Saskatchewan anti-homosexual crusader to hear fate in freedom of speech case
OTTAWA - Canada's high court will decide today whether a Saskatchewan anti-gay crusader was within his constitutional rights to distribute pamphlets that demanded homosexuals be barred from teaching children.
The decade-old case revolves around flyers distributed by William Whatcott in 2000 and 2001, which referred to gay men as sodomites and pedophiles.
The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruled that Whatcott violated the province's human-rights code — a finding that was later overturned by the Saskatchewan appeal court.
But the commission appealed to the country's top court, arguing that Whatcott's flyers essentially asserted that gays and lesbians are less than human and exposed them to discrimination.
At least one evangelist group says it doesn't condone some of the language used by Whatcott.
But the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada says the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the right to freely express religious beliefs.
