FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS ARE NOT A PROTECTED "IDENTIFIABLE" GROUP, SAYS BC JUDGE &

Written by Paul Fromm

Friday, 30 October 2009 08:45

*Fundamentalist Christians Are not a Protected "Identifiable" Group, Says BC Judge & AG* *VANCOUVER, October 29, 2009*. In an exclusive interview with CAFE, Gordon Watson, the Justice Critic for the Party of Citizens, explained that, on October15, a BC Judge, Donna Senniw, agreed with a lawyer for the British Columbia Attorney General's Department that "fundamentalist Christians" are not an identifiable group, under Sec. 319 of the Criminal Code. Sec. 319, the notorious "hate law", criminalizes wilful promotion of "hate" against persons or groups identifiable by race, religious, sex, or sexual orientation. Mr. Watson, an inveterate campaigner for civil rights in the BC courts, had laid an information seeking to charge BC open line show host Rafe Mair and WIC Radio with 16 counts of criminal defamation and a violation of Sec. 319 for repeated comments on his CKNW radio show mocking Christian activist Kari Simpson for her opposition to the homosexual agenda and the inclusion in the school curriculum of such propagandistic books as *Heather Has Two Mommies*. As prosecutions under Sec. 319 require the consent of the provincial Attorney General, the AG's office sent a lawyer to the hearing. This lawyer's submissions argued that "fundamentalis Christians are not an 'identifiable' religious group," Mr. Watson reported incredulously. This is part of the political establishment's almost pathological hostility toward Christianity, he added. Christians are simply not afforded the privilege special minority groups are. The judge, thus, rejected Mr. Watson's information and refused to file charges against Mr. Mair or WIC Radio. Mr. Watson noted: 'The Attorney General's department gives seminars to 'sensitize" judges to the province's homosexual community." Some groups, he concluded, are clearly more privileged than others.