Collective Rights accepted by Court

The Ontario Court has turned back an attempt by the Social Conservative Religious Right to restrict a union's right to support gay and lesbian rights. Susan Comstock, a senior government employee, describes herself as a devout Catholic and opposes paying union dues on religious grounds.

"This is important because it demonstrates that your right to practise your religion is not impaired by paying dues to a union whose views you do not share," said Andrew Raven, an Ottawa lawyer for the 150,000-member union, PSAC. "This was an attack on the right of the union to have a policy that supported the rights of gays and lesbians."

"I think it’s indicative of a problem Canadians will have in addressing what is becoming a somewhat oppressive environment," said Horgan, president of the Catholic Civil Rights League. "The reach of these decisions is only starting to be felt. We’re seeing greater and greater inclusions in all sorts of areas."

Horgan cited other rulings that have gone against religious groups, including a fine slapped on the Knights of Columbus in British Columbia for refusing to rent out their hall for a same-sex marriage party.

Horgan is comparing apples in oranges when he cites the Knights of Columbus case in BC as proof freedom of religion is at risk. In that case the court said the Knights of Columbus which had rented the hall and upon learning they were Lesbians cancelled their use of the hall for their reception, could refuse to rent to a group they are opposed to, but had in this case rented it and cancelled late, causing the lesbian couple to scramble to get a new location and resend invitations. See CBC report here.


Full news article here. See also report on LifesiteNews Canada

Coming out still hard

ONE month before Zach O’Connor, a seventh grader at Brown Middle School here, came out about being gay, he was in such turmoil that he stood up in homeroom and, in a voice everyone could hear, asked a girl out on a date. It was Valentine’s Day 2003, and Zach was 13.
“I was doing this to survive,” he says. “This is what other guys were doing, getting girlfriends. I should get one, too.”

He feared his parents knew the truth about him. He knew that his father had typed in a Google search starting with “g,” and several other recent “g” searches had popped up, including “gay.”

see Accepting Gay Identity, and Gaining Strength

Blog Against Theocracy

Blog Against Theocracy

This long weekend is one of the biggest celebrated christian events on the calendar. It provide a good opportunity to discuss issues of the theocracy and the oppression it exerts here in Canada and in the USA.

We at queer thoughts will be posting, I hope you can too.

You can find out all about it here and here. An Unrepentantoldhippie led me to this action!