Canadian furore
A Christian pastor in Canada has been fined about £3,500 and told he must stop expressing his views on homosexuality in public. The ruling orders Stephen Boissoin to ‘cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals’.
The scope of the ruling, which was delivered on Friday, has alarmed observers who are concerned about its impact on free speech and religious liberty. Mr Boissoin was brought before Alberta‘s Human Rights and Citizenship Commission after he criticised homosexual practice in a letter published by a local newspaper.
He expressed his view that a gay-rights agenda was influencing the school curriculum, warning: ‘Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging, pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights’.
Mr Boissoin has now been told to pay £2,500 to Dr Darren Lund, the homosexual activist who made the complaint against him, and a further £1,000 to cover the expenses of a witness in the case. Commenting on the outcome of the case, Mr Boissoin said: ‘Absurd – beyond absurd. I will never make a public apology; I stand by what I said’.
