Posted 1/25/08 www.RemnantNewspaper.com  Canada’s national Catholic magazine of news, opinion and analysis has “joined a range of other, prominent publications, groups and individuals who have recently become targets of human rights-based legal attacks,” reports Canada Free Press (Dec. 21, 2007).

According to a January, 2008 report by Catholic Insight magazine, a nine-point complaint was originally filed by Edmonton resident Rob Wells with the Canadian Human Rights Commission in February of 2007. Among other things, Wells accused the magazine of portraying homosexuals as “violent” and “innately evil” and as child predators, blaming homosexuals for societal problems, and using inflammatory and derogatory language to create a tone of “extreme hatred and contempt.”

The magazine’s editor, Father Alphonse de Valk, is contesting Wells’ accusations, claiming that his complaint “consists of three pages of isolated and fragmentary extracts from articles dating back as far as 1994, without any context,” and that most of these quotations are even reproduced “out of context from the sentences from which they were taken.” He also emphasizes that Catholic Insight “adheres to the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality,” which, while prohibiting “unjust discrimination” against homosexuals, make it clear that “homosexual acts are ones of grave depravity and intrinsically disordered .... contrary to the natural law, close the sexual act to the gift of life, do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity and cannot be approved under any circumstances.”

Since 1993, Catholic Insight has reported on the work of homosexual activists, particularly on their anti-Christian polemics. The magazine often quotes the activists themselves, such as former Member of Parliament, Svend Robinson, who has vilified opponents as “bigots,” “homophobes” and “hatemongers.” Robinson, Canada’s first “openly gay” elected official, resigned his position after confessing to the theft of a $50,000 ring from a jewelry fair.

Fr. de Valk has said of his magazine’s editorial policy:

In a democratic country respecting freedom of the press and religion, a magazine such as Catholic Insight has the right and responsibility to report on, analyze and comment on the activities of any segment of society that is involved in lobbying and activism on issues of public policy, such as changing the legal definition of marriage, adoption rights, the reallocation of social benefits and other vital questions.

Comment: Rob Wells is no stranger to the increasingly fashionable “suing for hate-crimes game.” In 2006, he lodged a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Craig Chandler, a Calgary-based “family values” activist, alleging that material from three websites linked to Chandler were “likely to expose persons of an identifiable group to hatred or contempt.” It seems that one of these websites posted a 2002 letter, originally written to the Red Deer Advocate, in which one Stephen Boissoin lamented the targeting of very young school children by homosexual activists. Wells took the matter to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, complaining, “substitute the word ‘black’ or ‘Jewish’ for ‘homosexual’ in Boissoin’s letter and you get something that would land that man in jail.” You have to wonder when black and Jewish activists will tire of this inane comparison and condemn it as both absurd and degrading. When was the last time a black activist tried to redefine the definition of marriage, or get graphically-explicit sex manuals introduced into grade-school curricula?

Sometimes, the convergence of two contemporaneous news stories sheds light on both. The Nov/Dec 2007 edition of Reality magazine (published by REAL Women of Canada) features an article by Gwen Landolt titled “Demand For Same-Sex Marriage Was Based on a Lie.” It begins:

Same-sex marriage was undemocratically passed into law in Canada in June 2005.  The then Liberal government, aided by the secular media, argued that same-sex marriage was necessary on the basis of "equality" for homosexuals who were supposedly experiencing painful discrimination because they could not enter into legal recognized marriages with their same-sex partners. This, it turns out, was a lie.

Landolt goes on to cite recently released federal figures from Statistics Canada which indicate that “less then 5% of homosexual Canadians have bothered to marry since same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005.” What happened? Joe Q. Public was told – no, had it hammered into his skull – that “gay couples,” who wanted nothing more than to pledge their undying love and commitment in a public forum, were being denied this golden opportunity by the whims of cruel bigots and religious zealots. Landolt quotes Gareth Kirkby of Capital Xtra, Ottawa's “online source for gay and lesbian news”:

Very few among us are eager to embrace marriage rights. Didn't we just spend a decade and by some estimates $2 million to wage this fight?  Didn't we just put all our other major issues virtually on ice because some couples, a few lawyers and a couple of out-of-touch lobby groups decided that same-sex marriage was the only thing that really mattered?

Marriage is a heterosexual institution designed by the church, endorsed by the state, with the intention of controlling the sexuality of women and by extension, their husbands .... I don't expect the wedding rate will pick up.  We have something better in our relationships, something that allows for a variety of friendships, [expletive] buddies, lovers, sisters and exes .... We don't need the limitations of marriage. So we're taking a pass. But what a waste of time and money, and a tragic diversion of focus, in that decade-long fight. Let's move on to more important work.

Is this the mindset that your average man or woman on the street wishes to uncover in activists who desire to influence social policy and school curricula? The fact is that homosexual activists have lobbied to introduce sexually-charged propaganda into the classroom. And that was the point of Mr. Boissoin’s letter to the Red Deer Advocate, which formed the basis of Rob Wells’ complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission against Craig Chandler. And now, Wells is after Catholic Insight magazine for daring to shine a spotlight on “gay activism” and its dark and destructive side.

There’s still hope, though. In April of 2006, the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan reversed a 2002 decision by the Court of Queen's Bench which ruled that a man who had placed references to Bible verses about homosexuality into a newspaper ad was guilty of “inciting hatred.” The original 2002 decision was made in response to a 2001 Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruling which ordered both the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists for publishing an ad in the paper quoting bible verses regarding homosexuality.

In reversing their 2002 decision, the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan had concluded that, although his advertisement was “jarring and offensive to many,” Mr. Owens had not acted contrary to the statutes of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. In its 37-page decision, the Court admitted that (1) one can misread, either deliberately or through ignorance, the intentions of another, and (2) the distinction between sinful actions and sinners is a viable one.

Hopefully, this turn of events in Canada, coupled with the recent refusal by the American Congress to enact the “Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act,” are indications that the burgeoning “hate crimes industry” will not be given an entirely free rein in the implementation of its misguided social engineering agenda.

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