Alberta - Court of Queen’s Bench rules anti gay letter not hate speech

In a 39 page ruling this week Justice E.C. Wilson of the court of Queen’s Bench gave the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission a sound legal thrashing in overturning a 2008 ruling that a 2002 letter to The Red Deer Advocate by Steven Boissoin misapplied provincial law.  The acerbic Colby Cosh in Macleans:
The Charter of Rights [...]

Conservative blindsiding: MP Diane Ablonczy and MP Brad Trost

As part of the Marquee program, various festivals received larger amounts in funding. There are a number of Marquee festivals and events in Canada and $100m has been allocated over the two years of the program to boost them. As a Tier One festival (i.e. with attendance of more than 250,000) Pride Toronto qualified for 20% [...]

Someone else who gets it

JJ: unrepentant old hippie

The NatPo’s Colby Cosh understands why the anti-abortion “movement” and its ongoing campaign of protests and virulent, poisonous rhetoric that targeted and demonized Dr. Tiller for over a decade, shares at least some collective culpability in his death:
…Jim Hughes, president of our own Campaign Life Coalition, said that “Those of us in [...]

The Religious Right and the Albertan Human Rights Commission

The Stelmach government in Alberta, when it introduced Bill 44 to amend the province’s Human Rights Act, thought it could make great hay out of a new section establishing “parental rights,” which would let parents yank their kids from classes which touched on religion or sexual orientation (whoops… so much for gay rights…). It might [...]

Gay Rights at the Border: New Directions Rebukes Exodus International

In a recent post, Benediction Blogs On explored two issues of great interest to this site: anti-gay religious groups, and cross-border connections with religious right groups in America. In February, a Canadian organization called New Directions decided to publicly separate itself from the Focus on the Family-linked U.S. anti-gay group, Exodus International. Exodus wasn’t happy [...]

Albertan “Parental Rights” on Sexuality, Religion, and Evolution

From Terrible Depths, used with permission:
Religious Right Alert and Slap Upside the Head have in the past couple weeks been covering some surprisingly petty social conservative policies of Ed Stelmach’s government, like the official statement that the government is not going to recognize public-sector employees’ same-sex spouses as legally married because it believes gay people [...]

Daily Roundup for April 30, 2009

Pope Benedict XVI has issued a statement of “sorrow” but not an apology, after meeting with First Nations leaders to discuss the residential school system. (h/t Dammit Janet!, Unrepentant Old Hippie)

David MacDonald and 4 My Canada director Faytene Kryskow have presented a 18 222-signature petition to the Governor-General, demanding she revoke Henry Morgentaler’s Order of [...]

Daily Roundup for April 22

The government of Alberta is refusing to permit employees to list their same-sex spouses as, well, spouses - they must be registered in the more limited category of “benefit partner.” Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove says his government has “no intention of changing the definition of spouse to include people in same-sex marriages.” (h/t Slap [...]

The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada

Terrible Depths
The Religious Right, Stephen Harper and The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada
Gary Goodyear’s suggestion that evolution was a theological issue of faith got several bloggers, including myself, interested in the growing influence of the religious right in Canadian politics. At the time of the comments, bloggers hit the roof. The issue died down [...]