Posted on 02/02/2005 12:17:07 PM PST by NYer
Deborah Chymyshyn and Tracey Smith found just the hall they wanted to rent for their wedding reception. It was located behind a church in the Vancouver suburb of Port Coquitlam and managed by the Knights of Columbus, an organization they thought was the same as the Elks.
That mistake -- confusing the Elks with the Knights -- has taken them into the epicentre of the national debate on same-sex marriage, with Stephen Harper and the federal Conservatives citing the couple as Exhibit A in the Tories' declaration that government legislation unveiled yesterday permitting homosexuals to marry will result in severe assaults on Canadians' freedom of religion.
Prime Minister Paul Martin defended the bill, insisting that no religious organization will be forced to perform homosexual marriages if their teaching is opposed to them. But he also said that "Canada is a country where minorities are protected" -- a claim the Tories sought to turn against him by saying the debate on same-sex marriage will be all about protecting Canadians' religious freedoms.
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has just finished hearing Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith's claim that the Knights, a Roman Catholic men's fraternal and philanthropic society, discriminated against the couple by refusing to rent the hall to them after learning it was for a same-sex wedding reception.
The Knights, adhering to church teaching, which is against homosexual marriage, cancelled a rental contract that had been signed, returned the couple's deposit and paid for both the rental of a new hall and the reprinting of wedding invitations after Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith complained that invitations listing the hall's address for their reception had been mailed.
That was in September, 2003. In October, the couple complained to the Human Rights Tribunal, which heard the case last week. A decision is not expected for months.
Their case points to what many legal scholars and religious leaders say is a murky area between protection of freedom of religion and protection against discrimination. They say it could lead to religious organizations and individuals by the phalanx heading to courts and rights tribunals once the same-sex marriage legislation becomes law.
"It's going to be endless," said University of Toronto law professor Brenda Cossman, a specialist in freedom of expression and legal regulation of adult relationships.
The B.C. Knights of Columbus case focuses on whether a church-related organization is the same as a church and whether freedom of religion extends beyond refusing to perform a same-sex marriage to refusing to celebrate one.
Provincial governments, which license civil commissioners to perform marriages, are wrestling with allowing them to follow their conscience and religious belief when it comes to same-sex marriages or, as Manitoba has done, ordering them to surrender their licences and find another line of work.
Yesterday, the Tories produced a list of seven cases to illustrate the freedom of religion and anti-discrimination protections. All the cases had previously received considerable publicity -- such as the gay student in a Catholic high school in Oshawa, Ont., who secured a Superior Court injunction against the school board's order that he not bring a male date to the school prom -- and none touched directly on same-sex marriage.
In contrast, the case of the Knights and Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith is destined to become a textbook model.
The hall has a sign outside saying simply that it was for rent and listing a telephone number.
B.C.'s Human Rights Code says "a person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification, discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public."
Both sides agreed that freedom of religion could be a "bona fide and reasonable justification to discriminate" but lawyer barbara findlay, representing Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith, says it wasn't operable in this case.
Ms. findlay, who does not use capital letters in the spelling of her name, said the religious freedom of the Roman Catholic Church to refuse to marry same-sex couples could not be equated to religious freedom for a lay organization of Catholics to refuse to rent premises for the celebration of a same-sex marriage -- not if the premises were generally offered to the public.
She also likened the Knights' refusal to rent their hall to Ms. Chymyshyn and Ms. Smith as being comparable to a hypothetical case in which, if the Knights ran a daycare, they refused to accept the children of a lesbian couple.
Knights' lawyer George Macintosh said the Catholic Church owns the hall, and membership in the Knights is limited to practising Catholics.
"If it's lawful to say no to [performing] a same-sex marriage, it's lawful to say no to celebrating the event. To celebrate an event against your religious belief is the same as conducting the event yourself."
Mr. Macintosh said the sign in front of the Knights' hall did not have to state that it would not be rented to people who acted against Catholic teachings because that was covered by the "bona fide and reasonable justification to discriminate" provision of the Human Rights Code.
