I am unimpressed by the latest
CHRC "scandal", and particularly unimpressed by the comparison of Mr. Al-Hayiti's book (
L’Islam ou l’Intégrisme?), which the CHRC argued did
not meet the Section 13 standard, to the writings of Stephen Boisson, which were judged to
have met that standard. Most of my arguments get hashed out in the
comments (ignore NAMBLA-Dick) here, but the short version is that Boisson's letter to the Red Deer Advocate triggered a
concrete incident of gay bashing by one of Mr. Boisson's associates, and it is pretty easy to interpret his letter in context as a concrete call to action against the local homosexual community (as opposed to Mr. Al-Hayiti's book, in which the offensive language is
rather vague).
In any case, while Mr. Boisson has argued his case on various blogs and other online forums, Mr. Al-Hayiti thus far has not. So I fired off a quick email to the yahoo group he is associated with Mr. Al-Hayiti's and asked him:
Would Mr. Al-Hayiti like to respond to the claims in this and other stories that his book contains language likely to expose gays, lesbians, and jews to "hatred and contempt"? Mr. Al-Hayiti responded as follows:
Maybe the complaint should have been against the Qor'an, the Word of God! Or maybe even against the bible also! Do you think the commission should censor God? Everything I said in my book is from the revelation, not from me! I have nothing else to say.Thank you!So there you have it.
