Go ahead, make my day

If Islamism weren’t such a serious issue you would have to laugh out loud at Islamist’ spokespeople, like Sheik Feiz Muhammad, pictured above.

The Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is facing criminal charges under restrictive Dutch speech laws. He said rude things about Islam and produced a short video which shows Islamic texts, Imams preaching jihad and the results of terrorist activities carried out in the name of Islam. Gilders maintains that Islam is antithetical to the tradition of liberal democracy and justice in the Netherlands and he equates some of the most egregious examples drawn from the Koran, the Hadith and the Sharia as being equivalent to the kinds of statements and arguments one would find in Hitler’s famous book, Mein Kampf. Hitler’s book is banned in the Netherlands.

As if on cue, a notorious Australian imam, Muhammad, has called for Wilders to be beheaded. This is a serious thing to say – just ask author Salman Rushdie who still has a death sentence hanging over him from the utterings of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

Do you think Muhammad is making Gilders’ point about the nature of Islam?

Contrast this with the reaction of Christians to the news that well-known anti-Christian author, Christopher Hitchens, is dying of cancer. Many have offered prayers for his recovery.

I guess we will just have to wait for the 22nd century for the rubes to catch up

In the 21st century it is amazing how the world of magic still pervades the most scientifically and technologically advanced societies.

When I first saw the documentary Jesus Camp, I scoffed at the fundamentalist Protestant Reverend Rebecca Fletcher, putting defensive spells (blessings) on her laptop computer and the building’s electrical panel so that the Devil wouldn’t screw with her PowerPoint presentation. Later she is seen admonishing her young charges to avoid Harry Potter, a young man in fiction known to put defensive spells around his friends to ward off evil.

Yet here we are again, with a recent interview with the Vatican’s chief exorcist, telling us of all the demons he has cast out from people they possessed. He claims to know of 70,000 cases where demons possessed humans.

Such people are only a brain cell or two away from considering the burning of witches to be a heritage ceremony to be lamented for its decline.

I have just finished reading Richard Dawkins’ excellent new book, The Greatest Show on Earth, which is a tour de force in setting out the scientific evidence for evolution, 200 years after the birth of its discoverer, Charles Darwin.

In an appendix, Dawkins reports a number of polls that have been conducted in the United States, the United Kingdom and worldwide asking people, in different ways whether they think evolution is true. Depressingly, scientifically and technologically advanced nations such as the U.S. and the U.K. score poorly, with more people doubting evolution as described by Darwin’s natural selection than other explanations. He shows Turkey as being very low on the evolution acceptance scale with only 27% accepting evolution and 51% rejecting it.

U.S. and U.K figures are not much better, but Dawkins suspects that the Turkish numbers would be typical for Islamic countries. He cites the case of an organization in Britain called the Al-Nasr Trust which has produced leaflets that are distributed by Muslim medical students claiming Darwin’s theory is false. He point out that the ANT is a registered charity, so it is a tax-subsidized entity arguing against solid science within scientific education facilities. There isn't anything useful in science produced from Islamic societies in the last 1,000 years, but there they are mocking the discovery of one of the most important scientists of all time, and being fiancially rewarded by the government of the U.K. for their efforts.

Dawkins says it is very easy for a religious organization to obtain charitable status under Britain’s laws (which were copied nearly verbatim in Canada), whereas a bona vide charity (one that actually does real charitable work, such as advancing education) must jump through a number of hoops in order to obtain the same status.

He writes:

I recently established a charitable foundation dedicated to promoting “Reason and Science”. During the protracted, extremely expensive, and ultimately successful negotiation to obtain charitable status, I received a letter from the British Charity Commission…which contained the following: “It is not clear how the advancement of science tends towards the mental and moral improvement of the public. Please provide us with evidence of this or explain how it is linked to the advancement of humanism and rationalism.” Religious organizations, by contrast, are assumed to benefit humanity without any obligation to demonstrate it and even, apparently, if they are actively engaged in promoting scientific falsehood.

In light of the magic spell casting, still conducted by elements of the Christian faith one could add to that, “even if they are actively involved in spreading about the most archaic and nonsensical ideas.”

