How Democracy is undermined in the name of Human Rights

HOW DEMOCRACY IS UNDERMINED IN THE NAME OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Babette Francis

Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commissions are out of control in many countries. John Jalsevac writing in LifeSiteNews.com describes the situation in Canada: “For the most part Americans ignore Canada - not consciously, mind you. It's just that when you live in the midst of the broiling controversies of the world's most hyperactive hyper-power, it's not necessary to look elsewhere for topics of conversation - and least of all to demure, "nice" Canada.

“And so it was a pleasant surprise when the New York Times covered the growing tempest in Canada over the role of Canada's Human Rights Commission (CHRC) in enforcing so-called "human rights" law. For all of its liberal bias, as Ezra Levant pointed out on his blog, the Times "is still the standard of what is regarded as 'all the news that's fit to print.' In other words, when the NYT covers it, it's real news and it's big news, and it's OK for every other journalist to cover it."

“That the NY Times had taken a second look at an internal Canadian debate about a little known government entity, and some of the even lesser known and finer points of Canadian law, was an extraordinary testament to the success of the fledgling movement to "denormalize" the Human Rights Commissions. And while Levant may have been surprised that the issue had become a subject of international coverage on such a scale, he really had no one to thank but himself.

“Indeed, the worst thing that ever happened to the CHRC was when a Muslim imam by the name of Syed Sohawardy decided to file a human rights complaint against a magazine published by Levant. Sohawardy claimed that he was "offended" that the now-defunct Western Standard had dared republish the so-called "Danish cartoons" that depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad and that had been the ostensible catalyst for violent rioting by Muslims across the globe.

“As Levant relates in Shakedown - his recently published book on the human rights commissions - he honestly didn't think he'd have to spend more than five minutes dealing with what he really thought - as a reasonable, law-abiding Westerner living in what he considered a "free country" - was a mere "bureaucratic formality." After all, the cartoons were the hot news at the time, and Canada didn't operate according to Sharia law.

“Or so he thought. "All in all," he writes in Shakedown, "I ended up being investigated for nine hundred days by the CHRC, which, according to Access to Information documents I've received, had no fewer than fifteen government bureaucrats working on my case." “And that's not counting the tens of thousands of dollars - likely even into the six figures - that Levant had to spend defending himself and his magazine. Because in the curious world of the human rights commissions, the accused has to defend himself out-of-pocket, while the accuser gets his bills footed by the government. Which means that by How Democracy is undermined in the name of Human Rights the time the thing actually goes before the tribunal, the accused has already lost, even if he wins - which, by the way, probably won't happen anyway: until very recently every single "hate speech" case that had gone before the CHRC had resulted in a conviction.

“As soon as Levant realized that he was being forced to walk the gauntlet of a broken human rights system that was, ironically, perhaps the greatest threat to human rights in the country (yes, even beyond the various pathetic white supremecist sites that CHRC employees apparently spend their lazy afternoon hours baiting with racist comments) and that he was far from being the only victim, he never looked back. His recent book is the percolated and highly volatile result of several years spent fighting that system and learning the finer points of how it operates. The book is an informative, disturbing, and beautifully galvanizing read. “To me it really is a wonder that anyone from CHRC has shown their face in public since the release of Levant's book.

Shakedown is a damning and deeply embarassing indictment of a government entity that has become so bloated with its own power that it seems utterly incapable of conceiving that dragging ordinary Canadian citizens through the mud of absurdly lengthy, costly, and demeaning "investigations" into whether or not someone may or may not be "offended" by something they said, just might not be in anyone's best interests - except, of course, their own.

“Shakedown has been favorably reviewed in most of the major news publications from coast to coast. And the most remarkable thing is that Levant's sympathizers cross all ideological and political boundaries - and this even though most of the commission's "hate speech" victims have been political and social conservatives and Christians. Indeed, perhaps Levant's greatest accomplishment has been to transcend ideological boundaries, largely by showing that just because the commission is persecuting social conservatives now, doesn't mean that its persecutory mechanisms and lack of due process can't be turned on anyone, no matter where they fall on the political or ideological spectrum.

