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05/04/2004: "Free speech, freedom of religion, under fire in Canada"

Canada's parliament passed a bill last week that amended the country's hate crimes law to include "sexual orientation" as a protected category. I don't have any use for hate crimes laws anyway (using motivation to prove a crime if one thing; using it to increase the punishment is contrary to all traditions of Anglo-American law, which says you don't punish a person for their thoughts), but this one promises to be a grave threat to free speech and freedom of religion. Don't believe me? Check out this from LifeSiteNews.com, a pro-life, traditional values news outlet in the Frozen North:

Since the passage into Canadian law last week of the homosexual hate crime Bill C-250, LifeSiteNews.com and other pro-family groups in Canada have been subject to some intimidating communications from homosexual activists. The emails, and ones received over the last few years from other activists bear a similar slant, all suggesting LifeSiteNews.com, by reporting news on the homosexual issue that balances the mainstream media’s bias, is "hateful" and out of touch with the rest of the world. The tactic is a well known psychological warfare technique known as "jamming."

One email received the day C-250 was passed into law, was sent to homosexual activist leaders in Canada and purposely forwarded to LifeSiteNews.com, Focus on the Family Canada, and REAL Women Canada. In it Mark Hanlon, Director, External Issues at the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered group at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, wrote:

"These right winged, conservatives are teaching these same messages to their children for the good of society and for the good of morals and ethics. Let's get this one thing straight to all you Conservative groups–your children's attitudes, if they inherit these beliefs from you, will be in a minority down the road. You are setting them on a dangerous path of intolerance and hate. Stop this path–before the world of tomorrow judges them and, thanks to this bill, prisons or fines them. Crimes of hate against the LBGT community will be treated equally with anti-semitism, and anti-african canadian hate crimes."

There will be more of this sort of thing–a lot more–in the months to come. I give it no more than eight weeks before the first person or organization is hauled into court on a charge of inciting "hatred" against gays for nothing more than saying homosexual behavior is wrong.