What Is It With These People?

Yesterday, CBC had this article about Boissoin's appeal of the AHRC decision and penalty resulting from his noxious letter of 2002.

While the sound bite of Boissoin bleating about his freedom of speech and religion was obnoxious enough, some of the comments on CBC's talkback this morning were just infuriating.

I suspect few enough have actually read Boissoin's letter, even fewer have asked themselves what the outcome of that letter would have been had it been levelled against another community. Had his letter been targetted against Jews or Roman Catholics, the public outrage at the letter would likely have thrown Boissoin into prison on a hate crimes charge.

Why is it that people seem to think that it's any more "morally acceptable" to go after GLBT people? Go read Boissoin's letter, and as you read it mentally substitute another group of choice, and ask yourself if the resulting letter is something you would consider acceptable.

Meanwhile, I imagine as the details of Boissoin's appeal start to come out, it will be quite amusing. So far, all we've heard is the bleating about 'freedom of speech', which of course completely ignores how "mere words" can be abused in ways that seriously affect others.