UN Canadian bill would remove religious exemption from 'hate speech' laws, critics warn - Christians say quoting Scripture could be criminalized if legislation passes

Rainbow flag flying together with Canadian flag in London, Ontario, Canada | Getty Images

Lawmakers in Canada are considering legislation which, if passed, could criminalize the act of quoting Scripture in defense of biblical marriage, sexuality and other Christian views.

The proposed Bill C-367, currently under review in the House of Commons, would repeal “religious exemption” in Section 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code, which critics say could open up Christians and other religious groups to “hate speech” charges over any comments or criticisms of the LGBT movement.

Bill C-367 specifically targets Paragraph 319(3)‍(b) and Paragraph 319(3.‍1)‍(b) of the Criminal Code, which prohibits any conviction on hate speech charges if “in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

If the religious exemption is removed, any religious or faith-based expression that refutes or condemns gender ideology, child sexualization, and other similar topics could potentially be deemed by Canadian courts as “hate speech” and lead to criminal prosecution for Christians and other religious groups.

Introduced by Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet in November, Bill C-367 has only an initial reading in the House of Commons, and it’s unclear when or if the legislation will advance.

While Blanchet and other lawmakers say Bill C-367 comes in response to recent antisemitic demonstrations in Canada — including one in which a Muslim activist called for God to “exterminate” what he called “Zionist aggressors” — some organizations like the Canadian pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) warn the legislation could lead to more criminal prosecutions against Christians.

In February, David Cooke, CLC's campaigns manager, wrote, “No longer will we be allowed to share God’s design for human sexuality and marriage in public. No longer will we be able to speak out in the name of God against drag shows for kids, child drag, or child sex change.

“All this could be misconstrued as ‘hate speech’ against the LGBT community. Even our pro-life message could be spun as a ‘hate crime’ against women.”

Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, says if passed, the bill “would be a devastating legal tool to attack people of faith in Canada and allow the politicians working through the courts and police to send devout believers to jail for quoting the Bible, Quran, or other religious texts.”

“The same methods that overseas dictators and despots use to silence and strangle Christianity are now being used by political enemies in the West, with this current bill being only the latest example,” King said in a statement shared with CP.

He called on Christians and Canadian citizens “of faith of all stripes” to make their voices heard by Canadian government officials.

“Canadians that enjoy the fruits of democracy need to wake up,” he added. “Any politician in the West who pushes for this kind of legislation and is selling ‘protection and unity’ by advancing hate speech laws is an enemy of freedom, and democracy, and willing to undermine the religious and speech laws that protect all citizens to advance their special interest or to inflict damage on their political enemies.”

Over the last decade, Canadian lawmakers have passed a number of bills aimed at curbing speech in deferment to the LGBT lobby.

In 2017, Canada's Senate passed a law against the correct use of gender pronouns by adding protections for gender identity and expression to the Canadian Human Rights Code.

Last September, lawmakers in Ontario, Canada, approved a ban on any form of communication that might potentially cause an LGBT-identified person to “feel harassed” or “offended” following a massive parental rights rally.

The bylaw approved by city councilors in Waterloo, located about 45 miles southwest of Toronto, came in response to a new policy enacted by several local school boards. The policy states that parents will not be told if their child decides to change their pronouns or identify as the opposite sex, non-binary or gender fluid.

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[Admiral Throbnelius]

Never stop quoting scripture, they should protest 24/7 with the most triggering scriptures they can find.

Genesis 19:24 over and over again at pride parades.

 

[Garamok]

Why should the religious be above the law?

"If we don’t get our rights from God, who do we get it from? Man. But guess what, if Man gives you the right, Man takes it away."​

It's not a crime to cite a verse from the bible. Religions should be protected. It gives meaning to life, it protects important morals like don't kill, don't steal, don't cheat, don't harm others, and so on. The law doesn't give you that. The law has no morality and can change any time. The law allows children to undergo sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy while the bible tells us that our body is our temple and we should love ourselves the way we are. And it doesn't mean it's above the law.

