“if an Ontario man – Marc Lemire – is found liable for vile comments that were posted on his website, a Canadian Human Rights tribunal was told yesterday.”
Note: these reports on the current Lemire HRC hearings contain lots of interesting material about The Guy Who Is Also Suing Me/Us.
The story continues:
[Lemire’s lawyer Doug Christie’s] comments came in a closing submission to tribunal commissioner Athansios Hadjis, who must decide if Mr. Lemire should be held liable for posted material that ridiculed and belittled Jews, blacks, Italians, homosexual and other groups.
Mr. Christie also warned against closing an important valve on heated expressions of dissent: “If you don’t allow the ventilation and expression of extreme views, the alternative is extreme action,” he cautioned.
“This is one of the most important decisions that could ever be made by this tribunal,” Mr. Christie added. “What is at stake is control of the media of communications. The effect of this legislation is to create a political elite who can alone communicate their views – and decide who else can do so.
“We see this case as meaning either the beginning of the end of freedom in a very real way, or the end of the beginning of its preservation.”
Meanwhile, at the National Post:
“Canadian human rights act outlaws history, tribunal hears”
In a rhetorical flourish, he cited various historical issues that, if discussed truthfully, could conceivably expose certain groups to hatred: the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, the battles of Waterloo and Tours, the Charge of the Light Brigade and the War of the Roses.
Mr. Christie compared [the Guy Who is Also Suing Me/Us], a former CHRC employee and serial Section 13 complainant who brought the case against Mr. Lemire, to Tomas de Torquemada, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition, as someone who is “creating heresy where he wants to find it, then becoming a hero for prosecuting it.”
Like Marc Lemire and a large number of other bloggers and webmasters, I am being sued by A Certain Guy Whose Name I Won’t Mention.
Your donations to my legal defence fund have already been incredibly generous, and I thank you. However, we’re in for a very long fight and the legal bills keep rolling in. You have my deepest gratitude for your generosity.