Ms. findlay said the sign has since been taken down and the Knights now rent the hall only to members of the adjacent Catholic church.
Yes they were and they are getting the uprise they were looking for. Expolsure, good or bad is their strategy for social changes by degrees.
http://www.barbarafindlay.com/
I became a lawyer in 1976. Before I went to law school at U.B.C., I completed a B.C. at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and an M.A. in sociology at U.B.C.
I have had a broad range of legal experience.
I have practised as a union-side labour lawyer; worked for the Legal Services Society (legal aid) doing poverty law, and in policy-making capacities; been a member of the Faculty of Law at UBC; and now have a general practice.
In my non-lawyer capacity, I have done political work and advocacy around issues of sexism, racism, homophobia and disability. As a member of AWARE (the Alliance of Women against Racism Etc.) and as a member of Across Our Differences, I have done hundreds of [unlearning oppression workshops] for groups ranging from workplaces to university classes to legal audiences. It is my conviction that unless we work as hard on the ways we are privileged – whether by white skin, by heterosexuality, by able bodiedness, or by economic advantage– as we do on the ways we are oppressed, equality will never come.
I was also a founding member of the December 9 Coalition, a working coalition of leaders in the LGBT community which does political action and advocacy.
Within the legal profession, I have been a founding member of the provincial and national queer lawyers' groups in the Canadian Bar Association; and a member of the equality committees of the Law Society, the B.C. Branch and the National Canadian Bar Association. I have also been a member of LEAF (the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund) as a board member of West Coast LEAF and as a member of the National Legal Committee.
I have done a good deal of writing on legal topics, ranging from a handbook for West Coast Environmental Law called "Here Today/Here Tomorrow" to theoretical papers on legal issues to free legal information pamphlets.
I co-host a series of legal information workshops on issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities with The Centre (the queer community centre in Vancouver).
My name is spelled without capital letters. People make many assumptions about why that is. Here is the story. I have always signed my name without capital letters. When I was taking a graduate studies program in law in 1990, I had letterhead designed and my name was in lower case. I liked it, so I continued it when I went back into private practice. What an uproar! Lawyers called me up to say that they had a vote in their firm about why I chose that spelling; a court once rejected an Order because ‘my name was not properly spelled’ the local queer newspaper refused for years to spell my name without capitals; etc. etc. I realized that I had a perfect illustration of how we react when someone moves even a tiny bit away from the norm, and even with respect to something that impacts no one else at all. So I have kept that spelling, and I tell this story in unlearning oppression workshops.
Many people ask me what ‘Q.C.’ stands for. It means ‘Queen’s Counsel’, and is a designation awarded to the most distinguished members of the legal profession by the Queen (actually, in B.C., through the Attorney General of the Province). I was given a Q.C. in 2001.
Most recently, I have been honoured by being granted an Award of Merit by the new Sexual Diversity Studies Department at the University of Toronto, in recognition of my advocacy on behalf of queer communities in Canada.
THAT's her?
Someone might want to suggest the South Beach Diet to her. Of course, then she'd have no way to prove 'weight-bias' in the courts.
The woman is obtuse and obese. I feel sorry for her. All that education and still looking for something to fill the emptiness inside. She might want to try attending the Church next to the KofC Hall she's attacking.
How about some prayers for a spiritual awakening for the poor woman?
Not if you've seen some of those bull dykes...shudder. I could see how you'd confuse them easily.
LOL!
Ms. findlay, who does not use capital letters in the spelling of her name,
"Pretentious twit alert."
Really. I knew a woman who did this. Of course, every time someone saw it they asked her about it. Gave her a great excuse to explain that she did it because she thought capitalized names were self-aggrandizing and she didn't want to appear as if she thought of herself as that special.
A real eye-roller.
a tiny bit, ROFLMAO!
Who could be naive enough to think that these womyn didn't know who The Knights of Columbus were?
Everything the abortion industry and homosexual lobby does is a calculated move to remove religious freedom from practicing faithful through the court system.
What would Fr. Norman think?
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