Those annoying Christians

So, how does your organization feel about the representation of Canada shown in the opening ceremonies of the Olympics? Inuit art was strongly featured and is totally blended with their religious culture. It was used to represent our northern culture but doesn't represent the majority of Canadians either...yet we show it off to the world as if it is somehow intrinsic to our Canadian existance. Why should their religious beliefs be shown to the world when you would like to quash any mention of our larger and still majority Christian beliefs? I'm sick of the minority telling the majority we have to be tolerant of their beliefs when they are openly hostile to those of the majority. Suck it up...our anthem is beautiful and "God keep our Land" reflects the beliefs of a majority of Canadians in "a" God. I question your statistics. Whether or not Canadians believe in the Christian God, most believe in some kind of higher power or "god" and thus the term God is not offensive to them. Even the Muslims believe in a God named Allah. True Atheists are a very small minority.

The foregoing was a comment -- reproduced exactly as received -- that came to me from a Christian regarding an old posting on this blog about the initiative of the Canadian Secular Alliance to get God written out of the National Anthem of Canada.

I am going to assume the writer to be male for the sake of clarity in what I say next.

I think he displays a level of bigotry towards those of different beliefs or non-belief that ought to be worrying when he couples it with a reference to majority rule.

This is a liberal democracy and one of its hallmarks is that society tries to balance different rights and expectations amongst the citizenry. Clearly, we don’t all share the same beliefs and some of us, like the writer above, disdain those that don’t conform to his own beliefs. He may be “sick” of this balancing act, but I would pass back to him the same advice he gave me; namely, suck it up, because you live in the best country in the world where people of all nations, creeds, cultures and ethnic origins freely go about their lives, cherishing the values, institutions and benefits of our liberal democracy.

Those of us who do not believe in a supreme being don’t wish to “quash any mention” of Christian beliefs. The writer is free to go to any street corner in any town and city in this country, or stand outside any liquor store, and sing Onward Christian Soldiers at the top of his lungs. I can always walk away from him if the lyrics offend me. He can go to his house of worship and do the same thing. I don’t have to enter it and listen. He can pray in his own home, office, car, boat, RV, tent, or what have you.

This is a free country and, even though I don’t believe in flapping angels, talking snakes and all the other colourful stuff handed down to us from the ancient sandal-wearing, Bronze Age, desert-dwellers, I support your freedom to believe any old wives’ tales, myths, legends or other magical kingdom nonsense as you wish.

I don’t have any issue with you freely practicing your religion anywhere with the exception that it should not intrude on public institutions or into public places and in public practices that ought to remain secular and free from religious dogma and to which I may wish to resort or enjoy without first having to pay deference to your deity.

The National Anthem belongs to all Canadians, not just Christian Canadians, or any other deists. So why, if I wish to express my patriotism by singing it in public, am I required to pay homage to God? The words were first penned in 1908 and it wasn’t until the 1980s that the Christians in Parliament decided to inflict their religious beliefs on the rest of us by inserting God into the song.

It is particularly galling to me since I used to sing it joyously at school when it was just a rousing anthem to the country and had not been converted into a song of prayer to the Christian God. Now, I don’t sing it because I find myself stumbling over the God line.

Christians ought to become more familiar with their own religious textbook, the Bible, if they intend spout off on this subject. Matthew 6:6 advises that prayer is supposed to be a private matter, not a public demonstration. You can’t get more public in prayer than invoking God to keep your country strong and free in its national anthem.

The writer displays that all-too-common Christian victim mentality; it is Christians who are being denied their rightful place in the firmament. Get over yourselves. The Roman Empire disappeared nearly two millennia ago. You have come a long way from days of being thrown to the lions, brothers and sisters.

It is pretty funny, not to mention highly annoying, when you consider that Christians are forever banging on your door wanting to push their literature at you. They accost you on street corners, or set up kiosks and booths at public events. They put up billboards declaiming all sorts of radical testimony about the Devil and Darwin. They have their own radio shows and television networks, and on Sunday mornings you really have to channel surf to get away from them.

When was the last time your peace and tranquility was interrupted by a pair of atheist strangers at your front door wanting to engage you in discussion about your beliefs and shoving their secular pamphlets into your hands?

When I drive out in the country I am treated to giant signs urging me to “Repent and accept Christ”. Barns are painted with “Christ is the Answer” slogans. I stop behind cars and read “Jesus is my co-pilot” bumper stickers. Just above that is the little fish symbol. When I spend the weekend at my in-laws in a little town of 500 population, my Sunday morning rest is shattered by loud church bells ringing from a half a dozen nearby Christian churches.