“For instance, glancing at Levant's blog I see that Christopher Hitchens - a man who can hardly be said to be sympathetic to the likes of Reverend Boissoin, a conservative Christian who was ordered by the CHRC never again to speak "disparaging" words about homosexuals - said in a recent interview, "I've just been reading Ezra Levant - very good book. I very much applauded his stand against this, how dare they call it a human rights commission. I like the way he talks and the way he thinks."

“And why not? I can't imagine myself ever agreeing with anything Hitchens ever says on social or religious issues - but most everyone can agree with him that the Canadian government shouldn't be poking their noses into the lives of Canadians every time someone goes crying to the Commission because they were "offended." That's not what grownups in a grownup country do. And we'd all like to think that Canada is a grownup country full of grownups. “In many ways that's the whole point about Levant's book.

It isn't just about the Human Rights Commissions. The whole thing falls into a much, much larger context. It's about an ideal. It's about what Canada was meant to be, has been for so long, and must continue to be in the future - a country where basic freedoms are respected, and citizens can live their lives free of the totalitarian interference of the government - in many cases the same totalitarianism that existed in their home country and brought them to the shores of Canada in the first place. And that is a discussion that every generation must have, if only in order to keep at bay the ever-creeping incursions of the powers-that-be. And, thanks to Ezra Levant, it is a discussion Canadians from coast to coast are having. I tip my hat to the man and heartily recommend his book.
Shakedown is available from Amazon.”

Ezra Levant’s ordeal described in Shakedown is reminiscent of the ordeal of the two Dannys in the Victorian case of the Islamic Council of Victoria v Catch the Fire Ministries. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on this case, instigated by Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Commisson, and to what purpose? The money would have been far better spent reducing hospital waiting times and helping parents with disabled children. There needs to be some priorities on how taxpayers’ money is spent.

In his magazine, The Australian Polity, Kevin Andrews, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services says that Fr. Frank Brennan, Chair of the Human Rights Consultation Committee, let the cat out of the bag after the government finally decided not to pursue a Bill or Charter of Rights, by admitting that “an enlightened judiciary” could overrule legislative decisions or regulatory programs e.g. on the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act [part of the Howard government’s policy to address indigenous disadvantage] and decisions on the detention of asylum seekers. Andrews says that such judicial decisions could be based on vague and abstract concepts of human rights.

Rabbi Shimon Cohen of the The Institute for Judaism and Civilization Inc., writes about the problems of treating criticisms of homosexuals as “hate crimes”: “Were homosexuality and homosexuals to be put in the class of hate-based crimes, it is very conceivable this would carry through to speech, which, based on genuine religious conviction, condemns homosexuality. The law would then be hard pressed to determine what constitutes speech which incites to violence and which does not. It could effectively
move to infringe freedom of speech and freedom of religion condemning the practice of homosexuality.....

“Our society and religious traditions believe in the inherent dignityof all persons. In religious terms, each person is made in the image of his or her Maker. Race makes no difference to this. Religion is the expression of the human soul, of conscience. To attack on the basis of religion is to attack the exercise of human conscience, it is an attack on the expression of the human soul. Attacks on account of race and religion attack inherent human entitlements, which are affirmed by our society and culture and international accords.

Possibly disability is also something which should come within this protection since the disabled person is also possessed of essential human dignity (in the image of G-d), and this may not be infringed. [There is] a difference between race, religion, disability – and homosexuality.

“Homosexuality may indeed constitute a strong impulse in certain people. There are many other impulses, such as the incestuous impulse, and unfortunately there is much documented abuse of children, testifying also to uncontrolled impulses. For thousands of years, however, civilization has maintained a norm, that whatever homosexual impulse may be experienced within a person, the expression of that impulse - the behaviour and practice of homosexuality - may not be condoned. A social movement of no more than 40 years has sought to overturn a millennial civilizational disapproval of the practice of homosexual behaviour....