This will only affect Christians. Muslims will continue to throw gay people from buildings and kill non-Muslims. We won't see any outcry there. This is solemnly done to destroy Christianity.

 

[JosephStalin]

It won't happen, for the simple reason the government would be creating a situation where they'd get sued trying to enforce it and end up creating free speech and religious martyr situations that would come back on them. Plus it would immediately give anyone they attempted to prosecute for it legitimate and indisputable legal reason and right - including under international law, to flee the country and seek asylum in the US for legitimate religious persecution

Even the trudeau government isn't stupid enough to create this kind of a shitshow

Never underestimate the stupidity of ANY government.

Yet one more reason for Canada-tards to come to the USA, where the First Amendment protects against such utter shit.

 

[Harbinger of Kali Yuga]

Yet one more reason for Canada-tards to come to the USA, where the First Amendment protects against such utter shit.

For how long?

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Introduced by Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet in November, Bill C-367 has only an initial reading in the House of Commons, and it’s unclear when or if the legislation will advance.

While Blanchet and other lawmakers say Bill C-367 comes in response to recent antisemitic demonstrations in Canada — including one in which a Muslim activist called for God to “exterminate” what he called “Zionist aggressors” — some organizations like the Canadian pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) warn the legislation could lead to more criminal prosecutions against Christians.

Blanchet is the leader of the federal-but-regional Bloc Quebecois party that arose from the balkanization of Brian Mulroney's now dead Progressive Conservative party that ruled Canada in the 80s and early 90s.

Mulroney died last month. Prior to the 1993 election, Mulroney stepped down due to impending defeat, installing the first female interim Prime Minister in Kim Campbell. Campbell would be annihilated, decimating the party to only two seats and eventually the formal death of the party within a decade. Jean Chretien, Pierre Trudeau's former Indian Affairs Minister, swept to power and would rule until being replaced by the newly reformed Stephen Harper Conservatives in the mid-aughts. But Chretien had to oversee many years of austerity in the 90s as Canada’s credit rating was in the tank.

Before their humiliating 1993 defeat, the old Mulroney Progressive Conservatives of the 80s essentially split into 3 factions: the centrist Red Tory Mulroney supporters, the more fiscally and socially conservative Prairie supporters who would form the Reform Party under Preston Manning and the Francophone separatists who would form the Bloc Quebecois regional separatist party under Lucien Bouchard.

Due to the complete collapse of the Mulroney PCs in Canada’s duopoly system, Bouchard and the BQ would form the Official Opposition to Jean Chretien's Liberal government considering the number of seats in Quebec.

Bouchard would back a narrowly-defeated referendum in 1995 for Quebec to separate. He also lost a leg to flesh-eating disease.

The Bloc has largely been irrelevant since. They were decimated themselves in 2011 when the Quebec electorate unexpectedly flirted with Orange anglophone NDP communism under Jack Layton instead of their usual Aquamarine francophone communism under Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc. An orange wave would sweep the province that year, electing a slew of placeholder candidates to Parliament including Ruth Ellen Brosseau, an anglophone waitress who never visited her French riding, didn't speak French and didn’t campaign because she went to Vegas instead.

This too was fleeting though, as the socialist NDP lost essentially all their new Quebec gains 4 years later in 2015 when Trudeau was elected, returning to old Liberal-Bloc duopoly in the province.

This is where things mostly still stand. Trudeau's Liberals dominate the Jewish and Anglophone areas of the Island of Montreal. The Bloc remains the main alternative to Trudeau in rural ridings across the rest of the province. Poilievre's Conservatives hold a few Francophone seats in Quebec City left over from Harper's days.

All this being said, current leader Blanchet's support for Trudeau's astroturfed Online Hate legislation is sort of interesting. The Bloc and Quebec society in general leans very left economically and socially. Quebec society ridded itself of its Catholic roots back in the 70s.

But Quebec culture also remains very insular and autistic about protecting French language and culture. They are the most xenophobic part of the country wrt trying to legislate against things like religious symbols such as niqabs being worn in public institutions.

