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fourhorses
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 Posted: 06/ 12/ 08 7:43 am Post subject: Stephen Boissoin - A Pastor Silenced |
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Stephen Boissoin - A Pastor Silenced
June 12, 2008
For those who have been following Canada's human rights tribunals and their decisions against Christians who express moral opposition to homosexual activism and same-sex marriage, the name Stephen Boissoin should be familiar to you. I won't go into the whole history of his case, however, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal recently ordered him to stop talking about homosexuality from the perspective of his evangelical Christian faith. Moreover, the government tribunal ordered him to apologize for his previous expressions on this topic as a Christian, and has prohibited him from criticizing the government process to which he had been subjected.
Admittedly, given the stridency of his letter that brought about the original complaint, as well as the way he was characterized in the mainstream media, I expected a sort of Fred Phelps light.
This impression was wrong.
I realized how wrong it was within seconds of speaking to him last week for the first time.
Stephen struck me as anything but hateful. He came across as gentle, albeit fervent like most evangelicals (although he doesn't admit the label, calling himself a simple Bible Christian). Moreover, he expressed genuinely felt concern for the emotional, spiritual and physical welfare of those who practice the homosexual lifestyle. I think part of the problem was the fact that the theological vocabulary between Catholics and Protestants has evolved differently since the Reformation. So quite often things that are understood or interpreted one way by one, are misinterpreted another way by the other.
However, there is one thing Catholics and evangelicals share besides their faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. And that is a 100 percent conviction rate before Canada's human rights tribunals on Section 13.1 cases. The legal persecution makes no distinction among Christians.
Which is why I felt it important that others see this side of Stephen Boissoin - the side many have neither seen nor heard because their impressions of him are drawn from secondary sources. These sources are not always sympathetic or balanced. I am grateful to Stephen for graciously accepting the invitation for an audio interview and podcast.
It lasted for a little over half-an-hour. I am currently breaking it down to four parts, converting to video so that I can upload it to YouTube, and will be posting it to Catholic Light as it is uploaded.
Pete Vere and Stephen Boissoin - You Tube
Part One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT3lXDpnC0o
Part Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq7EZ-gJxw8
Part Three
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiYzymomROk
Part Four
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tehSkuaMb5c
Source: Catholic Insight
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Today`s rebel is a conservative and fiscal responsibility has become the new counterculture! |
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fourhorses
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| Posted: 06/ 12/ 08 7:48 am Post subject: |
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Too bloody angry to post
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
I don't like writing when I'm full of anger. If we write to defer our resentment, as I think we do, we perhaps write meaningfully (at least for others) when we have already deferred anger sufficiently to come to some kind of lucid observation on what it is we need our language to transcend. That, of course, is something we often fail to live up to. But it is no reason to silence a man for life.
Anyway, what has me royally steamed these last few days is the humiliating order of an anti-individual, neo-Maoist in Alberta by the name of Lori Andreachuck (if you don't know the story, see Ezra Levant's comments here and here and here) who would effectively silence and ruin the life of a Christian pastor, banning him from speaking on one of the central concerns of the Judeo-Christian worldview, and of deep personal concern to this pastor.
For writing this letter in 2002, Stephen Boissoin has been passed with a legally binding order (ignoring which could lead to his imprisonment) that is entirely unconscionable in a free and democratic society. In other words, there is no way this is constitutional if Canadian law is still in the hands of sane people, since according to our Charter all laws must be consonant with the needs of a "free and democratic society."
As I wrote in the comments at the National Post, I think it is time for Canadians to start thinking seriously about organizing civil disobedience in opposition to the kangaroo courts of the "human rights" tribunals:
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Whatever you may think of Boissoin's righteous certainty about the wrongness of homosexuality and the degree of tolerance in the Christian's "love the sinner but hate the sin" (personally, I think there is a lot of tolerance in that, since loving ourselves but hating what we sometimes do is how most people understand their own humanity), there can be no doubt that Andreachuck and Lund have demonstrated a far greater degree of self-righteousness and intolerance than Boissoin.
As Ezra says, to pass this order on a Christian pastor is effectively to ruin his life, permanently. And this for a passionate letter to the local paper.