“Religious tradition continues to oppose this behaviour, whilst at the same time feeling compassion for homosexuals as human beings. It maintains, however, that the practice of homosexuality is not an inherently worthy activity; it is not an inherent entitlement of a human being to practice this behaviour (however great the struggle may be for certain individuals) and its expression not part of the essential dignity and identity of a human being. To the contrary, this behaviour contradicts the essential identity of the human
being, made in the image of his or her Creator. ‘Hatred’ of homosexuality as a behaviour is very different to hatred of a human being on the grounds of race, religion or disability. The latter opposes the essential person. The former opposes a behaviour.

“The political intention in seeking classification of attacks against homosexuals as hate crimes, meriting extra sanctions, is to ‘educate society’ to a purported inherent dignity of the practice of homosexuality. This already finds expression in a program found in rural schools called ‘Way out’.

On the pretext of eliminating bullying of homosexual school children, it goes into the schools to educate that homosexuality is as normative as heterosexuality; it teaches young children, whose sexual identity is still fluid, that homosexual behaviour is intrinsically normal, just like heterosexual behaviour. The result is the cultivation of a homosexual norm amongst children. Similar to this, with regard to a much wider social program, is the intention of the homosexual lobby to bolster and institutionalize homosexuality through the law. This has already led to highly contentious legislation, providing the commissioning of children through surrogacy
and IVF for homosexual couples and the attempt to institute homosexual marriage.

“Moreover, it is highly probable that were the homosexual lobby to achieve hate-crime status for violence against homosexuals, it would then move to stop all speech educating against homosexual behaviour as “hate speech” against homosexuality. It would then have achieved the silencing of 3000 years of religious and cultural tradition, which has taught that this behaviour runs directly contrary to the norm by which a human being must struggle to live.

