OTTAWA — A new law in Canada is touted as a way to protect homosexuals from violence. But the Catholic Church says it could violate the freedom of speech and religion of individual Canadians and religious institutions.

Bill C-250 is opposed by Catholic organizations and Christian leaders as well as academics for including “sexual orientation” in existing anti-hate legislation protecting religious or ethnic groups.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops has declined to comment since Bill C-250 was passed by the Senate in late April. In earlier statements, however, the conference opposed it because it “could be used in an attempt to silence Church teaching” on the immorality of homosexual relations as well as silencing those who oppose homosexual activity for “secular” or “philosophical” reasons.

Vancouver Archbishop Bishop Ray Roussin said the bill's passage, despite “huge opposition,” was “not a defeat for the Church, though perhaps it was a rejection of Judeo-Christian values. … It seems the government was not listening.”

Its effect remains to be seen, Archbishop Roussin told the Register, “but it is certainly a matter of grave concern how it will impact freedom of speech and religious freedom.”

While mainline Protestant denominations supported the bill or remained silent, Muslims and evangelicals joined the Catholic Church in an ultimately fruitless resistance.

“While opposing the promotion of hatred against anyone, we are deeply concerned about the chilling effect this legislation may have on the legitimate expression of religious belief,” said Janet Epp Buckingham of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Buckingham added that free speech was especially important at a time when “issues of sexual morality and marriage are in the forefront of public debate.”

Sen. Anne Cools, who led the opposition to the bill in Canada's Upper House, agreed, saying issues of human sexuality will be “major questions” in the next couple of years.

The new law will be used, she fears, to silence “those who hold opinions that homosexuality is sinful, immoral or unhealthy.”

Those views were already vilified as “hateful,” she said, during the debate over Bill C-250.

Testing the Law

Cools noted the “bizarre fashion” of the bill's passage. While controversial private members' bills such as this — introduced by members not under the authority of the governing party — invariably die, this one received the informal support of the Liberal government at all stages, allowing the normal rules of order to be set aside.

“Normally if the government supports a measure it adopts it as a government bill so it can be held accountable,” Cools said.

But Canada's new prime minister, Paul Martin, is a “past master of having it both ways,” said Edmonton, Alberta, Baptist pastor Shafer Parker. “He wants to be able to say he supported the bill when talking to downtown gay audiences and then turn around and tell rural Alberta voters the government didn't support it.”

Parker plans to expose the law as unenforceable by publishing statements condemning homosexual actions and daring prosecution.

“I want to make it clear that I believe all of us are sinners and that homosexuals need God's grace no more or less than anyone else,” he said. “The issue is: Will I be free to say this?”

Sean Murphy, spokesman for the Canadian Catholic Civil Rights League, warned that the new law could be used against everything from papal statements to letters to the editor.

“The bishops in Ireland were warned that they would face action under Irish anti-hate laws if they distributed or taught from a papal statement on sexual morality,” he said.

Closer to home, the British Columbia courts recently supported the suspension of a public-school teacher. He was targeted because of his letters detailing the moral and health problems associated with homosexual activities. The provincial attorney general argued in a losing case that another public official deserved censure for similar letters to newspapers because they might incite “homophobes” to violence.

In recent years the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission found a man guilty of inciting hate for publishing scriptural condemnations of homosexuality. The body reasoned that since Christianity preached love and not hate, the man was not entitled to invoke freedom of religion in his defense.

In Ontario, the human-rights court forced a Toronto printer, Scott Brockie, to accept jobs from a homosexual-advocacy group. Brockie was “free to hold his religious beliefs and to practice them in his home and in his Christian community” but not in his workplace.

And in Newfoundland a major daily paper recently rejected a letter from 10 Catholics opposing a local priest who supported homosexual conduct. A brief reference to Catholic teaching in their letter “might be actionable under Canadian hate-literature legislation,” the paper deemed.

Academic Chill

Throughout the bill's journey through Parliament, defenders have insisted it protects religious freedom.

Laurie Evin of the homosexual-advocacy group EGALE Canada told the Register that “it will take some time for churches and religious groups to see there is nothing to fear. You would have to be spreading the most vile form of hatred to trigger this legislation, and even then, you could still get off the hook if it were based on an honestly held religious belief.”

However, the Catholic Civil Rights League's Murphy said the defenses provided in the legislation for religious belief do not extend to its provisions against statements “likely” to incite violence.

The chilling effect is already being felt by academics. Paul Nathanson of McGill University's religious studies department warns that political correctness has already threatened free inquiry in the university classroom, especially for comments deemed hostile to feminism.

“What constitutes hatred? It seems to be anything that makes someone uncomfortable,” he said. “But if we aren't free in the classroom, what's the point of having a university?”

Nathanson, a Jewish homosexual, opposes singling out homosexuals or any other group for protection.

Similarly, John Stackhouse, a professor of religion and society at Vancouver's Regent College, believes the new legislation could be used to silence scholarly comment as well as religious teaching.

“I've been assured that I would win any criminal case brought against me,” he said. “But will this law make me more liable to a civil suit?”

Stackhouse said the law renders Christian and other religious opponents of homosexuality “second-class Canadians” by solidifying the notion that a “good” Canadian is one who accepts all sexual behavior, along with all ethnic groups, as equally moral. Stackhouse believes the bill exemplifies the triumph of the baby-boomer generation's preoccupation with individual freedom.

However, “history is not linear,” he said. “It doesn't just go on in the same direction. There is renewal and revival. There is no reason ever to give up.”

Steve Weatherbe writes from Victoria, British Columbia.