"Frum Blames Canada" (12/10/2004)
D
avid "Blame Canada" Frum devotes yet another
National Review diary entry to the failings of his home country to the north. This paroxysm of Canada-bashing gives him an opportunity to trot out the canard that Canada has declared that the Bible is hate speech:
Individuals who express traditionalist views on the gay marriage question can (and have been) harshly punished. (One Saskatchewan man was fined $5,000 for buying an ad in his local paper made up of verses from the bible.)
But, and as you've probably guessed, that's just a lie. The
ad in question had two presumably male stick figures holding hands. The two stick figures were covered with the international "no" symbol. And there were citations to Bible verses, but the verses themselves weren't printed. The court's
opinion made clear that it was the symbol combined with the citations, and not just the biblical citations, that made the ad problematic, and upheld a fine of $3,000 (Canadian).
I don't endorse what Canada did here, since I think people should be free to print ads of this sort. But Frum is just lying to you when he says the guy got fined for an ad that was just a bunch of bible verses. But, of course, Frum was a speech writer for Bush, so it's hard to lose that habit of lying.
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