ENDEAVOUR FORUM NEWSLETTER No. 139, August 2010
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HOW DEMOCRACY IS UNDERMINED IN THE NAME OF HUMAN RIGHTS Babette Francis Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commissions are out of control in many countries. John Jalsevac writing in LifeSiteNews.com describes the situation in Canada: “For the most part Americans ignore Canada - not consciously, mind you. It's just that when you live in the midst of the broiling controversies of the world's most hyperactive hyper-power, it's not necessary to look elsewhere for topics of conversation - and least of all to demure, "nice" Canada. “And so it was a pleasant surprise when the New York Times covered the growing tempest in Canada over the role of Canada's Human Rights Commission (CHRC) in enforcing so-called "human rights" law. For all of its liberal bias, as Ezra Levant pointed out on his blog, the Times "is still the standard of what is regarded as 'all the news that's fit to print.' In other words, when the NYT covers it, it's real news and it's big news, and it's OK for every other journalist to cover it." “That the NY Times had taken a second look at an internal Canadian debate about a little known government entity, and some of the even lesser known and finer points of Canadian law, was an extraordinary testament to the success of the fledgling movement to "denormalize" the Human Rights Commissions. And while Levant may have been surprised that the issue had become a subject of international coverage on such a scale, he really had no one to thank but himself. “Indeed, the worst thing that ever happened to the CHRC was when a Muslim imam by the name of Syed Sohawardy decided to file a human rights complaint against a magazine published by Levant. Sohawardy claimed that he was "offended" that the now-defunct Western Standard had dared republish the so-called "Danish cartoons" that depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad and that had been the ostensible catalyst for violent rioting by Muslims across the globe. “As Levant relates in Shakedown - his recently published book on the human rights commissions - he honestly didn't think he'd have to spend more than five minutes dealing with what he really thought - as a reasonable, law-abiding Westerner living in what he considered a "free country" - was a mere "bureaucratic formality." After all, the cartoons were the hot news at the time, and Canada didn't operate according to Sharia law. “Or so he thought. "All in all," he writes in Shakedown, "I ended up being investigated for nine hundred days by the CHRC, which, according to Access to Information documents I've received, had no fewer than fifteen government bureaucrats working on my case." “And that's not counting the tens of thousands of dollars - likely even into the six figures - that Levant had to spend defending himself and his magazine. Because in the curious world of the human rights commissions, the accused has to defend himself out-of-pocket, while the accuser gets his bills footed by the government. Which means that by How Democracy is undermined in the name of Human Rights the time the thing actually goes before the tribunal, the accused has already lost, even if he wins - which, by the way, probably won't happen anyway: until very recently every single "hate speech" case that had gone before the CHRC had resulted in a conviction. “As soon as Levant realized that he was being forced to walk the gauntlet of a broken human rights system that was, ironically, perhaps the greatest threat to human rights in the country (yes, even beyond the various pathetic white supremecist sites that CHRC employees apparently spend their lazy afternoon hours baiting with racist comments) and that he was far from being the only victim, he never looked back. His recent book is the percolated and highly volatile result of several years spent fighting that system and learning the finer points of how it operates. The book is an informative, disturbing, and beautifully galvanizing read. “To me it really is a wonder that anyone from CHRC has shown their face in public since the release of Levant's book. Shakedown is a damning and deeply embarassing indictment of a government entity that has become so bloated with its own power that it seems utterly incapable of conceiving that dragging ordinary Canadian citizens through the mud of absurdly lengthy, costly, and demeaning "investigations" into whether or not someone may or may not be "offended" by something they said, just might not be in anyone's best interests - except, of course, their own. “Shakedown has been favorably reviewed in most of the major news publications from coast to coast. And the most remarkable thing is that Levant's sympathizers cross all ideological and political boundaries - and this even though most of the commission's "hate speech" victims have been political and social conservatives and Christians. Indeed, perhaps Levant's greatest accomplishment has been to transcend ideological boundaries, largely by showing that just because the commission is persecuting social conservatives now, doesn't mean that its persecutory mechanisms and lack of due process can't be turned on anyone, no matter where they fall on the political or ideological spectrum. “For instance, glancing at Levant's blog I see that Christopher Hitchens - a man who can hardly be said to be sympathetic to the likes of Reverend Boissoin, a conservative Christian who was ordered by the CHRC never again to speak "disparaging" words about homosexuals - said in a recent interview, "I've just been reading Ezra Levant - very good book. I very much applauded his stand against this, how dare they call it a human rights commission. I like the way he talks and the way he thinks." “And why not? I can't imagine myself ever agreeing with anything Hitchens ever says on social or religious issues - but most everyone can agree with him that the Canadian government shouldn't be poking their noses into the lives of Canadians every time someone goes crying to the Commission because they were "offended." That's not what grownups in a grownup country do. And we'd all like to think that Canada is a grownup country full of grownups. “In many ways that's the whole point about Levant's book. It isn't just about the Human Rights Commissions. The whole thing falls into a much, much larger context. It's about an ideal. It's about what Canada was meant to be, has been for so long, and must continue to be in the future - a country where basic freedoms are respected, and citizens can live their lives free of the totalitarian interference of the government - in many cases the same totalitarianism that existed in their home country and brought them to the shores of Canada in the first place. And that is a discussion that every generation must have, if only in order to keep at bay the ever-creeping incursions of the powers-that-be. And, thanks to Ezra Levant, it is a discussion Canadians from coast to coast are having. I tip my hat to the man and heartily recommend his book. Shakedown is available from Amazon.” Ezra Levant’s ordeal described in Shakedown is reminiscent of the ordeal of the two Dannys in the Victorian case of the Islamic Council of Victoria v Catch the Fire Ministries. