Bishop Henry smacks ‘em down, kicks ass
March 31, 2005 · By Peter Rempel
If anyone has any doubt whatsoever about the status of religious freedoms in Canada, then it is time to take a good hard look at the recent experience of Bishop Fred Henry of Calgary. Henry made the mistake of speaking out against gay marriage and will now for his indiscretion be hauled before the local kangaroo court known as the provincial human rights commission. The message is clear: Speak out against gay marriage and you will be subjected to abuses by the state.
Bishop Henry held a press conference yesterday to affirm that fact and to deliver a well-deserved sucker punch to the commission:
“My time is pretty valuable and I’m not going to go through a Mickey Mouse procedure with no hope of success.”
Heh, a mickey mouse procedure. Nothing could possibly please me more than the abject mockery of the members of these gestapo-like commissions, who never tire of raining their sanctimony down upon us and backing it up with their unconstitutional coercive power.
Cross-posted to Rempelia Prime
Amazing logic you use. One person has a complaint filed against him and you come to the conclusion it was because he spoke out against gay marriage. Not the case. How many others have made their views known, been forceful speakers in their opposition to same-sex marriage? LOTS. How many have had a complaint filed against what they said?
One person, one irrational bishop, who has become the darling of the evangelical set.
He is facing a complaint because he went beyond opposition to gay marriage according to the complaints filed.
This is false. There have been cases in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario, not to mention the Trinity Western University case that went to the Supreme Court. Details can be found here: http://centreblog.blogspot.com/
Incidently, what’s wrong with going “beyond opposition to gay marriage”? “Went beyond” is quite a vague statement.
There is nothing wrong with being for or against gay marriage. There is, however, something wrong about HOW you voice your opinions on the topic.
It is just like your mother said when you were little, “You are not in trouble for WHAT you said, young man, but HOW you said it,” and then out came the toothbrush and dishsoap to make your mouth sparkling clean. Or, in this case, having the bishop’s cheeky mouth halled in front of a human right’s tribunal.
Mother knows best, and what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If you cannot play nice and follow the rules, then you shouldn’t play, and all of those other cliches.
So being cheeky is now illegal? Please specify what you mean by the term, “HOW.”
Would you also regard Pierre Pettigrew’s statements that religion should stay out of politics as a hateful statement? If a bishop is seen as a threat, then surely a Minister of the Crown is a greater threat, no?
If you go read the Bishop’s pastoral letter, you will find that he advocates that the government should use its legislative authority to suppress homosexuality.
I believe that particular phrase is where the complaint stems from as it goes far beyond objecting to same-gender marriage and could be construed as advocating legal measures to marginalize an identifiable group in society.
- Grog
Grog - So what? While his letter was in all likelihood ill-thought out and imprudent, I fail to see how it rises to the standard of deserving a human rights complaint and a criminal conviction (assuming Henry refuses to pay a fine in the event the Alberta HRC rules against him). Here’s my more extensive argument:
http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....ensorship/
One must consider the fact that Bishop Henry wrote that letter in his capacity as Bishop of the Calgary Diocese, and then had that letter read out throughout the diocese during services.
The rationale is that Bishop Henry has used his position to essentially advocate legal marginalization of a minority population. Last I checked, that’s precisely what human rights tribunals are there for.
How the tribunal will rule is an open matter at this time. In this particular instance, I suspect it will be a mixed ruling. It’s only a few words in the Bishop’s letter that I believe are “over the top”. Most of it, I believe is legitimately theological in nature, and correctly protected by Section 2 of the Charter.
Why does it deserve scrutiny? Because the boundaries between the freedom of speech/conscience/religion and the non-discrimination clauses of the charter are in fact relatively untested in this country right now. This is a legitimate point of discourse, both “on the streets” and in the legislative/legal domain.
It is not, IMO, censorship to question what the Bishop is saying. We have legal processes in this country for a reason - and it cuts both ways. If I were to advocate that the government use its legislative power to suppress Catholicism, I would fully expect that I might find myself challenged on that matter.
[...] In Canada, of course, we are well used to the naked coercive power of the state being used to persecute conservatives and conservative thought. Only the most recent example is the hauling of Calgary’s Bishop Fred Henry before the Alberta Human Right Code for the sin of expressing publicly a view on homosexuality that the Catholic Church has subscribed to for centuries. [...]
The statements found on virtually every fundamenalist website on the continent have included the identical story about Antistite (Bishop) Henry of Calagry, Canada, which they know is a lie. Were the situation which lead to the human rights complaints lodged against him have evolved as described, every priest, bishop and member of the Sacred College could have similarly been charged. That something was remarkably different about his interview with the Vancouver Sun, should be self evident. He stated that the federal government of Canada had an obligation to use “coercion” against homosexual Canadians. In other words , force, and violence at the hands of authorities. He advocated violence .Period. Canada is slowly approaching a state of freedom for all citizens. This essential component of life in a secular western democracy is understood most completely when one reads the excerpt from a ruling by the US Supreme Court of several years ago. It says ” At the heart of liberty is the right to define ones own concept of existence, of the meaning of the universe and of the mystery of human life.” Freedom as so defined will never again in the history of our nation , be negotiable. Liberty is not a faith based program.