Tag Archives: Human Rights Tribunal

News

Gay porn actor Luka Rocco Magnotta wanted by police for murder

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Here’s the National Post. (WARNING: Graphic details of murder)

Excerpt:

The hunt for Luka Rocco Magnotta has gone worldwide, with INTERPOL issuing an international warrant for the arrest of the Canadian man accused in a Montreal murder that saw a torso left in a suitcase and a hand and foot mailed to the Ottawa offices of the Liberal and Conservative parties.

The global bulletin follows a Canada-wide warrant issued by Montreal police hours after officers first entered the 29-year-old suspect’s apartment — the scene of one of the most gruesome killings in Montreal in recent memory.

The police had finished their work inside and Apartment 208 was pretty much stripped bare, but the stomach-turning stench and darkened red stain on the mattress left little doubt that something terrible had happened there.

“The smell of death is not funny,” Eric Schorer, the building’s superintendent, said as he opened the door Wednesday afternoon. “If you look at the bed, that’s where it happened.”

Not only was the unidentified victim dismembered, not only were two body parts apparently mailed to political parties in Ottawa, but it has emerged that the killer filmed his crime and posted it on the Internet. The snuff film titled 1 Lunatic 1 Ice Pick, depicting the dismemberment of an Asian male body and various indignities to the remains, has provoked online debate about its veracity since it was posted last week. Police have confirmed the video depicts the actual crime.

[…]Mr. Magnotta, who has also been known as Eric Clinton Newman and Vladimir Romanov, has left abundant traces on the Internet. A Toronto native, he had worked in gay porn and as a model, but more recently he attracted attention after being linked to a 2010 online video showing kittens being suffocated with the aid of a vacuum cleaner.

A blog attributed to him and titled “Necrophilia Serial Killer Luka Magnotta” included this March 2012 post:

“It’s not cool to the world being a necrophiliac. It’s bloody lonely. But I dont (sic) really care, I have never cared what people thought of me, most people are judgemental idiots. I’m unable to talk to anybody about it and there’s always the knowledge that 99% of people would be repulsed by me if they found out about my feelings. Some people would even want to harm me.”

[…]The online video shows a naked male, tied to a bed frame, being attacked with both an ice pick and a kitchen knife, according to the description on a website called Best Gore. The victim is stabbed, has his throat slashed and is later decapitated and dismembered. The video was posted on Best Gore on May 25, but it is unclear when, or where, it was filmed.

There seems to be a lot of people who excuse their actions by saying they were “born that way” and they need to be true to their feelings – there’s even a Lady Gaga song about it. Basically, the idea is that people have a right to be happy, and to act out their feelings, and they should not have to care about what anyone else (especially God) thinks about it. Anyone who tells them that what they are doing wrong is just called names, like “intolerant” or “bigot”. The public schools in Quebec have a mandatory curriculum that is designed to affirm all points of view on moral questions as equally valid, and to undermine the influence of religion so that moral judgments are not grounded in any sort of objective moral hierarchy. It is even forced on homeschoolers.

Are the crimes of this gay porn actor the result of the marginalization of morality by the secular left? Is the antagonism of being judged so strong in society that people like this feel empowered to act on their feelings? I think that the lesson of this story is that we need to rethink what it means to tell young people that “anything goes” and that moral judgments and moral disagreement are essentially bigotry that offends people. That’s the message of the Human Rights Commissions in Canada. The HRCs think that it’s a criminal offense to make people feel bad by making moral judgments about whatever they are doing. They’ve prosecuted people for expressing their opinions on moral issues many times – often over many years and with huge legal costs.

I think that Canada needs to return to their free speech roots and turn away from these speech-censoring HRCs and pro-relativism education standards in Quebec schools. Canada needs to reaffirm that it’s OK to say that someone is wrong on moral issues. Not everything that every person feels like doing is equally good. Sometimes, it’s better to just say to someone early on in their lives “I think that what you are doing is wrong” even if they feel badly, so that a line is drawn before it turns into murder. Just expressing an opinion on moral boundaries early on might stop someone like this from carrying out the crimes that he has now committed. There are worse things in the world than hurt feelings. Some things are wrong, and people should be able to say so.

News

Alberta judge rules that it is legal to disagree with homosexuality

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Political map of Canada
Political map of Canada

Good news in Alberta.

Excerpt:

Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Paul Jeffrey has dismissed a Crown appeal of a decision from a lower court that acquitted Bill Whatcott of trespassing charges for distributing “Truth about homosexuality” pamphlets at the University of Calgary in 2008.

