Copyright (c) 2000 - Ingrid A. Rimland


ZGram: Where Truth is Destiny

 

March 14, 2000

 

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

 

 

Let us assume that Mr. Zundel wants to reprint "Did Six Million Really Die?"

 

He goes to the nearest print shop run by a Mr. Finkelstein.

 

Mr. Finkelstein is horrified and refuses to render his services.

 

Mr. Zundel is highly aggrieved. He knows exactly where to go. Having had much experience with the Canadian Human Rights Commission - a government body always purporting to look out for the little guy who is discriminated against - he lays a complaint against Mr. Finkelstein.

 

Wonder of wonders, the CHRC takes on his case.

 

In due time, a Tribunal convenes on the issue.

 

This Tribunal finds that Mr. Zundel's rights have been abridged and fines Mr. Finkelstein $5,000 for having refused his services.

 

End of story?

 

Think!

 

Here is a timely article in the London Press by Rory Leishman <rleishman@home.com> titled Rights commission submerging freedom | March 10, 2000

 

Leishman:

 

Last week, the Ontario Human Rights Commission delivered another devastating blow to freedom under law. The latest victim is Scott Brockie, a Toronto printer, who has been ordered by an Ontario human rights tribunal to pay $5,000 in damages for refusing to print letterheads, envelopes and business cards for the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.

 

Zundelsite:

 

IT HAD TO HAPPEN!

 

Leishman:

 

Brockie is not a homophobe. As a conscientious Christian, he avows: "I do not feel any animosity towards any of the individuals involved in this case."

 

However, Brockie firmly subscribes to the centuries-long, traditional rule of Judeo-Christian morality that the practice of homosexuality is wrong and sinful. On this basis, he asked the representative of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives to take its business to any of dozens of other print shops in the Toronto area that would welcome the opportunity to make money by printing homophile materials.

 

Zundelsite:

 

It's not "Judeo-Christian" at all! Some orthodox Jewish groups abhor homosexuality - others tolerate it. In Toronto, there were advertisements for a homosexual synagogue.

 

Similarly, some fundamental Christians abhor homosexuality - many other Christians promote and even practice it.

 

I remember my amazement when I heard that some of the more liberal Mennonite churches have acceptance of homosexuality as one of their major tenets. Those are not the "Christians" of my childhood - many of whom, I am quite sure, had never even heard of the practice.

 

Leishman:

 

Instead, the Archives denounced Brockie to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. In a ruling last week, Heather MacNaughton, the board of inquiry adjudicator assigned to his case, held that Brockie's right to freedom of religion as guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is ***subordinate*** (emphasis added) to the right granted to homosexuals in the Ontario Human Rights Code not to be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.

 

Zundelsite:

 

Let's say that's pretty interesting - and let it go at that.

 

Leishman:

 

"Having considered all of the evidence before me," [MacNaughton] wrote, "and in balancing the competing rights, I have concluded that it is reasonable to limit Brockie's freedom of religion in order to prevent the very real harm to members of the lesbian and gay community, and their organizations, by the denial of services because of their sexual orientation. The infringement of the rights of Brockie is warranted in our Canadian society, which has seen fit, through the terms and provisions of the (human rights) code, and through the identification of sexual orientation as an analogous ground of protection under the charter, to protect the rights of its lesbian and gay members from discrimination because of sexual orientation."

 

Zundelsite:

 

Amazing place - Canada!

 

Leishman:

 

Note the contention that Canadian society has seen fit to identify sexual orientation as an analogous ground of protection under the charter. That is incorrect. Canadian society has done no such thing. During deliberations on the charter, a parliamentary committee specifically rejected a motion to include sexual orientation among the equality rights stated in section 15 by a vote of 22-2.

 

Zundelsite:

 

Here you have government by appointed - not elected! - judicial tyrants not subject to re-election or recall.

 

Leishman:

 

Regardless, in Egan versus Canada, the Supreme Court flouted the express intentions of Parliament, ignored the plain text of the law and read sexual orientation into the charter. It's on the basis of this judge-made distortion of the law that MacNaughton has found Brockie guilty of violating the ban on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the Ontario Human Rights Code.

 

Zundelsite:

 

That is exactly right! The Supreme Court read "sexual orientation" into the Charter - and that became the law of the land!

 

Leishman:

 

Unlike Mayor Bob Morrow of Hamilton, who meekly acquiesced to a similar ruling by a board of inquiry ordering him to issue gay pride proclamations, Brockie intends to stand up firmly for his historic common-law rights. Rather than pay the $5,000 fine and print materials for homosexual organizations as ordered by MacNaughton, he plans to appeal all the way, if necessary, to the Supreme Court -- the very agency that has done more than any other to impose the homosexual agenda.

 

Zundelsite:

 

Good luck to Brockie! He expects them to overturn themselves?

 

Leishman:

 

The outlook for Brockie is bleak. If the ever-so-progressive judges on the Supreme Court agree with MacNaughton that Brockie is obligated by the misbegotten charter to set aside his religious convictions and print materials on behalf of homosexual groups, he could end up in jail as a prisoner of conscience.

 

Zundelsite:

 

Nothing will cause the downfall of these pernicious, so-called "Human Rights" outfits faster than jailing a man like Brockie.

 

Leishman:

 

Ontario Premier Mike Harris bears much of the blame for this travesty of justice. He appointed a homosexual activist, Keith Norton, to head up the Ontario Human Rights Commission. It's Harris's government that has done nothing to curb the anti-democratic excesses of that commission.

 

Zundelsite:

 

As always in cases like this one, sleazy politics will surface sooner or later - not moral principles or the ever-more-elusive "will of the people."

 

Leishman:

 

The Harris Conservatives could easily uphold the fundamental freedoms of the people of Ontario by eliminating the coercive authority of the Ontario Human Rights Commission through a simple legislative enactment. As it is, so long as the commission retains the power to impose its ideology on the province, neither Brockie nor anyone else in Ontario can be secure in his or her fundamental rights and freedoms.

 

Zundelsite:

 

Write Rory Leishman <rleishman@home.com> at The London Free Press, P.O. Box 2280, London, Ont. N6A 4G1 or fax 519-667-4528. Thank him for his article.

 

 

=====

 

Thought for the Day:

 

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."

 

(Benjamin Franklin)


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