
said. "He said some quite nasty things about Muslims - that they are
really violent overseas and that Muslims in Canada are the same and people
need to be careful of them.
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- "But the court almost ignored the religious exemption,"
she said. "Harding himself said he wasn't trying to incite violence
against Muslims. But the court said he did promote violence and hatred
against Muslims and therefore the exemption doesn't apply, that it was
not a good faith expression of religion."
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- She said that, at the very least, Bill C-250 could place
a significant chill over the Christian community and, at worst, it could
cause undue restrictions on religious expression.
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- Art Moore is a news editor with WorldNetDaily.com.
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- © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
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- http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31080
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