On Friday, March 30, Jeffrey upheld the November 2011 ruling by provincial court Judge John D. Bascom that stated the University of Calgary infringed on Whatcott’s Charter rights to freedom of expression when campus security arrested and detained him for distributing a pamphlet that addressed the “harmful consequences” of homosexuality.

The university had argued that the Charter only applied to “government actors and government actions,” not to the university itself since it was a private entity.

Bascom ruled, however, that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to the University of Calgary since “the University is not a Charter free zone,” in that it carried out “specific” governmental work by providing post-secondary education to the public in Alberta, making its actions subject to scrutiny under the Charter.

“Mr. Whatcott entered the university property with a purpose to distribute his literature to students, staff and public,” said the judge, adding, “His activity was peaceful and presented no harm to the university structures or those who frequented the campus. … Although Mr. Whatcott’s pamphlet is not scholarly, freedom of speech is not limited to academic works.”

Bascom concluded that “the means used by campus security halted Mr. Whatcott’s distribution of these flyers and violated his right of free expression.”

The judge also lifted the University’s ban against Whatcott that would have indefinitely prohibited him from setting foot on the campus again, stating that the ban was “arbitrary and unfair.”

Do you all remember that the University of Calgary is one of the ones that harassed pro-lifers with armed policemen? That’s still better than Carleton University, which actually had pro-lifers arrested by armed policemen.

This Alberta ruling dovetails nicely with a 2010 ruling from the province of Saskatchewan:

In 2010 Whatcott won an appeal in Saskatchewan when Justice Darla Hunter of Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal overturned a 2006 Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal ruling that found him guilty of violating the province’s human rights code by publicly criticizing homosexuality through a series of flyers he distributed in Saskatoon and Regina in 2001 and 2002.

The tribunal had ordered Whatcott to pay $17,500 and imposed a “lifetime” ban on his freedom to publicly criticize homosexuality.

In her decision Justice Hunter ruled that Whatcott did not violate section 14(1)(b) of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code by distributing flyers to oppose the teaching of homosexuality in Saskatoon’s public schools.

“It is acceptable, in a democracy, for individuals to comment on the morality of another’s behaviour. … Anything that limits debate on the morality of behaviour is an intrusion on the right to freedom of expression,” Justice Hunter had remarked.

Alberta and Saskatchewan are the two most conservative provinces in Canada. Let’s hope that other provinces move in the same direction.

News

Should people of faith have a right to disagree with homosexuality?

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From Ari, a post pleading for people of faith to defend their right to civil disagreement with others on moral questions.

Excerpt:

In Canada, citizens have been much more successful in getting the government to correct the thoughts of political heretics.  Moslem extremists and gay activists seem to be particularly keen in the use of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals to cleanse Canada from impious speech, thought and action.

Ezra Levant, for instance, is one of my main inspirations for Bias Incident: The World’s Most Politically Incorrect Novel.  He was hauled before the tribunal for, among other things, republishing the now infamous Danish mohommad cartoons.  Pastor Stephen Boisson was fined and forbidden from preaching about the topic of homosexuality by the commission because his views on the subject offended gay activists. (Is my mind playing tricks on me, or am I beginning to notice a pattern here?)

Although homosexual conduct is forbidden by my faith, just as it is forbidden for Christians, I have never heard a rabbi mention the topic in all my years as a congregant.  I’m glad of this, because the unequivocal nature of the authentic Jewish teaching about this subject would make for a boring sermon.  Better to hear from the pulpit words of inspiration or discussion of issues that are made more interesting by there being some sort of gray area.

There are people who are offended by my opinion.  They are offended by my right and the right of my religious teachers to express that opinion, even if they almost always decline that right.  They are offended even though homosexual conduct is one of many, many acts that are forbidden by my religion and even though homosexual conduct occupies no special place among the things forbidden by my beloved faith.

I have little doubt that the persecution of Stephen Boisson has had a chilling effect on the speech of Canadian clergy.  This has to change.  Religious people must act if they are not to lose their rights one piece at a time.  They must defy the “enlightened” and “tolerant” forces that would oppose them.

The defiance doesn’t have to be hateful.  It doesn’t have to be over-the-top.  The simple, defiant declaration to conclude every sermon in the manner of Cato the Elder will suffice.  “Furthermore, I feel it my duty to call your attention to Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13,” should be all that is necessary to stand up for free speech and to defy the bullies who would use the government to correct the thinking of its citizenry.

If enough clergy were to do so, it would be all the harder for Canada to trample on the rights of its citizens.

My secular case against same-sex marriage is here, which shows that you don’t need to be religious in order to oppose same-sex marriage.