The corruption of human rights commissions
I think Mark Steyn and Kate McMillan are right: the problems with human rights commissions don't lie only in the prosecution of hate speech. The whole system has become ideologically driven and riven with favoritism and sloppiness. What was supposed to be a low-cost, administrative procedure to protect people from costly court cases has become a racket for complainants who belong to an ever-increasing swath of victims groups. But if you have a bona fide complaint and happen to be a Christian, you need not apply.
That's what Susan Comstock and Dave MacDonald have found. Both are Catholics employed by the Treasury Board and both are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). Comstock objected to the fact that the PSAC was using her union dues to fight publicly in support of same-sex marriage before Parliament made it law in 2005, contrary to her Catholic faith. She also objected to the union's anti-heterosexism policy that placed her on the outs with that policy by virtue of her Catholic beliefs.
So Comstock asked Treasury Board and the PSAC to divert her dues to charity under a policy in the collective agreement that allows conscientious objection on religious grounds. The Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed her complaint on grounds that the policy only refers to those religions that ban members from belonging to labor unions. She appealed and lost the first round to get a judicial review of her case, but she is awaiting a hearing date before the Ontario Court of Appeal. (By the way, what right does the state or a state agency have to determine what Catholic beliefs are important or not?)
MacDonald, who also happens to be the president of a PSAC local in Ottawa, sought some answers to why Comstock was being treated the way she was. He was appalled at the response from his union leadership. He, too, has been trying since last year to get the CHRC to hear his complaint about his union's policy discriminating against him.
Imagine in a union was collecting dues from a gay member, but publicly promoting a homophobic agenda. Do you think that gay person would be heard if he complained to the CHRC? You bet. (And I agree, unions and secular workplaces should not take sides against gays and lesbians). But if you are a Christian, you must pay dues to allow your union to marginalize you and actively discriminate against you. And in Canada, we must pay taxes to a human rights regime can remove our fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
MacDonald has no problem defending the rights of fellow gay employees, or employees of other religions, but says unions should be doing their jobs defending all workers' rights under the collective agreement, not engaging in political activity. Imagine what Canada would be like if all union members could divert their dues if they objected say to the United Auto Workers support of the New Democratic Party or whatever.
I think there is a need for protection of employees from harassment on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion. There have been instances, for example, of women who have been hounded by hostile sexual innuendo, nasty messages and a pattern of harassment in the workplace. No one should have to put up with that. But neither should Christians be forced to put up with overt harassment by their own unions. In an ideal Canada, a gay person and a devout Christian should be able to work side by side with civility and mutual respect, without their workplace or their union (or their government, for goodness sake!!!!) taking sides against one or the others beliefs.
But I think instead of government run bureaus peopled with ideologues and sloppy investigative techniques, perhaps we should look at replacing the human rights regimes with independent arbitration, similar to labor arbitration.
Thus, if Susan Comstock has a complaint against the PSAC, or Dave MacDonald, instead of getting Dean Steacy by default---MacDonald and the PSAC get to choose from someone trained in arbitration who has a reputation for fairness.
Most Christians--those who are serious about their faith--have come to realize that they are not protected when it comes to Canadian human rights law. In fact, those laws have been used to persecute Christians and force them to violate their consciences for more than a decade. Forcing Christian mayors to apologize for being unwilling to proclaim Gay Pride Days when they object on religious grounds is an example. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and some "human rights" regime was forcing a gay person to apologize for refusing to issue a proclamation that opposed same-sex marriage or non-procreative sex.
In the service of progress, Canada's radical human rights regime has been eating away at the foundations of our cherished rights and freedoms, allowing the defamation and marginalization of Christian belief while socially engineering its illiberal multicultural secularism.
Human rights regimes have already been used to attack the rights of religious groups to have behavior codes. A Christian college or charity should have the right to insist that its teachers abide by sexual morality codes that prohibit sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage.
The case of Delwin Vriend is a case in point. The hagiographical mainstream media accounts about Vriend getting fired because he was gay are misleading. Vriend got fired not because he was a homosexual, but because he signed a behavior code and then flaunted the fact he was breaking it. He tried to file a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission but because sexual orientation was not one of the enumerated grounds, he could not get them to hear his case. He subsequently won a victory in higher courts that read in sexual orientation into the Alberta Human Rights Act. But what the news stories fail to tell us is that the higher courts also upheld the right of the Christian college to have a behavior code. So, despite the reading in of sexual orientation, Vriend still could have been let go for breaking the behavior code. But at what expense for that college? Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. And how long will Christian bodies--or other socially conservative religions-- have the right to insist that believers actually live out their faith? Times have changed and the illiberal march of multiculturalist secularism has progressed inexorably since then.
