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Many religions promote homophobic, atheophobic and/or misogynistic attitudes. Yet the Canadian Criminal Code,
while forbidding hate propaganda in general, allows such hateful utterances if they are religiously motivated.
This text is a translation of an article which originally appeared in Cité laïque, humanist magazine of the
Mouvement laïque québécois (Quebec Secular Movement).
2007-06-23
In the current debate about religious accommodations (i.e. the granting of special dispensations for religious reasons), it is easy to forget that the laws and customs of Canada and Quebec are and have always been peppered with dispensations which favour dominant religions or religion in general. A particularly disturbing example of this can be found in the sections of the Canadian Criminal Code which deal with hate propaganda.
Article 318 prohibits the promotion of genocide of an "identifiable group" and defines such a group as "any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation." Article 319 proscribes public declarations which would "incite[s] hatred against any identifiable group."
Legal prohibition of hate propaganda is inevitably a controversial measure. It amounts to the imposition of special limits on freedom of expression, with the concomitant danger that such restrictions be abused in order to muzzle legitimate debate. One can reasonably question whether such legislation should even exist. But given that the Criminal Code does include such a prohibition, it is thus of primary importance that it be formulated with the greatest care in order to minimize the possibility of abuse. The recent addition of the category "sexual orientation" is an obvious improvement in the direction of more equitable legislation. On the other hand, these articles contain no mention of gender, that is, no provision which would prevent misogynistic propaganda.
Much more troubling is the part of Article 319 which lists four exceptions to the prohibition of hate propaganda. No-one will find fault with the first, which indicates that a legitimate defence is that "the statements communicated were true." However, the second exception specifies that "No person shall be convicted" of hate propaganda if they have, in good faith, "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." This stipulation implies that public declarations which would otherwise be considered hateful are nevertheless permitted by the legislation if they are motivated by religious dogma or scripture.
One might well wonder -- and this is a question which should be put to the authors of the legislation -- how it is possible to warrant such a religious concession. Why should religious spokepersons have the right to express publically opinions which, if made by others, would be formally proscribed by the Criminal Code? On what basis can it be justified to prohibit declarations of hatred while at the same time allowing that it is sufficient to believe (in the religious sense) such declarations in order to be exempted from said prohibition?
The importance of these questions is made obvious by the fact that discriminatory attitudes, of which hate propaganda constitutes an extreme manifestation, are very often rooted in religious beliefs. Both Islam and Christianity -- indeed, all theisms -- are notorious for their misogyny. The intransigent homophobia of the Catholic Church and of numerous other Christian sects is similarly well known, and is based of the homophobia of Judaism as expressed, for example, in the book of Leviticus. In the 1970s, religious tracts distributed by Jehovah's Witnesses bluntly asserted that homosexuals are deserving of death. (Such clarity of language seems to have disappeared from their current discourse.) Sikhs oppose homosexuality for religious reasons. Even the Dalai-Lama, who claims to oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation, declared in 1997 that homosexuality would constitute sexual misconduct for Buddhists.
Furthermore, consider the longstanding Christian and Muslim traditions of Judeophobia, and, on the other hand, the doctrine which asserts that the Jewish people are the "chosen" people of "God." And almost all religions -- or at least all theisms -- promote atheophobia, i.e. the claim that non-believers must necessarily be morally inferior to believers.
Obviously, the simple act of expressing agreement with one or more of these doctrines does not in and of itself constitute an example of hate propaganda. However, if the majority of religious spokespersons normally refrain from making public declarations which are explicitly hateful of or clearly diffamatory towards women, gays, members of other religions, atheists, etc., nevertheless their statements and the dogmas which they promote are often laden with antipathy for these groups.
If we accept that our liberty of expression can be circumscribed by laws which forbid hate propaganda, it is essential that such legislation apply to everyone, including religious authorities, and to all public statements, including religious declarations, regardless of their authors, in order to forestall explicit expressions of hate. It is thus imperative that the religious exception in the Criminal Code be abolished.
Canadian legislation, on-line edition
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