I’ve Moved!

November 20, 2008

So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:

I AM NO LONGER BLOGGING HERE

In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here.

That said, this is not the end of . My wife has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.

Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.

Update: for the purposes of further traffic shaping, new posts from kennethhynek.net will be excerpted below. Full articles can be read at the new blog.

Posted by Kenneth Filed in News

We have to stop the Canadian Human Rights Commission

November 23, 2007

Kathy Shaidle brings dire news. It would appear, pursuant to Wednesday’s article about a disturbing ruling by Canada’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) in which it was deemed illegal for Canadians to cite certain verses of the Bible even in online forums hosted on international servers (i.e. non-Canadian servers), that someone at the HRC has been a little too open and honest about the intention and purpose of the Commission. It turns out that the HRC doesn’t exist to safeguard human rights at all.

It exists to promote and carry out censorship.

An Edmonton man, Rob Wells, has filed three complaints against [Christian Heritage Party Leader Ron] Gray and his party. Two of them relate to the reposting of an item first published on WorldNetDaily.com back in April of 2002; an article written by Jon Dougherty entitled “Report: Pedophilia more common among ‘gays’ - Research purports to reveal ‘dark side’ of homosexual culture”. The third complaint is against Ron Gray personally for several commentaries he wrote and distributed to party members. One of those commentaries, entitled “Sitcom prophet”, likened the current climate of debate about homosexuality in Canada to the “Cone of Silence” in the 1960’s-era television situation comedy “Get Smart”, where the two leading characters would isolate themselves in a room where no-one could hear them, but they couldn’t hear one another either. Gray wrote in the commentary that: “The problem with Canada’s ‘Cone of Silence’ over the issue of homosexuality is that, like the security device in ‘Get Smart’, the inevitable result is that no one can communicate anything - and even the truth gets silenced.”
In an exclusive interview with noapologies.ca, Ron Gray says the complaints filed against him and his party allege they are “motivated by hate, and defaming homosexual persons.”

Ron Gray: “Commission employee told me: ‘Canadian Human Rights Act is about censorship.’”

And, he says, when he had a conversation with a Commission employee, mediator Bob Fagan, about the specifics of the allegation, he was astonished at what he heard. “I told him that it seemed to be an abuse of the Human Rights Act for someone to try and use it as an instrument of censorship. And when I said that, on the phone, there was a pause and then he said, in a somewhat astonished tone: ‘But the Human Rights Act is about censorship’. Then it was my turn to be silent on my end, because I found that breath-taking. For the Human Rights Commission’s own mediator to acknowledge that censorship was the purpose of their Act.”

If this is true — and unfortunately, I suspect it is true — then Canada, and especially Canadian Christians, are in even worse trouble than seemed to be the case last Wednesday. It’s bad enough that the HRC operates with sufficient arrogance as to presume that it can rule it illegal for Canadian citizens to post Biblical verses (even verses from Leviticus, even verses cited in poor context and bad taste) on web forums hosted on servers not even situated in Canada. That is a sufficiently dangerous precedent as to signal the effective death of free speech in Canada.

This new revelation is, however, even worse, because it means that there is an office of censorship openly at work within Canada, and it has sufficient power as to be able to deem certain actions, ideas, words, and writings illegal for Canadians to promulgate. It means that if you don’t think a certain way, or act a certain way, or speak a certain way where certain special interest groups in Canada are concerned, you can be financially penalized or incarcerated. We’re into Orwellian territory here.

Of course, liberals won’t tend to see it this way, because it’s not really censorship when you’re just telling those right-wing hatemongers to shut up and get in line. That sort of conformity with the herd of freethinking minds is the height of enlightened progressive thought, and should be encouraged…with laws, if necessary.

People who live in reality, however, should be able to see the danger inherent in what the HRC is doing, and in how it sees itself as a functional entity in Canada. It needs to be opposed:

Reaction to the case has been swift. The president of the ECP Centre, Tristan Emmanuel, says the charges against the CHP are more evidence of how far militant homosexuals will go to shut down any form of dissent in Canada. “The only reason these people are getting away with it”, Emmanuel says, “is because there’s not enough of an outcry from the common folk in Canada saying: ‘Enough! You’re not going to short-change our Charter rights simply because you figure everyone either has to agree with what you’re doing or shut up.’” Emmanuel says there’s a real need to wake Canadians up to the “sorry state of Free Speech” in their country.

But, as Kathy Shaidle notes, who will stand up and oppose it?

I hope Emmanuel isn’t counting on getting support from the cowardly, careerist “conservative” male bloggers in this nation, who time and again have revealed themselves to be more interested in watching Family Guy than fighting for what’s right.

Part of the problem is that these bloggers aren’t Christian. They are materialists. The only reality they recognize is mundane. Getting through the next day or week or year is the extent of their ambitions, while hopefully getting invited to a cool party or two, snagging a Party or media job, etc.

Those of you who aren’t timid and shallow should watch this space. I’ll be happy to help this cause in any way I can. The “Human Rights Commission” must be crushed to death. It is just that simple. Once again the nation’s much maligned Christians are obliged to step in and try to save the nation from itself.

Now, when I consult my copy of America Alone, I note that Mark Steyn made the autograph out to “Kathy Shaidle’s screensaver artist“…and while I doubt that pithy screensavers will do much to overthrow the entity which is rapidly becoming Canada’s answer to the proverbial “thought police”, I can add my voice to the hail of opponents of the HRC.

In fact, I don’t even want to be an opponent of the HRC. I want to be an enemy of the HRC, because I see in it the death of the fundamental freedoms that Canadian citizens purportedly enjoy.

And I for one will do my part to publicize any campaign against it. To that end, I’ve prepared a series of new banner images that the Reader is free to steal for his or her blog/website/forum signature. Please feel free to select from one of the images below. They have also been added to my Media page.

I would ask that if you do use the images, you link to one of the URLs below. It would be better for you to link to Kathy Shaidle’s article at:

However, if you want, you can link to this article at:

Do what you can, O Reader, to spread the word. It’s about time Canada scrapped the HRC…it has crossed the line and become a threat to the very freedoms and rights it purports to protect (not that we should be surprised by that fact).

Posted by Kenneth Filed in Canada, Censorship, Law, Religion