Or how long will religions that have theological reasons for a male clergy be exempted from persecution on equality grounds that insist men and women are totally interchangeable?
That's what Susan Comstock and Dave MacDonald have found. Both are Catholics employed by the Treasury Board and both are members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). Comstock objected to the fact that the PSAC was using her union dues to fight publicly in support of same-sex marriage before Parliament made it law in 2005, contrary to her Catholic faith. She also objected to the union's anti-heterosexism policy that placed her on the outs with that policy by virtue of her Catholic beliefs.
So Comstock asked Treasury Board and the PSAC to divert her dues to charity under a policy in the collective agreement that allows conscientious objection on religious grounds. The Canadian Human Rights Commission dismissed her complaint on grounds that the policy only refers to those religions that ban members from belonging to labor unions. She appealed and lost the first round to get a judicial review of her case, but she is awaiting a hearing date before the Ontario Court of Appeal. (By the way, what right does the state or a state agency have to determine what Catholic beliefs are important or not?)
MacDonald, who also happens to be the president of a PSAC local in Ottawa, sought some answers to why Comstock was being treated the way she was. He was appalled at the response from his union leadership. He, too, has been trying since last year to get the CHRC to hear his complaint about his union's policy discriminating against him.
Imagine in a union was collecting dues from a gay member, but publicly promoting a homophobic agenda. Do you think that gay person would be heard if he complained to the CHRC? You bet. (And I agree, unions and secular workplaces should not take sides against gays and lesbians). But if you are a Christian, you must pay dues to allow your union to marginalize you and actively discriminate against you. And in Canada, we must pay taxes to a human rights regime can remove our fundamental rights of freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
MacDonald has no problem defending the rights of fellow gay employees, or employees of other religions, but says unions should be doing their jobs defending all workers' rights under the collective agreement, not engaging in political activity. Imagine what Canada would be like if all union members could divert their dues if they objected say to the United Auto Workers support of the New Democratic Party or whatever.
I think there is a need for protection of employees from harassment on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion. There have been instances, for example, of women who have been hounded by hostile sexual innuendo, nasty messages and a pattern of harassment in the workplace. No one should have to put up with that. But neither should Christians be forced to put up with overt harassment by their own unions. In an ideal Canada, a gay person and a devout Christian should be able to work side by side with civility and mutual respect, without their workplace or their union (or their government, for goodness sake!!!!) taking sides against one or the others beliefs.
But I think instead of government run bureaus peopled with ideologues and sloppy investigative techniques, perhaps we should look at replacing the human rights regimes with independent arbitration, similar to labor arbitration.
Thus, if Susan Comstock has a complaint against the PSAC, or Dave MacDonald, instead of getting Dean Steacy by default---MacDonald and the PSAC get to choose from someone trained in arbitration who has a reputation for fairness.
Most Christians--those who are serious about their faith--have come to realize that they are not protected when it comes to Canadian human rights law. In fact, those laws have been used to persecute Christians and force them to violate their consciences for more than a decade. Forcing Christian mayors to apologize for being unwilling to proclaim Gay Pride Days when they object on religious grounds is an example. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, and some "human rights" regime was forcing a gay person to apologize for refusing to issue a proclamation that opposed same-sex marriage or non-procreative sex.
In the service of progress, Canada's radical human rights regime has been eating away at the foundations of our cherished rights and freedoms, allowing the defamation and marginalization of Christian belief while socially engineering its illiberal multicultural secularism.
Human rights regimes have already been used to attack the rights of religious groups to have behavior codes. A Christian college or charity should have the right to insist that its teachers abide by sexual morality codes that prohibit sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage.
The case of Delwin Vriend is a case in point. The hagiographical mainstream media accounts about Vriend getting fired because he was gay are misleading. Vriend got fired not because he was a homosexual, but because he signed a behavior code and then flaunted the fact he was breaking it. He tried to file a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission but because sexual orientation was not one of the enumerated grounds, he could not get them to hear his case. He subsequently won a victory in higher courts that read in sexual orientation into the Alberta Human Rights Act. But what the news stories fail to tell us is that the higher courts also upheld the right of the Christian college to have a behavior code. So, despite the reading in of sexual orientation, Vriend still could have been let go for breaking the behavior code. But at what expense for that college? Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. And how long will Christian bodies--or other socially conservative religions-- have the right to insist that believers actually live out their faith? Times have changed and the illiberal march of multiculturalist secularism has progressed inexorably since then.
Or how long will religions that have theological reasons for a male clergy be exempted from persecution on equality grounds that insist men and women are totally interchangeable?
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