Free speech vs. hate speech

Very interesting editorial in today's National Post (Alberta's Thought Police), concerning the human rights hearing against Stephen Boissoin, a "former youth centre pastor who wrote to the Red Deer Advocate in 2002 to complain about the presence of literature about homosexuality in school libraries".

The item that appears to have been most objectionable was the statement that gay activists were "spreading a psychological disease" and are "just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities."

The complaint was filed by Darren Lund, a heterosexual professor.

Even more interesting is that the gay-rights organization, Egale is not supporting this challenge:

Apparently, EGALE, after 20 years of courtroom triumphs, does recognize limits to how far the law can or should be used to suppress opposing views. Not every interest group is so willing to stand behind higher principles when an opportunity for publicity comes along.

But is Egale in fact so principled, or is simply a matter of expediency?

Macleans filed this story yesterday - Why the country's leading gay rights group is sitting out a fight against homophobia:

...In 2005, the group declined to support Lund's human rights complaint, arguing instead for Boissoin's right to free speech...

However -

...In the two years since its original decision, Helen Kennedy, EGALE Canada's new executive director, says the organization's board of directors have changed and, were it up to her, EGALE would reverse its stance. “Based on the facts that I have seen of the case to date... I would recommend to the current board that we reverse that decision and that we support the professor in his quest," she says.

What’s stopping them? According to Kennedy: "We don’t have a board meeting scheduled in time to discuss this. Because of vacations, etc., we haven’t convened a meeting.”

Interesting.

Anyway, the Post appears to be of the opinion that this claim against Mr. Boissoin be dropped in the interest of freedom of speech.

...What may be most objection-able about Prof. Lund's complaint, however, is the way he is trying to use a single, unverified gay-bashing assault that happened in Red Deer two weeks after the letter's publication as evidence that Mr. Boissoin's declaration of "war" against the gay rights movement had the effect of inciting hatred. No charges have been laid in the assault, so this tactic creates the steepest kind of slippery slope imaginable.

It could lead to a critic of Islamist terrorism being held specially culpable for "hate speech" just because a mosque was, by chance, later defaced by drunken vandals. An opponent of the Pope who wrote an editorial against him would have to hope there were no unexplained fires in Catholic churches nearby for some indeterminate period...

If Lund wins this case, then the next logical step would be to ask what is the necessary waiting period wherein any related 'acts of hatred' occur, and within what radius of the particular paper's location, and do any charges have to be laid for it to be considered 'inciting hatred', etc.

Comments welcome.

* * * *

Update: More HR issues at Big City Lib Strikes Back - More on Free Dominion Human Rights Complaint. Watch this one folks. It involves cyberspace and could have implications for all of us.

BCLSB links to Big Blue Wave - Human Rights Complaint Against Free Dominion - Details!

Canada Free Press weighs in here - Free Dominions' Light Shines Strong.

Relapsed Catholic - Details emerge re: the secular fatwa against Canadian Conservative Website.

Kathy links to this great column in the Calgary Herald - Free Speech and the Charter of Rights.