But to effectively ban all discussion of the possible consequences of different sexual and familial practises (the future of which is something no one can know: we are all making more or less educated guesses in the laboratory of history, and no one, despite the arrogance of Gnostics like Andreachuck and Lund, has special knowledge of what will prove successful and what not, whatever the very real historical lessons remembered in the Bible's conflict with the widespread pederasty and polygamy of the ancient world) is outrageous to a whole other level. It is positive madness for a once free and open society to try and close off huge and fundamental topics of conversation. It is a sign of a society that has become too scared of itself to go on, too frightened of our shared freedom, as if it is unthinkable that we might never have to stop thinking about and defending what we hold dear, as if it is too outrageous that we can never live in certainty about our life choices and must have constant maternal affirmation from the Andreachuck's of this beastly realm. What kind of pansies does she think we Canadians are?
There really aren't words to express the sickness and the complete lack of justice or common sense in the action of the Alberta (and other) Human Rights Fascists. This kind of public humiliation is exactly what they did in Mao's China and the stories of ruined lives are now all about us here in Canada for anyone with the real empathy to look, listen, and learn.
I am utterly disgusted that this is happening in my country. Let there me no doubt that I am ready and willing to engage in civil disobedience alongside anyone targeted by these "human rights" fascists. And I suspect there are every day more and more who feel the same. Any politician who thinks this outrage will just fade away with time had better think again.
Act now or live in the shame of history. As it presently stands, Ed Stelmach is a &$#*@ Maoist, as is Gordon Campbell, Harper, and most of the so-called "conservative" leaders in this country.
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I will be at the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library tomorrow night, like every Thursday, 7-9 pm in front of Blenz Coffee (look for the guys with the blue scarves), and open for discussions on the logic of civil disobedience, as an occasionally necessary activity in a free and democratic society.
We might also talk about the kind of organizations we need to see emerging in Canada to focus the fight against the "human rights" world view. We might begin asking, for example, who will join us in setting up picket teams to blockade the entrance to buildings where our deeply evil kangaroo courts will meet in future? Whatever you think of my or Boissoin's views on sexuality, none of us is free in a society where we can be given gag orders for life for offending the sensibility of some bureaucrats and activists. No one is free in a society where people are forced to make public apologies, against their will, for the views they hold. Mao killed and ruined tens of millions of lives in China where just such forced rituals of "apology" and public humiliation were a central tool of the most oppressive mental domination; how many will our Canadian Maoists kill and ruin before we stop them? Among my Chinese-Canadian friends who have recently immigrated, there is a high frequency of stories about families ripped apart, members killed, by the Maoist/police state evil... will the nightmare continue?
I will have more to say on all of this when I get my bearrings. We really do need a way to better understand why those who claim to be fighting for love and tolerance can be so deeply intolerant and hateful. Christians have a right to their Biblical and patriarchal religion. No one has a right to feel their way of living is beyond public criticism. No one is wise enough to judge when language is too passionate that it might expose someone else to hate. Language, even violent language, acts to defer our violence, even when it doesn't succeed for long. Those who would silence in the name of keeping the peace can only take us to the dead (and usually very violent) end that all tyrannies eventually reach. Andreachuck and her many comrades in genteel Canadian authoritarian stupidity need to talk to some Ukrainians about Stalin.
Thankfully, Boissoin is not caving in to these tyrants and so we will all have a chance to stand with him against the law that is clearly indefensible to people who know what freedom is:
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In regards to the recent absurd ruling by the AHRC, let me be clear, I will never apologize regardless of the consequences and I will not pay fines unless failing to do so prevents my ability to appeal. I stand by my right to have an opinion and to equally express that opinon in private and in the public square. I will exercise that God given right as long as I live.
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http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/
_________________
Freedom really does not evolve, it revolts.
Today`s rebel is a conservative and fiscal responsibility has become the new counterculture! |
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 StephenBoissoin
Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Total posts: 453 Location: Red Deer, Alberta Age: 43 Gender: Male
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| Posted: 06/ 12/ 08 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Praise God for your passion forhourses and a public thank-you to Pete Vere. |
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StephenBoissoin
Joined: 03 Dec 2007 Total posts: 453 Location: Red Deer, Alberta Age: 43 Gender: Male
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| Posted: 06/ 12/ 08 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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| woops...sorry for butchering your name fourhorses. Although, it should be expected from the fastest two fingered typer in the West. |
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