Everywhere I go my senses of sight and sound are assaulted by the Christian God, intruding on my enjoyment of the public space, and offending my sense of reason and my beliefs.

Yet, a year or so ago, when a group of freethinkers decided to have a little fun and launched a short bus ad campaign suggesting the non-existence of God, you would have thought they were advocating the destruction of western civilization. The evangelical leader, Charles McVety, thundered against them as “attack ads”, the Catholic Bishop of Calgary exclaimed how offensive he found these ads. Nearly half the municipalities declined to approve the application for the ads even though some of them had previously approved religious advertising on transit vehicles.

It is odd that these ads can be considered an attack on Christianity, but all of those public promotions of God and Jesus, so beloved of Christians, that I have mentioned, are never seen by them as an attack on atheists. They are.

If it were limited simply to that level of hypocrisy, it might be endurable. But that is not enough for them. Christians get themselves elected or appointed to various boards and commissions and immediately start trying to censor books from public libraries or school libraries that my taxes have paid for. They even go to the extent of trying to ban a writer’s work, not because he wrote anything particularly derogatory about a religion, but because he publicly declared himself to be an atheist.

When did you ever hear of an activist atheist on such a body trying to restrict the circulation of the Bible or other religiously-themed works, or trying to ban works that were not religious, but were written by authors who are Christians? In the United States the activism of Christians has effectively shut down the teaching of the science of evolution in public and high school science classes in many states.

One Christian denomination in Ontario has its own entire school system funded at public expense, even putting the nation in violation of an international treaty to which it is a signatory. Religion is protected as a public charity under the taxing statutes so that its income is sheltered from normal taxation. Its vast property holdings are free from municipal taxation. Religion, and particularly the majority Christian faith, live large and fat off the taxpayers of this country. And we, the non-religious, are expected to have to make up some of the shortfall in tax revenue as a result of these shelters for God with not only no thanks from Christians, but with a sneer.

Who is the real victim in all of this?

It is high time we put an end to the public subsidization of religion. Atheists and the other non-religious folks don’t give a rat’s rectum about your beliefs and your belief institutions, or your entitlement to them, but they should not have to pay for them. You can pay your own way. After all, as you say, you are the great majority, so it shouldn’t be that difficult for you to pony up enough to keep your crosses flying and your fish swimming without picking my pocket while you are scorning me in the process.

Atheists are in indeed a small minority, but including them amongst the category of people who declare no religious affiliation leads to a much larger number. The official statistics can be found in the 2001 Canadian census. Here is an extract from the government of Canada website encapsulating those census results:

In 2001, 7 out of every 10 people still identified themselves as either Roman Catholic or Protestant.

Census data showed a continuation of a long-term downward trend in the population who report Protestant denominations. The number of Roman Catholics increased slightly during the 1990s, but their share of the total population fell marginally.
At the same time, the number of Canadians who reported religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism has increased substantially.

Much of the shift in the nation's religious makeup during the past several decades is the result of the changing sources of immigrants, which has created a more diverse religious profile. As well, many major Protestant denominations that were dominant in the country 70 years ago, such as Anglican and United Church, are declining in numbers, in part because their members are aging and fewer young people are identifying with these denominations.

In addition, far more Canadians reported that they had no religion. This group accounted for 16% of the population in 2001, compared with 12% a decade earlier.
In 2001, Roman Catholics were still the largest religious group, drawing the faith of just under 12.8 million people, or 43% of the population, down from 45% in 1991. The proportion of Protestants, the second largest group, declined from 35% of the population to 29%, or about 8.7 million people.

Combined, the two groups represented 72% of the total population in 2001, compared with 80% a decade earlier.

The population of Canada in 2001 was 30 million, which means that 4,800,000 people ticked the “no religion” box on the form. This is the largest demographic grouping after Christians and is a far larger body of people than all the other religions combined. It is also the fastest growing demographic, as this 2008 Harris-Decima poll indicates.

The next religious census will occur in 2011 and I would fully expect to see much larger numbers of non-believers and a continued erosion of Christian dominance.

Addendum (March 8)

In response to a comment below by Bruce challenging my assertion that there are many states in the U.S. that do not teach evoloution, I reproduce this map that was first published in 2002 in the Scientific American. I do acknowledge, however, that I may be displaying a bias when I attribute the non-teaching to Christian influence on education.

