A Laughing Stock

It came to my attention today that the great nation of Canada appears to have a diminishing respect for freedom of speech. This has been a great issue on the minds of many Canadians with the introduction of the Human Rights Tribunals and their supreme power over punishing any "offenders" of various minorities. My professor emailed me a National Post article today called "The Importance of Mockery" by Marni Soupcoff. Soupcoff describes how a stand-up comedian, Guy Earle, is being accused by a lesbian woman, Lorna Pardy, of making discriminating comments based on her sexual orientation and her gender. Apparently, at one of Earle's late-night gigs, Pardy was heckling the comedian and even threw drinks in his face. This led to Earle making fun of the woman and going so far as to take the sunglasses off her head and break them on stage. Pardy is now claiming that she has post traumatic stress disorder from his sexual discrimination comments and is claiming $20,000 dollars in emotional trauma. Earle is on trial now for these alleged claims that apparently, have more value than his right to free speech.

So now you know the story...
What I want to know is, is where does the Human Rights Tribunal get their power to punish these so called "offenders"?

I know that Stephan Boissoin, a pastor from Alberta, was severely punished by the Human Rights Tribunal for denouncing homosexuality (Red Deer Advocate). A local teacher, Darren Lund, accused the newspaper and Boissoin for "exposing a person or persons to hatred or contempt" and brought the case to a human rights tribunal. Boissoin was found guilty, in front of the human rights commission, of hate speech without a public trial or further evidence. The human rights commissioner, Lori Andreachuk issued the order for Boissoin's punishment on the fact that although no specific individual was violated, there still was the possibility of degradation. His punishment for exercising his right to freedom of speech and religion resulted in a compensation to Lund for his time to file the complaint, a "cease and desist" judgment which prevented him from ever publishing "disparaging" remarks about homosexuals or Mr. Lund, a required apology to Mr. Lund, and a fine of $7,000; all because he voiced his religious belief that homosexuality is wrong.

Where does it stop? How come tolerance has replaced a nation's value for equality and liberty? Why is tolerance promoted of most religions instead of Christianity? Instead of valuing the right of free speech, people are fighting against it, saying that there needs to be regulations and rules on what people can and cannot say. Isn't this against the fundamental basis that America was founded on? It seems to me that the cyclical nature of time has brought the previously oppressed peoples into the role of their oppressors; therefore oppressing the once oppressor. So much oppression. The minorities are now oppressing the majorities -- isn't a democracy supposed to be the vote of the majority? Oh wait, that would be discriminating against the minorities. We can't have that.




Levant, Ezra. "Ezra Levant on the Human Rights show trial of Christian pastor Stephen Boissoin". Nationalpost.com. 11 June 2008. 28 Nov. 2009. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/06/11/ezra-levant-on-the-human-rights-show-trial-of-christian-pastor-stephen-boissoin.aspx
Soupcoff, Marni. "The Importance of Mockery". Nationalpost.com. 30 March 2010. 30 March 2010. http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/30/marni-soupcoff-the-importance-of-mockery.aspx