Freedom of Canadian faith groups to discriminate
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Christian Horizons found guilty
of
employment discrimination

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Quotations:
 | Barbara Hall, Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights
Commission: "This decision is important because it sets out that when
faith-based and other organizations move beyond serving the interests of
their particular community to serving the general public, the rights of
others, including employees, must be respected." |
 | Tim Bloedow, conservative Christian commentator: "Secular
Humanism is a religion of tyranny not liberty, and it is the source of such
public policy as that which leads to the existence of human rights
commissions. ... These truly are fascistic, irredeemable laws and public
policies. And they need to be resisted vigorously..." |

Overview:
Christian
Horizons, is an evangelical Christian charity that serves 1,400 mentally
disabled persons in Ontario, Canada. The Human Rights Tribunal of
Ontario found that the organization had created a poisonous work environment for
one of its employees because of her sexual orientation.
The tribunal ordered Christian
Horizons to cease using an employment
contract which had required staff to promise they will not engage in "homosexual
relationships," that they stated were "unnatural,"
"immoral," and "contrary to the scriptures."
1 They were also required to pay $23,000,
plus two years wages and benefits to a woman who had signed onto the contract, later entered
into a homosexual relationship, was harassed, and had to leave.
This is a classical case involving a clash between:
 | The right of a religiously conservative group whose beliefs call for them
to discriminate against homosexuals, and |
 | The right of a homosexual employee to work in a homophobia-free
environment. 2 |

Topics covered in this section:

Footnote and reference used:
- "A victory for LGBT human rights or a race to the Supreme Court?, Egale
Canada, 2008-DEC-18, at:
http://www.egale.ca/
- Unfortunately, the terms "homophobic" and "homophobia" have multiple
definitions. On this site we define
"homophobia" as:
"engaging in a behavior aimed at denigrating or restricting the human rights of
persons who have a homosexual orientation and/or who engages in homosexual
behavior."
This, of course, includes firing employees because of their private behavior at
home.

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First posting: 2008-APR-29
Latest update: 2009-FEB-25
Author : B.A. Robinson

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