Toronto's taqiyyameister

Imam Said Rageah delivered a sermon in Toronto recently and stirred a hornet's nest when it was analysed in The National Post. He was a addressing an inititative of the
Muslim Canadian Congress, an Islamic reform group, headquartered in Toronto, which has petitioned the federal government to outlaw the burka and the niqab.

Here is a passage from that sermon:

"We have to establish Islam [in Canada]. I wanna see Islam in every single corner of the city; I would like to see niqabis, and hijabis [women wearing face masks and head covering] everywhere in the city. I want to see ‘brothers' [Muslim men] in beards everywhere in the city. Because when they see more of us, they will have more respect for us. They will say, ‘look they are everywhere...we cannot go against them'."

During his sermon he referred to non-Muslims as "kuffars" and advised his congregants not to make common cause with them on the MCC's proposal, because allying themselves with non-Muslims violates Islamic principles or laws. As a result of the reaction he received, he posted this reply in the same newspaper. My comments follow the letter.

Imam Said Rageah responds
Posted: October 23, 2009, 11:30 PM by Ron Nurwisah
Islam
Oct 23rd, 2009 --5 Dhul Qa’dah, 1430

Dear Congregants and Visitors of Other Faiths,

Recently, there was a news article describing my sermon and my practice of Islam as one that seeks to incite hatred. Usually, seeking to answer agenda-driven critics would only serve to distract me from my work of proclaiming the Shahadah, applying what it means in my personal life and also attempting to teach others in a practical and appropriate manner in an environment where practicing Islam can sometimes be portrayed unfairly as a threat.

In my little corner of our beautiful city of Toronto, I sometimes sit back and contemplate the course of my life. I live in a multicultural melting pot with a personal reality that is unique and diverse in many ways. For example, my father-in-law and mother-in-law are Christians, with whom I have a very respectful and loving relationship. When I talk with them, I reflect and ponder on the nature of the lives of my children and their development. Our unique Canadian montage will allow them to live in a society, where in spite of the circumstances of their birth or their heritage, they will find their own footing in the Canadian mosaic. They will carve out their own Islamic identity, an identity that will be free from persecution and enslavement of thought.

As stated in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. And among the fundamental principles which are the cornerstones of this society are the right to free speech, free thought, free expression and the ability to practice one’s own religious beliefs, all within reasonable, justifiable limits. I share and promote these values as they are also Islamic values.

I will be delivering a sermon today that will touch upon these issues and the recent controversies. What can be explored in 30 minutes cannot be easily compressed into a one-page statement, but let me try:

1. The expression “kuffar” is based on an operational definition, of what people do to hide something, like the truth about God (“Allah” in Arabic). In Arabic/Islamic terminology, it does not categorically refer to Christians and Jews, nor does it exclude Muslims.

2. Muslims are closer in belief and practice to observant Christians and Jews than they are to each other and Muslims respect each people as having received Revelation from the same God, and are correctly referred to as “People of the Book”.

3. Men and women in Islam are required to act and dress modestly. There are a range of interpretations, including hijab and niqab for women. The choice whether to veil, and the type of veil, should be entirely for each individual Muslim woman to make of her own free will.

4. Politics are shaped by public opinion and public opinion is shaped by the media. Rather than leaving ignorance to fill the vacuum, Muslims must fully engage in Canadian society with wisdom and the best of speech, to foster mutual respect and understanding and shape an even better country.

I invite you all to learn and share more about your faith and yourselves.

May God’s Peace and Blessings Be Upon Us All

Said Rageah

On the one hand he wants to portray himself as being a cosmopolitan citizen of Canada's leading cosmopolitan city. On the other, he professes ignorance that the word "Kuffar" would be considered derogatory by many in this community of which he claims to be a member. Well which is it?

If Muslims are closer to Christians and Jews than to each other, how does he explain the fact that there are virtually no Jews living in Middle Eastern countries where Islam prevails and the Christians that are there are migrating because of local hostility and lack of security and support from Muslim authorities. This alleged common God worship does not seem translate into peace and harmony amongst the religions of Abraham in the cradle of Islam.

Nobody in Canada who is not a Muslim would disagree that the manner of dress of an individual Muslim woman should be her choice. But there are Muslims who do not believe it is a free choice (the MCC) and there are suspicions that honour killings in the name of the religion have occurred here where Muslim women have chosen not to wear reliously-inspired culture-specific garments; e.g., Aqsa Parvez.

