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Asserting Rights

In thinking about the HRCs sweep across the country to protect us from those who would sabotage our Human Rights, at least if we fall into one of the protected groups - not you Billy Bob - I was reminded of the Crusades.

The Crusades were commenced with a seemingly noble cause, to return the Holy Land, which had fallen under Muslim rule back to Christian control. However, there were 9 official Crusades, 8 of which were under papal sanction, and numerous other crusade like conflicts over roughly 500 years. Basically, the noble cause gave way to a Turn or Burn approach to religious conversion, along with raping, plundering and pillaging, once again proving irrefutable that Fighting for Peace is like Screwing for Virginity.

The HRCs started with what appears to be a noble goal, to rid this country and its provinces and territories of discrimination, by giving people a place and forum, and the financial backing to assert their rights. Ah, there's the rub.

The Ontario Government has on its web site a section on Gender Identity:Your Rights and Responsibilities. I thought it might have been interesting if the Responsibilities wordings dealt with the responsibilities of the gender challenged individual. However, it deals with responsibilities from the perspective of all the rest of us to the gender challenged.

So, our governments want us to be accepting of each other, and particularly those who are different, and they have defined those differences. White anglo saxon males probably aren't different, unless they are disabled, gay, or receiving public assistance in Ontario. The governments have defined things as rights, and somehow in all of this it has boiled down to a right to not feel offended by someone else, if you are able to be considered part of a protected special interest group.

However, it is very political. As you will recall from the Boissoin case, Stephen as a bible believing Christian was offended by certain overt actions of some homosexuals to infiltrate schools with teachings of homosexuality as an acceptable life style and spoke out in a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate. In simple terms, the homosexual agenda to teach about the homosexual lifestyle in schools discriminates against Christians and their beliefs. However, a man with no dog in the fight apparently, since he himself is apparently not a homosexual, Dr. Darren Lund claimed foul and called Mr. Boissoin's letter hateful against homosexuals. Alberta legislation protects people from discrimination on 13 grounds. The 3rd one is religious beliefs - ie. Stephen Boissoin. The 13th one is sexual orientation - ie. the homosexual community.

So, capriciously some people's rights to not be offended trump other people's rights to not be offended.

Interestingly, the Alberta HRC ruled against a Christian from Red Deer Alberta, who complained that the lyrics of a song called "Kill the Christians" on an album by the band Deicide was hateful and discriminatory. Lori Andreachuk, the Alberta Human Rights Commissioner dismissed saying Christians aren't vulnerable enough and Deicide as a group was not credible enough. Ms. Andreachuk, the divorce lawyer from Lethbridge, who heads the Alberta HRC was responsible for the ruling in the Boissoin case I and many others have written about. Talk about discrimination. Has anyone thought of charging her nibs with discrimination?

This looks more like a Crusade gone wrong every day. Too much power concentrated in the hands of people who are all too human, and can handle it no better than any one of us on the outside could either.

Society as we know it cannot survive us fighting with each other over fictitous rights to not be offended. It is true that no one should be discriminated against, NO ONE. But, the way out of discrimination is getting to know each other, and to learn to accept the differences. It is what makes a good marriage work. Have you ever tried to resolve marital differences with an inent to preserve the marriage in a court? I guess not. You only go to court for a divorce. Been there done that. It certainly did not make me think better of my former wife at the time.

Who will stand up against this Crusade?