Thursday, August 09, 2007

Lies and Distortion - Lifesite Style

Right-wing religious "news site" Lifesite has taken it upon themselves to completely misconstrue the Boissoin case as being a "hate crimes" case.

Two things popped up on this:

1) Lifesite whining about "media bias" in the coverage of the hearings. Mildly amusing, if it wasn't so pathetic. (Especially when two days before, the following editorial - which claims:

What may be most objection-able about Prof. Lund's complaint, however, is the way he is trying to use a single, unverified gay-bashing assault that happened in Red Deer two weeks after the letter's publication as evidence that Mr. Boissoin's declaration of "war" against the gay rights movement had the effect of inciting hatred. No charges have been laid in the assault, so this tactic creates the steepest kind of slippery slope imaginable.


The absence of charges being laid is utterly irrelevant here. One doesn't have to reach too far to figure out that the furor over Boissoin's letter was still rippling about Red Deer media at the time. (But coming from the National Post, this doesn't surprise me - and it mysteriously echoes the refrain from people like Brian Rushfeldt - making me wonder just who actually wrote that unattributed column)

However, the bit that triggered me to write this was this article about Bush pledging to veto hate crimes legislation in the US. This law is a direct result of Matthew Shepard's murder several years ago. In the article, Lifesite reports:

The Canadian version homosexual "hate-crime" legislation, Bill C-250, that was given royal support on April 29, 2004, has proved true many of the fears and predictions of concerned Canadians. While attempting to prevent crimes against homosexuals, the bill has in effect opened the door to countless forms of legal action against other groups. Canadians have seen it being used to actively discriminate against religious leaders such as Pastor Stephen Boissoin who publicly denounced homosexuality based on his moral convictions, or companies that have refused to offer their services to homosexuals and has limited the freedom of the press.


The bullshit call here is obvious. Boissoin is not facing any criminal charges (that I am aware of), nor could he. Bill C-250 came into law well after 2002, and it's fairly rare for laws to be retroactive. More correctly, Boissoin is the subject of a civil complaint being handled through our human rights tribunal processes - this isn't even before the civil courts yet. Lifesite is not only lying through its teeth, they are deliberately distorting reality to suit their agenda. (not like I haven't seen them do that before...)

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