Why is this aspect of Islam never addressed by these religious guys? Instead, they spout back at us the principles by which we, not they, live, as if there is nothing more to be said on that subject.

Muslims must fully engage in Canadian society with wisdom and the best of speech, to foster mutual respect and understanding and shape an even better country.

Now that is a mouthful coming from a man who refers to other Canadians as Kuffars and avises his congregants to avoid making friends, allies or common cause with them because they are Kuffars.

He says he shares the Canadian principle of freedom of expression because this is an Islamic value. Since the bedrock of Islam is blind obedience to the word of God, how did freedom of expression get embedded in Islam?

Just this week we learned that U.S. authorities arrested two Muslim men who were plotting to kill the publisher of and one of the artists of the famous Danish cartoons. One of the men is a Canadian citizen from Toronto.

Perhaps the good Imam would spend some of his time in his 30 minute sermons explaining why Islam would frown on such people who believe killing to crush freedom of expression is an Islamic value.

In searching for information on this Imam, I turned up this website that identifies an Imam Said Regeah as a fundraiser for a charity that was later designated as terrorist support agency.

Tarek Fatah, Canada's leading reformist Muslim, also has some interesting things to say about this fellow's preachings.

So, Ezra, where are the Muslims radicals?

On February 3, I took issue with Ezra Levant for mocking atheists with their bus ad campaign. Ezra’s main point was that atheists should be attacking Islamists.

I tried to put paid to the notion that Islamists were a problem for atheists in Canada, that atheists still had issues with the majority Christians.

Since that post, the Canadian initiator of the campaign, Justin Trottier, has written an op-ed piece in the Ottawa Citizen pointing out that the neutral reference to God in the ads could just as easily apply to the God of Jews, Muslims and Christians. He is correct. He is also correct in stating that the purpose of the ads was not to attack any religion, but simply to promote discussion around the concept of God and morality.

I have been following the editorials across the country on this matter, as well as the letters to the editors, and in each and every case where a religious person weighed in on the issue, either for or against, they were Christians. I have yet to see an opinion expressed by a Muslim. I think this vindicates my view that Christians are more concerned with atheism, and its potential impact, than are the other religions.

Oh, yes, and as far as I been able to determine to date, Ezra is the only Jew who has commented. Unfortunately, he found himself on the wrong side of this one.

Gregorius Nekschot -- another nail in the coffin of Dutch free expression.

Gregorius Nekschot, a Dutch artist, was arrested for underground cartooning at the behest of -- wait for it -- the Dutch Intergovernmental Cartoon Problem Bureau. I kid you not. You couldn't make that one up if you tried. Go to this site for the full story and see Nekschot, burqua clad, delivering a speech to a free press gathering in Copenhagen.

On bigotry and buses

Canadian atheists are launching a transit campaign like the one started in Britain and copied in Spain and the United States. Buses will carry advertising suggesting that there is probably no God, so just enjoy the life we have now. In short, stop fussing about the supposed one in the hereafter. The point of the adverts is to simply cause people to think about the concept of God and any religious notions they may harbour. It is also to give more prominence to atheism, a creed which has been kept in the closet or under the stairs for centuries.

Christians are bewildered by what they see as “in your face” efforts by atheists, their organizations (yes, they do have organizations – I’ll bet you didn’t know that) and their prominent spokespeople to let the world know they exist and that they have something to say. Christians have never before been faced with organized atheism in a liberal-democracy.

But true to form, the instant reaction of Christian spokespeople is to resort to censorship, since burning heretics at the stake is no longer fashionable (damn!), as reported in the Globe and Mail.

Upon hearing that the Toronto Transit Commission had approved the atheist ads, Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, which fought against the legalization of same-sex marriages, said his group has not decided whether it will formally complain about the ads once they appear.

"On the surface, I'm all for free speech. ... However, though, these are attack ads," Dr. McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Toronto, said in an interview yesterday.

"These ads are not saying what the atheists believe, they are attacking what other people believe," he said. "And if you look at the dictionary definition for ... bigot, that's exactly what it is, to be intolerant of someone else's belief system."

There is no doubt that Mr. McVety will complain to the TTC, notwithstanding his "thinking about it" posture. Naturally, if Mr. McVety can make the case for bigotry, then he may succeed in causing the TTC to review and rescind its decision.

