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“Canada Pastor Cleared of “hate Crime” After Seven Years of Harassment”
by Way of Life   
December 30th, 2009

CANADA PASTOR CLEARED OF “HATE CRIME” AFTER SEVEN YEARS OF HARASSMENT (Friday Church News Notes, December 25, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - After seven years of harassment by the Human Rights Commission of Alberta, youth pastor Stephen Boissoin has been cleared of hate crimes against homosexuals by a civil judge (“Canadian Pastor Cleared,” Christian.org.uk, Dec. 8, 2009). As we first reported in Friday Church News Notes in September 2005, Boissoin was called before the Human Rights Commission for writing about the immorality and dangers of homosexuality. This appeared in a letter to the editor that was published in the Red Deer Advocate on June 17, 2002. Boissoin rightly lamented that “children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights.” A civil rights complaint was filed by homosexual activist Darren Lund, an assistant professor at the University of Calgary. Though threatened with a large fine, Boissoin said that he would not pay it nor would he apologize for what he wrote, even if he had to go to prison. He has stood by his convictions through the ordeal. In 2008, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal found Boissoin guilty of hate crimes. It banned him from expressing his views on homosexuality “in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet,” ordered him to pay $7,000 for “damages for pain and suffering,” and demanded that he apologize to Lund. We are pleased that Justice Earl Wilson has overturned this totalitarian-style ruling, having determined that Boissoin’s letter does not constitute a hate crime. He also said that Lori Andreachuk, the civil rights lawyer that issued the ruling under the auspices of the Human Rights Tribunal, made many errors in her decision and had no power to impose a speech ban on Mr. Boissoin.

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