Thursday, June 05, 2008
CATHOLICISM HAS BECOME A HATE CRIME IN CANADA
Canon lawyer Pete Vere describes the persecution of Fr. Alphonse de Valk, a Canadian priest who defends the Church's position on homosexual marriage. He also describes other cases that have been prosecuted against Catholics who choose to live their faith.
It's a very sobering article that needs to be read by every orthodox Catholic, given that one of those cases concerned the American website Catholic Answers. He closes the article by describing the consequences for a New Mexico woman who refused to photograph a same-sex ceremony.
Moreover, Christians in America are not immune from what is happening to their co-religionists across the border. This past April, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ordered Elaine Huguenin, a self-employed Christian photographer, to pay a lesbian couple $6,600 for having declined to photograph their same-sex commitment ceremony. This fine and stress from the legal proceedings come at a time when Huguenin and her husband are expecting their first child.
The New Mexico commission ignored the fact that photography is a form of artistic expression. The state commission ignored the fact that the First Amendment protects individuals from compelled speech — that is, coercion from the state to give artistic expression that violates one’s most deeply held beliefs. The commission’s one-page ruling simply stated that Huguenin had “discriminated against [the lesbian complainant] because of sexual orientation.” As this New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruling shows, Americans are in grave danger of having their religious liberty ripped away from them by Canadian-style human rights commissions.
Read the rest of Vere's story.
