Thursday 8 May 2008

A Canadian commission has "brazenly attacked" the rights of some in an attempt to protect the rights of others, said the editor of a Canadian national Catholic magazine.

Fr Alphonse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight, gave this analysis of a 15 April ruling by the Ontario Human Rights Commission in the case of Christian Horizons.

The evangelical Christian organization is a Kitchener-based service group for the disabled. It lost a case with Connie Heintz, one of its former employees and a lesbian.

Heintz signed a Lifestyle and Morality Statement when she began work at Christian Horizons, saying she would refrain from homosexual relationships, extra- and pre-marital sex, and other things. After five years working with the group, she said she discovered she is a lesbian.

According to the rights commission decision, Christian Horizons must pay Heintz lost wages and other fees; stop requiring its employees to sign a lifestyle and morality statement; develop "anti-discrimination" policies; provide "training" to all employees and managers; and review all of its employment policies to ensure they are in compliance with the Human Rights Code.

Fr de Valk quoted Pope Benedict XVI's recent address at the United Nations, saying that "human rights must include the right to religious freedom, understood at once (as) individual and communitarian. ... It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves -- their faith -- in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights."

The priest agreed that workplaces must by free of harassment or poisoned environments. However, the commission decision violates the rights of Christians, he said, even though Christian Horizons was offering its services to all without discrimination.

"No complaint appears to have been filed by any client of Christian Horizons or by the developmentally disabled people they serve," said Father de Valk. "In addition to disrupting the fine work being undertaken by the organization's employees, the OHRC decision ominously threatens the rights of other faith-based institutions, as well as their employees and volunteers, in Ontario."

The Catholic Insider was itself the subject of an investigation by another of Canada's human rights commissions, also for allegedly discriminating against homosexuals.

[Zenit