On February 27, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of William Whatcott who was charged with a hate crime by the Canadian Human Rights Commission after he distributed flyers in Saskatchewan in 2001 and 2002 opposing the homosexual agenda in public schools.

The flyers bore titles such as “Sodomites in Our Public Schools.” One flyer cited 1 Corinthians 6:9 and said, “The Bible is clear that homosexuality is an abomination,” and, “Scripture records that Sodom and Gomorrah was given over completely to homosexual perversion and as a result destroyed by God’s wrath.”

Yet, in spite of what some reports have implied, it wasn’t the quotes from the Bible that brought the ruling that the fliers constitute a hate crime; it was Whatcott’s statements that homosexuality leads inevitably to such things as child sexual abuse and the implication that all homosexuals are pedophiles. The Court said that the reason Whatcott’s fliers were ruled as hate speech is that they “delegitimize homosexuals by referring to them as filthy or dirty sex addicts and by comparing them to pedophiles” (“Try as It Might, the Supreme Court Can’t Sugar-coat Anti-Christian Censorship,” National Post, Feb. 27, 2013).

In 2006, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission (SHRC) ruled against Whatcott and ordered him to pay $17,500 to the complainants. This judgment was overturned in 2010 by the provincial Court of Appeal, and now the Supreme Court has overruled the lower court. Whatcott will probably be required to pay the original $17,500 to the homosexuals who brought the matter to the attention of the Human Rights Commission plus the legal fees of the Commission.

Actually, the Court’s ruling is not only a vicious attack on freedom of religion and freedom of speech, it is confusing, contradictory, and does little to clarify the issue of what is and is not “hate speech” in Canada.

On the one hand, the Court struck down the part of Saskatchewan’s Human Rights Code that forbids the publishing or broadcasting of anything that would “ridicule, belittle or otherwise affront the dignity of any person or class of persons on the basis of a prohibited ground.” The judges said these words are too broad and are not “rationally connected to the objective of protecting people from hate speech.” The Court argued that “it is not enough that an individual or group might feel ridiculed or belittled. Rather, the material must arouse extreme feelings of ‘detestation or vilification’” (“Hate Speech,” Globe and Mail, Feb. 28, 2013).

In the 1997 edition of The Gospel Sound, which first appeared in 1971, Anthony Heilbut said, “The gospel church has long been a refuge for gays and lesbians, some of whom grew up to be among the greatest singers and musicians.” 

In 1998 gospel star Kirk Franklin said that “homosexuality ... is a problem today in gospel music--a major concern--and everybody knows it” (Church Boy, pp. 49, 50). 

More recently Douglas Harrison, a homosexual who grew up Southern Baptist, said, “... you can’t swing a Dove Award without hitting upon evidence of the longstanding, deep-set presence of queer experience in, and its influence on, Christian music culture at all levels” (“Come Out from among Them,” Religion Dispatches, April 30, 2010). 

Marsha Stevens, who wrote the popular song “For Those Tears I Died” and has been called “the mother of Contemporary Christian Music,” was one of the first to come out of the closet. In 1979 she divorced her husband of seven years by whom she had two children, because she had “fallen in love” with a woman. Stevens and her lesbian partner formed Balm Ministries (Born Again Lesbian Music) through which they produce praise and worship albums and conduct training seminars. Christian Century called her “a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, God-fearing lesbian Christian.”

Stevens’ ministry is recommended by Mark Powell, Professor of New Testament, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, and the author of An Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. He states: “The Mother of Contemporary Christian Music continues to capture hearts for Jesus. Argue interpretations of Scripture and debate the ethics and origins of homosexuality all you want--no one with sensitivity to things of the Spirit can deny God is using Marsha Stevens to bring the love and mercy of Christ to people whom God apparently has not forgotten.”

There is a rapidly growing tendency among popular Christian writers to accept unrepentant homosexuals as genuine Christians and to refuse to “judge” them. Following are a few examples:

Chris Seay, author of Faith of My Fathers, says churches are not “called to be moral police” and that we should “approach homosexuals without condemnation” (“Shayne Wheeler and Chris Seay on Homosexuals and the Church,” ChurchRelevance.com, June 19, 2007).

Donald McCullough says that “condemning homosexuality feels natural because about 95 percent of us could never imagine engaging in such a practice” but “in a world turned upside down by grace, we must distrust whatever feels natural” (If Grace Is So Amazing, Why Don’t We Like It, pp. 201, 202).

Brian McLaren says:

“Frankly, many of us don’t know what we should think about homosexuality. ... We aren’t sure if or where lines are to be drawn, nor do we know how to enforce with fairness whatever lines are drawn. ... Perhaps we need a five-year moratorium on making pronouncements” (“Brian McLaren on the Homosexual Question,” Jan. 23, 2006, http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html).

Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, says in his book The Great Awakening (2008), that “civil rights for gay and lesbian people and equal protection under the law for same-sex couples” is “a justice issue” (p. 229).

On May 4, 2006, Bill Gaither issued a public statement “regarding misrepresentation” about his 2002 meeting with Marsha Stevens. He calls her story “a sad one” and says it is “unfortunate” that she has publicly declared herself to be a lesbian” (“Gaither Issues Statement Regarding Misrepresentation,” SingingNews.com, May 4).

He claims that false reports of what transpired at the December 2002 concert have surfaced on various web sites and says he wants to set the record straight; but in this statement he admits practically everything that Marsha Stevens had reported.

He acknowledges that he admitted her to the backstage area where she and her partner were greeted by him and Mark Lowry.

He acknowledges that he invited the crowd to sing her song later that night and that he told them that the woman who wrote it was in the crowd.