These ads state exactly what atheists believe if one adopts the position of the world’s best known atheist, Richard Dawkins, author of The God Deception. He says that there is a possibility that God exists, but that the probability that there is a God is very low. Furthermore, if bigotry is attacking a belief rather than a person who holds that belief, then McVety is guilty of exactly the same thing he is complaining about.

It is perfectly reasonable to attack a belief, but it is not reasonable to attack a person simply because he or she holds a certain belief. Everybody is entitled to believe any old nonsense they want and to express their views about beliefs.

Ezra Levant's presentation to the U.S Congress

Yesterday Ezra Levant appeared before the human rights caucus of the U.S. Congress and presented on the unfortunate state of human rights in Canada. He posted his speech on his website and I thought it was very well done and deserved the widest dissemination. I hope he doesn't object to me reproducing it on this site.

Thank you for that kind introduction, and for the invitation to be here today. It’s an honour to be asked to give a briefing at the U.S. Congress, and especially to the Human Rights Caucus. Your work is very important.

My expertise in the subject matter of today’s session was not acquired voluntarily, but by unhappy experience: I have been the subject of government persecution for my political and religious views for nearly 900 days. Unfortunately, stories like mine are not uncommon in the world. But they’re not supposed to happen in Canada, one of the freest countries.

In February of 2006, I was the publisher of a Canadian magazine called the Western Standard. We published a news story about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, and the riots in the Muslim world that followed. To illustrate what all the fuss was about, we accompanied the story with pictures of several of those cartoons. It was a news story in a news magazine.

Before our magazine even hit the streets, a radical imam named Syed Soharwardy asked the police to arrest me – for blaspheming against Islam. The police didn’t, of course. But the Alberta “human rights commission”, a government agency, accepted Soharwardy’s complaint, and then an identical one from the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. The government has been investigating me ever since, including summoning me to a 90-minute interrogation. According to access to information documents, no fewer than 15 bureaucrats are working on my case. I’m a major crime scene!

Since then, Canada’s largest news magazine, called Maclean’s – our equivalent to Time magazine – was sued in three different human rights commissions for writing about the demographic growth of Islam in the West. And the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, the largest newspaper in Atlantic Canada, is being pursued by Nova Scotia’s human rights commission for printing an editorial cartoon depicting a local Muslim activist in a niqab – even though that is how she dresses.

In other words, Canadian human rights commissions -- secular government organizations -- are prosecuting religious fatwas. It’s a soft jihad against any criticism of radical Islam. It’s called “lawfare”, and it’s a greater danger to our western values of freedom, religious pluralism and the separation of church and state than the hard jihad of terrorism is. Even if targets like Maclean’s eventually “win”, they lose; the process is the punishment – and the chill affects everyone else.

Canadian human rights commissions, however, are not respectful of the sensitivities of all religions. Less politically correct faiths are regularly prosecuted by them. This May, an Alberta pastor named Stephen Boissoin was given a lifetime gag order, never to say anything critical of homosexuality – not in a church sermon, not even in private e-mails. As well, in what can only be called a Maoist verdict, he has been ordered to renounce his religious beliefs, and to publish a self-denunciation in the local newspaper.

This is Canada we’re talking about. Not Iran, not China, not Cuba.

How did this happen? How did Canadians lose their rights, on the one hand, to criticize radical Islam, and on the other hand, lose their rights to practice Christianity?

The answer is a combination of good intentions and bad intentions.

The good intentions came from do-gooders who, thirty or forty years ago, set up these human rights commissions with the noble ideal of promoting harmony amongst different religions and races. But those good intentions came with the power of the law to censor people who said rude, even racist things. So it became illegal in Canada to say anything that was regarded as hateful, even if it was non-violent. We invented “thought crimes”.

The actual wording of the laws is to ban anything that is quote, “likely to expose a person to hatred or contempt”. Note the word “likely” – you don’t actually have to do anything wrong. You can be convicted for a “pre-crime”, something that hasn’t happened yet. And look at what’s illegal: causing emotions. Not real harm or damages. Just exposing someone to feelings. By the way, the truth of what you say is not a defence. And at the Maclean’s magazine trial last month, half a day was spent determining whether their jokes were funny. They even had a joke expert.

Don’t laugh – literally. Just three weeks ago, a comedian was ordered to stand trial for telling off-colour jokes in a night club. Warning to Chris Rock: don’t bother coming to Canada.

According to Alan Borovoy, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, even a documentary about the Holocaust is against the law, since it could, possibly, cause people to have feelings of contempt for Germans.

