Canadian Human Rights complaints against Mark Steyn and a Catholic magazine dropped

The Canadian Human Rights Commission complaint against *Catholic Insight, a Catholic magazine and another complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean's Magazine have been dropped.

OTTAWA - The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed an anti-homosexual hate speech complaint against Catholic Insight magazine.

We are of course very cautious,” said Catholic Insight editor Fr. Alphonse de Valk, CSB, whose small-circulation magazine already faces more than $20,000 in legal bills. “A judicial review is still possible. We’re not out of the woods yet.

“It is chilling to think that a publication can be hauled before a government tribunal simply for reporting to interested citizens developments in these areas of controversy,” said de Valk in a July 4 statement. “This matter underscores once again the necessity of urgent reform of the Canadian human rights system.”

Edmonton-based homosexual activist Rob Wells filed the nine-point complaint against Catholic Insight in early 2007. Catholic Insight is going to see whether it can take legal action to recoup its costs because of “harassing and financially burdening” nature of the complaints. Catholic Insight has maintained it has always adhered to Catholic teaching on human sexuality.

The commission also dismissed the Canadian Islamic Congress’ (CIC) complaint against Maclean’s magazine for running an excerpt of Mark Steyn’s book America Alone, entitled The Future Belongs to Islam. The CIC called the article “flagrantly Islamophobic.”

“The Steyn article discusses changing global demographics and other factors that the author describes as contributing to an eventual ascendancy of Muslims in the ‘developed world,’ a prospect that the author fears for various reasons referred to in the article,” said the decision. “The writing is polemical, colourful and emphatic, and was obviously calculated to excite discussion and even offend certain readers, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.”

The commission said the article, when considered as a whole, was not of “an extreme nature” and did not warrant the appointment of a tribunal.

De Valk called the Maclean’s dismissal “wonderful news,” saying he hoped it was a sign of “better days ahead, that cooler heads will prevail and something will be done about these human rights commissions.”

Steyn heard about the dismissal while attending Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s garden party for journalists June 26. He joked he was disappointed, saying he had hoped to lose so the case could be appealed to a higher court.

In a June 27 statement, Maclean’s welcomed the decision but asserted: “no human rights commission, whether at the federal or provincial level, has the mandate or the expertise to monitor, inquire into or assess the editorial decisions of the nation’s media.”

I was reminded of the above news when I read about a homosexual activist in the US suing a publisher of Bibles for $70 million. Scrubone has a post up on this.

Connect the hate speech attack on Catholicism and those who speak out against Islam in Canada, with the Bible suing in the US and then the UN scheme to make Christians criminals, it seems to me there is a triangulation at play here.

* For some strange reason, I can't actually get to the link. If anyone else has the same problem, please let me know.