Monday, April 20, 2009

Intellectual freedom in Canada - Denyse O'Leary

A book that should be on every Christian writer's reading list is Shakedown, by Ezra Levant.

Here are some critic's comments.

In that book, Levant traces the way Canada's "human rights" commissions - started to deal with real issues in housing and employment, etc. - have morphed into a social engineering squad - one which, incidentally, disproportionately targets Christians who support traditional values and beliefs about charged issues like homosexuality.

The skinny:

Situation 1: The landlord kicks you and all your possessions out into the snow because he thinks you are gay - that's a problem.

Situation 2: The landlord advises you that the gay lifestyle is inconsistent with what the Bible teaches - why is that a problem?

For one thing, it is true. For another, if you don't care what the Bible teaches, you can just ignore him.


That's one reason why freedom of religious has been historically important in Canada. You can just say you would prefer not to discuss the matter. And it isn't really his business.

Unfortunately, the "human rights" commissions - apparently not finding enough of the first type of case to justify their existence - morphed into agencies dedicated to dealing with the second kind - hence the recent, celebrated incidents where they went after famous media figures like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant, as well as many minor ones, in an array of increasingly ridiculous cases.

I've been covering this story myself for some time, and feel that Levant has provided an excellent overview from the trenches. So have Kathy Shaidle and Peter Vere in The Tyranny of Nice.

I first decided to get involved because friends were endangered and because our legacy mainstream media have done - well, I would like to say they have done a lousy job - but the fact is, they did no job at all until very late in the day.

It was the blogosphere that started to publicize what was happening very early - and is still the best source today. I especially recommend Fr. Sean Binks's site, Free Mark Steyn (the name references the troubles that columnist Steyn had with three different HRCs).


Here's Steyn's testimony to an Ontario legislative committee hearing.

As for the legacy media, just keep in mind that we bloggers don't call them "the legacy" for nothing. (They are sort of like the stuffy old furniture Grandma left you. You wish someone would just steal it, but no one is likely to - and leaving it out in the rain really won't help.)

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:



1 comment:

Peter Black said...

Denyse,
I thank you for your persistence, diligence, and courage in pursuing and bringing to our attention such issues as you have here. I haven't checked out all the links, but found those that I did very enlightening.
May you be blessed in your work.
Peter.

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