Politically, there's no base for Blanchet and the Bloc to pander to re: antisemitism. They only run candidates in the province and have no hope of winning the anglophone Jewish ridings in Montreal.

They spend little capital shitting on Christians because of the steep historic decline of Catholicism in the province over generations.

They presumably can also score some points shitting on Muslims as their xenophobic base approves. But they also walk a fine line as a very left-wing party given that the Palestinian love-in is the cause du jour in the rest of the North American English progressive world.

 

[JosephStalin]

For how long?

Long enough, not to worry.

 

[LeChampion1992]

Based on other things they've done in recent years, this really wouldn't surprise me. Canada is severely cucked when it comes to free speech.

Canadas elite wants to criminalize dissent of the government. Canadas nice tyranny is not so nice anymore. People are seeing their rights eroded and far too many of them are drugged out to care or are pushing for it because they think LGBTQ rights are more important.

It won't happen, for the simple reason the government would be creating a situation where they'd get sued trying to enforce it and end up creating free speech and religious martyr situations that would come back on them. Plus it would immediately give anyone they attempted to prosecute for it legitimate and indisputable legal reason and right - including under international law, to flee the country and seek asylum in the US for legitimate religious persecution

Even the trudeau government isn't stupid enough to create this kind of a shitshow

The Trudeau government is exactly the type of overreaching authoritarian government that will try to push this bill to the fullest to stop it's critics.

Why are atheists like this?

Because they're seething at religious people who say God bless them.

Never underestimate the stupidity of ANY government.

Yet one more reason for Canada-tards to come to the USA, where the First Amendment protects against such utter shit.

If a government feels like they can get away with it they will get away with it.

 

[PonderosaPete]

Why are atheists like this?

Ass mad narcissists that can't accept that if a higher power exists, that higher power never acknowledges how special and smart they are compared to everyone else.

 

[BulkForceFive]

The Bloc has largely been irrelevant since. They were decimated themselves in 2011 when the Quebec electorate unexpectedly flirted with Orange anglophone NDP communism under Jack Layton instead of their usual Aquamarine francophone communism under Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc. An orange wave would sweep the province that year, electing a slew of placeholder candidates to Parliament including Ruth Ellen Brosseau, an anglophone waitress who never visited her French riding, didn't speak French and didn’t campaign because she went to Vegas instead.

The Bloc is also irrelevant because their underlying raison d'etre - separatism - is dead in the water. Quebec receives billions in equalization payments from the West which they would have no access to, should they form their own country. They also get massive political payoffs from the federal government to keep them sweet, like the Laval scandal or Davie Shipbuilding getting federal contracts despite being in receivership. They never had the heavy manufacturing base like southern Ontario did and their resource extraction industry isn't enough to keep the province going on its own.

About Bill C-637, I disagree with people saying it will only be used against Christians. It's being sold as such to keep the left from realizing the primary goal is to shut down criticism of Israel. White Canadians are mostly apathetic about Israel with a loud minority of neocons, so the only people affected are White progressives and Muslims, people that the troubled ruling coalition needs to vote.

 

[Otterly]

Yes please.

Having an imaginary freind, however exotic and melinated, should not be a defense for being an insufferable cunt.

With respect, you’re wrong. A belief has to remain a protected item. Every protection of speech is valuable, whether you agree with the ideology it’s protecting or not. We have already seen what happens when governments want to restrict speech - suddenly everything’s hate speech. Actual scientific fact like ‘men cannot turn into women’ or ‘there are two sexes in humans.’ Suddenly is hate speech. Or it gets redefined as, yes, a belief.
They want religious exemption gone because it allows speech that has elsewhere been tagged as ‘hate.’ You cant say you think homosexuality is immoral unless you’re saying it in a religious context.
We need to keep all the protections of free speech we can and all the protections of freedom of conscience and belief too.

