TORONTO, Canada, May 4, 2004 — A controversial Private Member's Bill was passed by the Senate last week causing concern among many Canadian Christians that the Bible and its teachings could come under fire.
Bill C-250 was passed 59-11 (with three abstentions) by the Senate last Wednesday, and now requires only the formality of royal assent to become law. The bill's passage amends section 318 of the Criminal Code to include "sexual orientation" in the list of identifiable groups protected against those who would "advocate or promote genocide." These identifiable groups are also protected under section 319, which makes it a criminal offence to utter public statements that "incite hatred" or "wilfully promote hatred" against any identifiable group.
At first glance, this seems entirely reasonable, but critics of the bill fear the impact that it could have on freedom of religion and freedom of speech in Canada. At the root of these fears are ambiguities in the wording of C-250 that could lead to a conflict between homosexual rights and religious rights. These ambiguities have the potential to silence reasonable debate and the traditional teachings of the Bible and the Church by making the expression of moral disapproval of certain forms of sexual activity a criminal offence.
Lacking a clear definition of criminal hatred, the bill is particularly ambiguous as it relates to what public statements could be considered criminal. Christians fear that passages in the Bible concerning homosexual acts could be considered hate propaganda under the new legislation.
"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," says Bruce Clemenger, President of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC). "We as a religious community want to ensure that the purpose of prohibiting hate speech does not criminalize the legitimate expression of religious belief, the resulting views of morality nor religious texts."
Biblical texts have some defence under the bill. Charges cannot be laid under Section 318 without the consent of the Attorney General, and an amendment to the bill in the House of Commons added a defence for good faith arguments expressed "based on a belief in a religious text" (though this defence only applies against the wilfull promotion of hatred). However, critics charge that these defences do not go far enough to guarantee that Biblical texts and statements made based on Scripture will be exempt.
In an April 28 press release, the Christian Legal Fellowship observed that "recent jurisprudence demonstrates that when there is a so-called 'collision of dignities' between homosexual rights and religious rights, homosexual rights will generally prevail. The resulting concern is that this defence would be potentially inadequate even within places of worship or religious instruction."
The Canadian Bible Society, Focus on the Family, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and EFC all expressed similar concerns.
"Christians have seen their rights to dissent restricted in case after case in the courts," says Dr. Janet Epp Buckingham of EFC. "We no longer trust that the guarantee of religious freedom in the Charter is necessarily going to apply to protect free speech."
"Unfortunately, most Liberals in both the Senate and the House of Commons chose to support an NDP-sponsored law that could put fundamental Canadian freedoms in jeopardy," said Conservative Justice Critic, Vic Toews. "I am very disappointed in the Liberals' obstruction of Conservative efforts to amend the bill - amendments that would have protected freedom of religion as well as secular free speech in Canada."
Furthering the controversy around the bill is the way in which it was passed with limited public consultation despite an unprecedented outpouring of concern from thousands of Canadians.
The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs had the bill before it for a very short period of time, cutting its hearings dramatically short and hearing few of the more than 2,300 people who applied to appear as witnesses. Some 2,164 of these applicants opposed the bill versus only five in favour of it (the remainder had no stated position). Thousands of people from across Canada protested the bill at Parliament Hill on April 17, a week and a half before the Senate passed it.
"This bill was pushed through Parliament with little public consultation," notes Derek Rogusky, Vice President of Family Policy for Focus on the Family. "It's unfortunate that both Senators and MPs rejected the concerns of thousands of Canadians, and ignored the huge flood of correspondence they received about this bill. Canadians are now stuck with this poorly-worded legislation, and [rather than a democratically elected body] it's left to the courts to define what is and what isn't hate propaganda."
In spite of the bill's flaws, Christian organizations are still encouraging Canadians to live out their faith. "We don't know yet how this law will be used and interpreted by the courts," says Phyllis Nesbitt, National Director of the Bible Society, "hopefully our concerns will prove unfounded. In the meanwhile, the Society exhorts Canadians to pray that law enforcement and government officials will ensure that the law is not abused, and to continue to hold up the Bible and its teachings as authoritative and worthy of reference and application in our daily lives."
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