At first, these thought crimes were targeted at people so odious, no-one spoke out in their defence. Neo-Nazis mainly – including an 80-year-old man named John Taylor who served 9 months in jail for having an anti-Semitic phone message.

We don’t like anti-Semitism or other bigotry; I certainly don’t. But instead of the traditional answer to offensive speech – more speech, better speech, truer speech – Canada took the easy way, and simply outlawed hurt feelings. Instead of doing the hard work of building a truly tolerant society, we thought we could wave a magic wand, and legislate bad feelings out of existence.

But legal precedents cut both ways. So, after thirty years of prosecuting people who were critical of Jews, now Canada’s human rights commissions are being used by radical Muslims to prosecute people who criticize radical Islam – and being used by gay rights activists to prosecute pastors like Reverend Boissoin, religious newspapers like Catholic Insight, and even the Bishop of Calgary, Fred Henry, for a letter to his diocese against same-sex marriage.

To paraphrase Father Martin Niemoller, first the human rights commissions went for the neo-Nazis, but I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a neo-Nazi. Then the human rights commissions went for the fundamentalist Christians, but I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian.

Because we didn’t fight for freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for people who were hard to like, now we’re having to fight for those fundamental freedoms for ourselves. It’s always better to fight in the first ditch rather than the last one.

The legal onslaught against freedom of speech and religious pluralism continues. There are 14 human rights commission in Canada, employing 1,000 people, and with an annual budget of $200-million. It’s an industry, and it needs social strife to stay in business. So it positively drums up discontent. This spring in Alberta, 60,000 new immigrants were taught English as a Second Language using a workbook all about how to file grievances, including against un-funny jokes.

I’m pleased that a political backlash is growing in Canada. Across the political spectrum, from both the Liberal and Conservative parties, from newspaper editorials on the left and the right, and from NGOs ranging from EGALE, Canada’s largest gay right lobby, to the Canadian Association of Journalists, to the liberal Muslim Canadian Congress, public opinion is waking up to the dangers of these human rights commissions and their thought crime laws. The public is starting to revolt.

So why should Americans care? I can think of three reasons. And what should Americans do? I can think of two things.
1. Americans should care because Americans have always cared about liberty around the world, especially political and religious liberty. It is one of America’s greatest characteristics: a love for the well-being of otherThank you for that kind introduction, and for the invitation to be here today. It’s an honour to be asked to give a briefing at the U.S. Congress, and especially to the Human Rights Caucus. Your work is very important.

My expertise in the subject matter of today’s session was not acquired voluntarily, but by unhappy experience: I have been the subject of government persecution for my political and religious views for nearly 900 days. Unfortunately, stories countries. Being a Good Samaritan is in your nature, and the world is freer because of it.

2. America should care because what happens in Europe and Canada soon comes – or tries to come – to the U.S. When it comes to censorship, we’re a laboratory for bad ideas. And the coalition between foreign trouble-makers and domestic busy-bodies is an idea that is spreading here, too.

3. Despite your First Amendment, human rights commissions are popping up all over the U.S.

The city of Philadelphia’ s “human relations” commission has a staff of 33, and a multi-million dollar budget. Last year, they prosecuted Geno’s Steak House because they put up a sign asking customers to order their Philly Cheese Steaks in English. We might agree with Geno’s sign or disagree. But to have a government agency prosecute them is a threat to the First Amendment. And, if it’s a steak house today, it could be a news magazine tomorrow. And if it’s do-gooders today, I can assure you it won’t be for long.


So what can Americans do?

1. The first thing you can do is what you always do: continue to monitor the erosion of freedom around the world, including through Congressional committees like this one. Publish annual reports shaming foreign countries for their abuses of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Put Canada on that list, to let our government know what they’re doing isn’t acceptable.

2. And rededicate yourselves to your First Amendment. Understand that the erosion of freedom doesn’t always happen with a bang – it can happen with a whimper. And that, when it comes to free speech, it’s usually unpopular people who are censored first. But if they can go for a neo-Nazi yesterday, it’s Geno’s Steak House today, and then a Christian pastor or a news magazine tomorrow.

I believe in a pluralist society where I can be Jewish, he can be Christian, she can be Muslim, and we all get along peacefully – we can agree to disagree about political or religious matters. The use of our own Western laws to crush such disagreement, and end healthy debate, is a threat to all of us, and the U.S. Congress should be on guard.


