Canadian Victory for Christian Freedom: Bible = Hate Literature Ruling ReversedBy John-Henry WestenREGINA, April 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One of the most concerning court decisions against religious freedom in Canada has been reversed. The highest court in the province of Saskatchewan has reversed a 2002 decision by the Court of Queen's Bench which ruled that a man who placed references to Bible verses on homosexuality into a newspaper ad was guilty of inciting hatred.
The December 11, 2002 decision was in response to an appeal of a 2001 Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (HRC) ruling which ordered both the Saskatoon StarPhoenix newspaper and Hugh Owens of Regina to pay $1,500 to three homosexual activists for publishing an ad in the Saskatoon newspaper quoting bible verses regarding homosexuality.
The human rights board of inquiry held that Mr. Owens had violated s. 14(1)(b) of The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. It prohibits the publication or display of a sign or statement which exposes or tends to expose to hatred, or which ridicules, belittles, or otherwise affronts the dignity of persons on the basis of various grounds. One of those grounds is sexual orientation.
In 1997, Mr. Owens placed an advertisement in a Saskatoon paper which reflected his religiously-based views on homosexuality.
The purpose of the ad was to indicate that the Bible says no to homosexual behaviour. The advertisement displayed references to four Bible passages: Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, on the left side. An equal sign (=) was situated in the middle, with a symbol on the right side. The symbol was comprised of two males holding hands with the universal symbol of a red circle with a diagonal bar superimposed over top.
The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan released its 37 page decision in Hugh Owens v. Saskatchewan today.
The ruling stressed that s. 14(1)(b) had to be read and interpreted in a way which respected the fundamental freedoms of speech and religion as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result, citing Supreme Court authority, the Court said s. 14(1)(b) must be read as applying only in cases where the message in question involved extreme emotions and strong feelings of detestation, calumny and vilification. The Court also stressed that any message impugned under s. 14(1)(b) must be carefully examined with regard to its full context in order to determine whether the section has been offended.
The Court concluded that, although his advertisement was jarring and offensive to many, Mr. Owens had not acted contrary to s. 14(1)(b).
Since the previous court ruling had indicated that the Bible verses themselves expose "homosexuals to hatred", Christian legal experts were concerned that the Bible itself may be banned due to the passage of the hate propaganda legislation in Canada.
See the full ruling online:
http://204.83.249.88/judgments/2006/CA2006/01asp.pdf
Court Reverses Ruling Against Bible VersesA ruling that essentially classified references to Bible verses on homosexuality as provocations of hatred was reversed yesterday by the highest court in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.As WorldNetDaily reported, under Saskatchewan's Human Rights Code, Hugh Owens of Regina, an evangelical Christian and corrections officer, was found guilty along with the newspaper Saskatoon StarPhoenix for publishing in 1997 an ad inciting hatred and was forced to pay damages of 1,500 Canadian dollars to each of three homosexual men who filed a complaint. The decision was upheld by a Canadian court in 2002.
The ad's theme was that the Bible says no to homosexual behavior. It listed the references – not the text itself – to four Bible passages, Romans 1, Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. An equal sign was placed between the verse references and a stick drawing of two males holding hands overlaid with the universal nullification symbol – a red circle with a diagonal bar.
The rights code allows for expression of honestly held beliefs, but the commission ruled that the code can place "reasonable restriction" on Owens's religious expression, because the ad exposed the complainants "to hatred, ridicule, and their dignity was affronted on the basis of their sexual orientation."
Owens appealed the tribunal's decision but the Court of Queen's Bench upheld it in December 2002.
Yesterday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal reversed that ruling.
Justice Bob Richards said the ad was "bluntly presented and doubtlessly upsetting to many," but it didn't violate the code.
A couple of months after the December 2002 ruling, a columnist noted in the Edmonton Journal last week that decision generated virtually no news stories and "not a single editorial."
Imagine "the hand-wringing if ever a federal court labeled the Quran hate literature and forced a devout Muslim to pay a fine for printing some of his book's more astringent passages in an ad in a daily newspaper," wrote Lorne Gunter.
In 2001, Owens explained his ad was "a Christian response" to Homosexual Pride Week.
"I put the biblical references, but not the actual verses, so the ad would become interactive," he told the National Catholic Register after the 2001 ruling. "I figured somebody would have to look them up in the Bible first, or if they didn't have a Bible, they'd have to find one."
Owens's ad referred to the New International Version, which renders Leviticus 20:13, this way, "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
"Owens denies that, as a Christian, he wants homosexuals put to death, as some inferred from the biblical passages," the Catholic paper said. He believes, however, that "eternal salvation is at stake," both for those engaging in homosexual acts and for himself, if he fails to inform them about "what God says about their behavior."
Exposure to hatred
Justice J. Barclay, in the lower-court opinion, said the human-rights panel "was correct in concluding that the advertisement can objectively be seen as exposing homosexuals to hatred or ridicule."
"When the use of the circle and slash is combined with the passages of the Bible, it exposes homosexuals to detestation, vilification and disgrace," Barclay said. "In other words, the biblical passage which suggests that if a man lies with a man they must be put to death exposes homosexuals to hatred."
In the tribunal's 2001 ruling, Saskatchewan Human Rights Board of Inquiry commissioner Valerie Watson emphasized that the panel was not banning parts of the Bible. She wrote that the offense was the combination of the symbol and the biblical references. Owens, in fact, published an ad in 2001, without complaint, that quoted the full text of the passages he cited in the offending 1997 ad.
But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sided with Christian groups that criticized the panel for stifling free speech.
Owens' case was one of a number in which the beliefs of Christians clashed with provincial human-rights codes.
In 2001, the Ontario Human Rights Commission penalized printer Scott Brockie $5,000 for refusing to print letterhead for a homosexual advocacy group. Brockie argued that his Christian beliefs compelled him to reject the group's request.
In 1998, an Ontario man was convicted of hate crimes for an incident in which he distributed pamphlets about Islam outside a high school. In one of the pamphlets, defendant Mark Harding listed atrocities committed in the name of Islam in foreign lands to back his assertion that Canadians should be wary of local Muslims.