The ONLY way to get out of a coof shot was a religious exemption. Whether you believe in a God or not, once religious exemption is gone there is nothing to stop you being crushed by the state if you say or think certain things. There’s nothing to stop the state crushing you into taking the next mystery shots. And once that right to religious exemption is gone they will hurtle down the slippery slope. You do t need two kidneys, and the Party Leader’s wife needs a transplant. You’re a match. Everyone religious or not should be fighting to keep every protection we have. Instead they use our dislike of other groups and our desire to spite them to strip away all our rights

 

[Karen of Human Resources]

>Applaud universal coverage of hate speeh
>Make it very clear I want to see it applied to Islam and Black Israelites
>Jesus Stans still most offended.

Are Jesus stans the trannies of religion?
@Otterly Very well reasoned. And I'm not unsympathetic. The examples you give though only highlight the injustice though.
The lethal coof jab? Didn't have to have it if you had a sky daddy.
Not happy with what's being taught in schools? Non belivers just have to lump it, but magic thinking is acceptable.
Man in the ladies bathroom? You can only send him out if there's a hijabi to hand.

Non believers should not be second class citizens. There is a strong necessity for freedom of speech, but freedom for the superstitious to share easily disproven hot takes surely makes those who want freedom of conscience and speech look to be in the same basket?

When the average NPC thinks of free speech, I'd wager they (thanks to our religious freinds) are probably thinking of rednecks squawking about gays or Muslims blowing people up and not more mundane necessities.

I hate the idea of hate speech laws (ironic), but if we're going to have them I damn well want them universally applied and exemptions not given to the more eccentric on the grounds they get upset and violent quicker.

Religious pleading is a shield, and sometimes it is advantageous. But they aren't offering anyone else freedom of speech. You've merely a choice between woke dogma or the most popular local theistic one. That is not freedom of speech, and to accept just feels like selling out.

Beyond the brits with their new concept of "ethical beliefs", there really seems no appetite for this in the western world at all.

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

Damn, the kikes globally must be shitting themselves if they're forcing legislative kikery this hard from cucknada all the way to australia. Iudea Delenda Est, may we see the Kike States of the west lamp-posted in our lifetimes.

South Dakota already did it. Kristi Noem signed a bill for Antisemitism that very much violates every Constitutional amendment.

 

[pikachudidnothingwrong]

CN is really going all out in the English speaking totalitarian police state race.

Chances of this applying to anyone other than Christians?

I wonder how far it'll actually go.. I mean i don't think most churches are doing much shitpost level dialogue going on? Do they literally plan to target any hint of wrong think, even if it's in scripture? Good luck with that.

 

[ZazietheBeast]

Never stop quoting scripture, they should protest 24/7 with the most triggering scriptures they can find.

Recommend Leviticus. That has alot of lines that essentially clown on clownworld. It has laws on what to do with animal fuckers and homos for starters.

 

[High Level Rad Waste]

I hate to be the guy who says this, but if you're they type to get worried about persecution over religion, you should reread Matthew 6. This is a non-issue for real Christians, but I guess asking evangelicals to actually read scripture is too optimistic.
That being said, day of the rake can't come soon enough.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

Will it affect Scientologists and Wiccans? What about Neopagans that would like to believe in Thor?

 

[Vesperus]

That bongs are more miserable than leafs shows that at least the bongs have some sort of situational awareness.

Not that they're doing anything about it, but I guess it's a start.

 

[Watcher]

It won't happen, for the simple reason the government would be creating a situation where they'd get sued trying to enforce it and end up creating free speech and religious martyr situations that would come back on them. Plus it would immediately give anyone they attempted to prosecute for it legitimate and indisputable legal reason and right - including under international law, to flee the country and seek asylum in the US for legitimate religious persecution

I agree with you completely except

Even the trudeau government isn't stupid enough to create this kind of a shitshow

Trudeau and his government are run by extremely reactionary morons that know they're going to get kicked out of office next year and are trying to rush as much draconian legislation as humanly possible right now. They're trying to push a bill to criminalize saying mean things about people online right now. Something even the turbo cucked Supreme Court of Canada is saying they will probably throw out for being unconstitutional is being pushed regardless.