Thank you.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me

When I was a kid and other kids called me names, my mother always recited this old saw, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Whatever happened to our mothers and their wisdom?

Some posts back I got a comment from freespeecher who advised me that if I wanted to live a long and healthy life I should stop reading the Toronto Star. If I took that advice I would miss all the fun of reading my old friend Haroon Siddiqui’s columns.

He had another beaut in the Sunday edition of the Star, and, as you might expect, if you are familiar with his output, it was full of “Muslims, lefties/progressives and four legs good: anti-Islamic, righties/conservatives and two legs bad” sentiments.

Here’s a sampling:

But freedom of speech is not absolute. "Except for the U.S., virtually every Western democracy has laws against hate," notes Bernie Farber of the Canadian Jewish Congress. "Our anti-hate laws are probably the most underused."

The Supreme Court has upheld those laws. Jewish, gay and other groups have long advocated their use. Few Canadians complained. But now that Muslims are, many are.
"That's really what it's about," Farber told me. "When non-Muslims were using it, nobody really cared.

"People need scapegoats. It used to be Jews. Now it's Muslims, to a great extent. Tomorrow, it may be Bahais or somebody else ...

"People should focus on the law, not on those using it. If the complaint is frivolous, the system will deal with it."

And here is what I think about this.

As long as the Human Rights Commission’s confined their anti-hate speech prosecutions to basement and garage neo-Nazis, and other fringe, white power weirdoes, nobody did care. The Jews, who are a small minority in this country, seemed to be taking out the garbage and they were quite welcome to do it, as far as the rest of us were concerned.

It was when gays started to attack Christians through the mechanism of HRCs that suddenly it was no longer the exceptional case, it became mainstream.

Neo-nazis and white supremacists form probably no more than one-tenth of one percent of the population of this country, if that. Christians, however, comprise 72%.

When Christians who expressed anti-gay sentiments were put through the meat grinder of the HRC process, other people, like me, an atheist, began to notice that gay rights were trumping religious rights. And, as pro-gay and anti-religious as I am, I do not like the idea that people who have firm beliefs based on a bedrock of millennia-old scriptures should not be entitled to express their views, even if I think they are wrong-headed.

After we started to squirm over this development, along came the Canadian Islamic Congress complaint against Maclean’s magazine, and vicariously against one of the most popular journalists in the world’s conservative press, Mark Steyn.

There are some things that are touchstones of Canada: hockey, Canadian Tire, Tim Horton’s, CBC and possibly Maclean’s magazine.

The CIC is not a Canadian touchstone. Futhermore, its chief spokesperson has a not very enviable reputation for uttering hateful comments. One wondered why he wasn't in the dock instead of Maclean's.

As well, those who are familiar with the Koran and the Hadith know that Islamic teachings do not promote equality and harmony with non-Muslims. They don’t even promote it within the Islamic world.

There is no doubt that the turmoil in the world caused by Muslim terrorists over the past decade has caused westerners to look very closely at this formerly foreign world of Islam and find some things about it that are unsettling.

But, to claim, as Farber does, that Muslims are just being scapegoated instead of Jews is foolish. In fact, by this statement, Farber does his own community a disservice since most recorded hate crimes (real crimes, mind you, not just words) still continue to be directed towards Jews in numbers far higher than the second most reported group.

It is when people wake up to the fact that the tail is starting to wag the dog that the trouble starts. We respect the rights of minorities, but when they want to start shoving the majority around, and use taxpayer-funded government agencies do their work for them, they shouldn’t be surprised if they receive a lot of pushback.

These fools at the HRCs have managed to accomplish what I would have thought impossible a year ago. They have made folk heroes out of neo-Nazis, tarnished the reputation of the Canadian Jewish Congress, united both the left and right media, and, with any luck, may end up putting themselves out of the hate speech business altogether (a growing source of funding for them).

Siddiqui ends his column with this trite observation:

People will always differ on what constitutes hate or where to draw the line on free speech. But most people would agree that free speech is not a licence to target vulnerable groups, let alone risk rupturing the common good in Canada.

In a country founded on the rule of law, due process, and equality before the law, in what respect could one say the HRCs in this country are upholding the common good in their handling of issues concerning free speech? The common good in this country would be better served if everybody just grew a thicker skin.

Finally if you don’t have due process, Mr. Siddiqui, everybody is a potential target and is vulnerable.