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on this case, instigated by Victoria’s Equal Opportunity Commisson, and to what purpose? The money would have been far better spent reducing hospital waiting times and helping parents with disabled children. There needs to be some priorities on how taxpayers’ money is spent. In his magazine, The Australian Polity, Kevin Andrews, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services says that Fr. Frank Brennan, Chair of the Human Rights Consultation Committee, let the cat out of the bag after the government finally decided not to pursue a Bill or Charter of Rights, by admitting that “an enlightened judiciary” could overrule legislative decisions or regulatory programs e.g. on the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act [part of the Howard government’s policy to address indigenous disadvantage] and decisions on the detention of asylum seekers. Andrews says that such judicial decisions could be based on vague and abstract concepts of human rights. Rabbi Shimon Cohen of the The Institute for Judaism and Civilization Inc., writes about the problems of treating criticisms of homosexuals as “hate crimes”: “Were homosexuality and homosexuals to be put in the class of hate-based crimes, it is very conceivable this would carry through to speech, which, based on genuine religious conviction, condemns homosexuality. The law would then be hard pressed to determine what constitutes speech which incites to violence and which does not. It could effectively move to infringe freedom of speech and freedom of religion condemning the practice of homosexuality..... “Our society and religious traditions believe in the inherent dignityof all persons. In religious terms, each person is made in the image of his or her Maker. Race makes no difference to this. Religion is the expression of the human soul, of conscience. To attack on the basis of religion is to attack the exercise of human conscience, it is an attack on the expression of the human soul. Attacks on account of race and religion attack inherent human entitlements, which are affirmed by our society and culture and international accords. Possibly disability is also something which should come within this protection since the disabled person is also possessed of essential human dignity (in the image of G-d), and this may not be infringed. [There is] a difference between race, religion, disability – and homosexuality. “Homosexuality may indeed constitute a strong impulse in certain people. There are many other impulses, such as the incestuous impulse, and unfortunately there is much documented abuse of children, testifying also to uncontrolled impulses. For thousands of years, however, civilization has maintained a norm, that whatever homosexual impulse may be experienced within a person, the expression of that impulse - the behaviour and practice of homosexuality - may not be condoned. A social movement of no more than 40 years has sought to overturn a millennial civilizational disapproval of the practice of homosexual behaviour.... “Religious tradition continues to oppose this behaviour, whilst at the same time feeling compassion for homosexuals as human beings. It maintains, however, that the practice of homosexuality is not an inherently worthy activity; it is not an inherent entitlement of a human being to practice this behaviour (however great the struggle may be for certain individuals) and its expression not part of the essential dignity and identity of a human being. To the contrary, this behaviour contradicts the essential identity of the human being, made in the image of his or her Creator. ‘Hatred’ of homosexuality as a behaviour is very different to hatred of a human being on the grounds of race, religion or disability. The latter opposes the essential person. The former opposes a behaviour. “The political intention in seeking classification of attacks against homosexuals as hate crimes, meriting extra sanctions, is to ‘educate society’ to a purported inherent dignity of the practice of homosexuality. This already finds expression in a program found in rural schools called ‘Way out’. On the pretext of eliminating bullying of homosexual school children, it goes into the schools to educate that homosexuality is as normative as heterosexuality; it teaches young children, whose sexual identity is still fluid, that homosexual behaviour is intrinsically normal, just like heterosexual behaviour. The result is the cultivation of a homosexual norm amongst children. Similar to this, with regard to a much wider social program, is the intention of the homosexual lobby to bolster and institutionalize homosexuality through the law. This has already led to highly contentious legislation, providing the commissioning of children through surrogacy and IVF for homosexual couples and the attempt to institute homosexual marriage. “Moreover, it is highly probable that were the homosexual lobby to achieve hate-crime status for violence against homosexuals, it would then move to stop all speech educating against homosexual behaviour as “hate speech” against homosexuality. It would then have achieved the silencing of 3000 years of religious and cultural tradition, which has taught that this behaviour runs directly contrary to the norm by which a human being must struggle to live.
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