Maclean’s magazine is pleased that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint brought against it by the Canadian Islamic Congress. The decision is in keeping with our long-standing position that the article in question, “The Future Belongs to Islam,” an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s best-selling book America Alone, was a worthy piece of commentary on important geopolitical issues, entirely within the bounds of normal journalistic practice.
More here…
Ian McEwan is one of my favorite authors. He wrote Saturday and Atonement, both of which are excellent. Now, as reported here, he’s taken a strong stand against Islamism. It is refreshing to see a public figure stand up for western civilization, rather than take the PC kool aid. McEwan says “I don’t like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don’t want to kill anyone in my city, that’s the difference.”
Elsewhere in the interview McEwan serenely predicted the Balkanisation of the United Kingdom. “Great Britain is an artificial construction of three or four nations. I’m waiting for the Northern Irish to unite with the Irish Republic sooner or later, and also Scotland could go its own way and become independent.”
Does the prospect disturb him? “No,” he replied, “I think that at this point we should start to reflect on Englishness: this is the country of Shakespeare, of Milton, Newton, Darwin…”
Good thing he does not live in Canada!
There’s a great editorial at the National Review Online site regarding the Mark Steyn case in Canada, in which he is being tried by a kangaroo court for expressing his opinion. (His article argued that demographic trends indicate that Western Civilization will sooner or later be forced to confront problems associated with radical Islam.)
The NRO piece tells us of the tragi-comical nature of this Soviet-style proceeding:
[The] proceedings had no evidentiary rules — new evidence was routinely introduced without warning. Commissioners routinely recessed to determine the eligibility of evidence; legal representation would dash off mid-hearing to print Internet material to introduce as evidence; an “expert” witness was called whose chief credentials were academic papers on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and still other witnesses were called under the prejudicial direction that “we anticipate that success in this case will provide the impetus for prohibiting discriminatory publications in the other provinces.”
That is what passes for justice in Canada these days.
Another story about the Orwellian “human rights commissions” in Canada.
A monthly Canadian Catholic magazine of news, analysis and opinion has been burdened by $20,000 in legal costs in the process of defending itself against a campaign of harassment – including a human rights complaint – launched by homosexualist activists.
The magazine is Catholic Insight. The magazine printed articles dealing with the ongoing push within the public sphere to normalize homosexuality and, in particular, to legalize homosexual “marriage.” In what has become typical of Canadian “justice,” the magazine has racked up $20,000 in legal fees, but the man who filed the complaint has had all his legal fees covered by the state. Nice.
In related matter, the IHT website has an article that is something of an overview on the abusive practices going on now in Canada (and elsewhere) over free speech, notable the Mark Steyn case in BC.
The article reminds us that “Canada, Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.” In the USA, however, “newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions – even false, provocative or hateful things – without legal consequence.”
However, fear not! The leftists of this country, who brought us campus speech codes and the whole bullshit of PC, are trying to chip away at the constitutional freedoms we enjoy here. “It is not clear to me that the Europeans are mistaken,” Jeremy Waldron, a legal philosopher, wrote in The New York Review of Books last month, “when they say that a liberal democracy must take affirmative responsibility for protecting the atmosphere of mutual respect against certain forms of vicious attack.” One man’s “atmosphere of mutual respect” is another’s trial. Just ask Mark Steyn…
Some of the most dangerous and oppressive institutions in existence on this side of the Atlantic are the various Canadian “human rights tribunals,” which take PC so far to the left that they impose onerous restrictions on morality, speech, and individual liberties. For example:
A Saskatchewan human rights tribunal has fined Regina marriage commissioner Orville Nichols $2,500 for refusing to “marry” two homosexual men who approached him for the ceremony in 2005.
Mr. Nichols told the two men, identified only as “M.J.” and his partner as “B.R.” in the court documents, he would not marry them because it went against his religious convictions as a devout Baptist, but referred them to another commissioner, Edna McCall, because he was aware that she would perform same sex marriages.
The court documents reveal that the complainant M.J. was 51 years old at the time of the hearing last year, had been married for about seventeen years and had three children, and “did not realize that he was a homosexual until after he was divorced.”
The “marriage” was performed on May 5, 2005, on the dock on the east side of Wascana Lake, as M.J. and B.R. had originally planned.
The tribunal ruling stated that Mr. Nichols had contravened section 31.4(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code and that his refusal based on religious belief conflicted with his duties as a public officer. “The Commission stands by its position that to allow public officials to insert their personal morality when determining who should and who should not receive the benefit of law undermines human rights in Saskatchewan beyond the issue of same-sex marriages.”
Are things headed the same way in the USA? I doubt it, but I will continue to chronicle the abuses of these absurd bodies, of which Canada should be ashamed. Check out some more stories here.
For a similar story about France, click here. It describes how a French actress, Brigette Bardot, was fined about $23,000 for stating an opinion.
If you have not already seen this blog, please check out Stuff White People Like. It is very amusing, and right on the money. Bobo’s are the target, so lefties be prepared to get slightly ruffled. Kind of reminds me of the style of the old Preppie Handbook from the early 1980s.
Popular author slams PC in the UK.
“Increasingly there is a risk that we live in ghettos with our own kind, with a strong commitment to our local community but little contact with those outside it.”
“If in speaking to minorities we have to weigh every word in advance in case inadvertently we give offence, how can we be at ease with each other, how celebrate our common humanity, our shared anxieties and aspirations, both for ourselves and for those whom we love?” It would be “unfortunate” if the police became “enamoured” of political correctness, which she described as “a pernicious if risible authoritarian attempt at linguistic and social control”.
In Oregon, this is a “gang-related symbol,” and gets you thrown out of school:
Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine’s Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday. “As Muslims we shouldn’t celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, ” Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies.
Well, well. When Muslims come to live here in the USA or in the UK, the western governments are expected by the PC crowd and Muslims themselves to bend over backwards to accomodate Muslim practices, observances, etc., and to give up traditional celebrations in schools (Christmas, etc.) and the public sphere, but apparently many Muslims (as witnessed by Al-Dossari) don’t expect to be held to the same standards.
See an example here of how the Archbishop of Canterbury has made controversial comments on Islamic law, and its applicability to the UK. Dr. Rowan Williams last week argued that aspects of sharia could be incorporated in the English legal system. The Queen is livid.
Canada ought to be ashamed of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, an ultra-PC anti-free speech inquisition that targets anyone not totally devoted to political correctness and a left wing agenda. There are tons of examples of this, the latest being this one:
Catholic Insight, a Canadian magazine known for its fidelity to Church teachings, has been targeted by the Canadian Human Rights Commission for publishing articles deemed offensive to homosexuals.
The commission has been investigating the Toronto-based publication since homosexual activist Rob Wells, a member of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Pride Center of Edmonton, filed a nine-point complaint last February with the government agency in which he accuses the magazine of promoting “extreme hatred and contempt” against homosexuals.
More here.
Britain does it again! I’m convinced the UK is the most politically correct place on earth, steadily undermining its culture and heritage. Here’s the latest:
A story based on the Three Little Pigs has been rejected by a government quango in case it offends Muslims.
The digital remake of the children’s classic was criticised by Becta, the education technology agency, because “the use of pigs raises cultural issues”.
Officials also attacked the story – called The Three Little Cowboy Builders – for stereotyping the building trade. It is the latest in a string of bans slapped on seemingly innocuous children’s stories and nursery rhymes.
In the past, Baa Baa Black Sheep has become Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep to satisfy race relations, the Seven Dwarfs have been axed from Snow White to avoid offending the vertically challenged and the ending of Humpty Dumpty has been censored for fear of upsetting sensitive children.
More here.
