Human Rights Commission a Grave Threat to Religious Speech
By Connie Fournier on November 20, 2007 1:00 AM
If you have never heard the name Jessica Beaumont, you are in good company. She is not a politician, a lawyer, or a judge, but she is at the centre of a legal proceeding that could well affect your right to quote the Bible.
On October 27, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal issued a precedent-setting cease and desist order which forbids Jessica Beaumont from posting certain Bible verses on the Internet. If this 21-year old woman posts the wrong Bible quotation online - even if it is on an American website - she could face up to 5 years in prison.
Five years in prison for quoting Scripture.
Even if you are not a Christian, those words should chill your blood. But, incredibly quietly, under our very noses, a legal precedent has been set that can be used to put Canadians in prison for quoting the Bible.
Now, I'm going to honest. I don't know Jessica Beaumont, but I find most of her political opinions utterly repulsive. Ms. Beaumont, it seems, has some repressed hostility when it comes to issues of race and sexual orientation. She has posted some things online that truly were not "nice".
But it is not against the law to be unkind. That is why, despite the fact that her home was raided by the police, she was never charged criminally. Unfortunately for Jessica Beaumont, the Canadian Human Rights Commission is designed for cases such as this. When there is no evidence to warrant a criminal charge, a human rights complaint can be used instead.
The CHRC is used to punish people who have not broken the law. And every single person who has gone to a CHRC tribunal regarding Internet content has been found guilty.
Tucked into the CHRC complaint, along with some of Jessica's rather unsavoury internet posts, were two Bible verses:
Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.
LEVITICUS 18:22
If a man lies with man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
LEVITICUS 20:13
The presence of the Bible verses in the complaint was actually questioned by one tribunal member. The following is from the tribunal transcripts:
CHAIRPERSON (Member Hadjis): Mr. Warman, do you see any problem with the fact that the Bible was cited in those web pages that you -- the extracts of which you entered into evidence yesterday?
MR. (Richard) WARMAN: The context in which it was cited and the surrounding material led me to believe that it should be included in a complaint pursuant to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Transcripts Warman v. Beaumont, Volume 2, Page: 349
The final outcome of the tribunal was, predictably, a ruling against Jessica Beaumont. And the tribunal's cease and desist order that bars her from posting similar comments on the Internet has set a frightening new precedent by its inclusion of Bible verses.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see where this could go. Now that a couple of Bible verses have been successfully slipped into a complaint, the Canadian Human Rights Commission has declared itself the official arbiter of what Scripture verses Canadians can post online. Only a complete fool would believe that, now that they have granted themselves this power, the Commissioners of the CHRC will be content to limit their Biblical censorship to verses that pertain to Old Testament capital punishment for certain sexual behaviours.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission - and its star complainer, Richard Warman - have been chipping away at our free speech for a number of years, and our time is running out to reverse the trend.
They started with white nationalist websites because they have very little public support, so we didn't pay attention. While we have been oblivious to it all, fines have been levied, websites have been shut down, and, most importantly, dangerous legal precedents have been set.
Jessica Beaumont does not own a website. She was merely posting comments on existing sites (mostly in the United States). But the fact that she could go to prison for posting Scripture verses on a server in another country means that our religious freedom is in direct jeopardy.
Evelyn Beatrice Hall once wrote, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It has also been said that the real test of a person's commitment to free speech is their willingness to defend the speech of those with whom they disagree.
I think, despite the fact that many of the targets in CHRC Internet tribunals have been people with political opinions that we find downright offensive, we need to put those differences aside and look at the big picture.
When a government agency has the power to make a ruling that could put a 21-year old waitress in jail for posting thoughts that do not violate the law, we should be worried. When they set themselves up to determine what Scripture quotations should send her to prison, we should be confronting our Parliament.
Let's not wait until it is too late.
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Connie Fournier is co-owner of Canada's largest political discussion forum, Free Dominion, which boasts a membership of over 8,500, and gets nearly 2 million page views per month. She lives in Kingston Ontario with her husband Mark and her four teenagers, and is currently working on her second year in Computer Programming at St. Lawrence College.
http://www.noapologies.ca/2007/11/human-rights-commission-a-grav.html
