A coalition of New Brunswick Christians wants the human rights legislation used to force Fredericton mayor Brad Woodside to declare a “gay pride weekend” amended or repealed.
Led by the Rev. Karl Csaszar, pastor of Fredericton’s Skyline Acres Baptist Church, the group met on March 17 with Joan Kingston, the government minister responsible for New Brunswick’s Human Rights Act, to request that she remove “sexual orientation” as a protected right, a categorization that Rev. Csaszar says is “undefined, ambiguous, and somewhat dangerous.”
Last fall, a decade-long dispute between Mayor Woodside and local gay rights advocates sputtered to a conclusion of sorts when a one-man human rights “board of inquiry,” namely University of New Brunswick law professor Brian Bruce, ordered Woodside to proclaim a gay pride weekend despite his conviction that to do so was wrong.
Woodside, 49, maintains that issues involving sexual orientation have no place in the council chamber. “I believe in my heart that I did not discriminate against anyone,” Mayor Woodside said in a telephone interview with The Interim, “and I take exception to a third party ordering me to do something I don’t feel comfortable with.” Ultimately, Mayor Woodside complied with the HRC ruling “under protest.”
Woodside, Fredericton’s mayor for 19 years, is the latest in a series of Canadian municipal leaders to run afoul of human rights tribunals over the gay pride proclamation issue. Mayors Bob Morrow of Hamilton and Dianne Haskett of London were fined $5,000 and $10,000 respectively by the Ontario Human Rights Commission for refusing such proclamation requests. Gay and lesbian organizations said those actions amounted to a refusal to publicly recognize their “contributions to society.”
Mayor Woodside, a member of St. Paul’s United Church in Fredericton, says that his decision not to declare gay pride day “was not based on religion or the Bible … I believe in God. I believe we will all be judged at the end of the day … (But) my religious beliefs have no bearing on my performance in the office of mayor.”
“What we have gone through borders on ridiculousness,” adds Woodside. “A lot of time and a lot of money have been wasted on insubstantial claims of discrimination … A lot of the time we get so caught up in the rights of minorities that the rights of the majority are forgotten. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.”
Rev. Csaszar and his group agree. “We don’t believe sexual orientation belongs in a charter of human rights,” Csaszar says. “The word sex is more than adequate to protect people … We believe they’ve gone overboard.”
Ms. Kingston remained unmoved by the Christians’ appeal, reportedly citing prior court decisions and HRC rulings that have established “sexual orientation” as a category protected from discrimination in Canada.
“These people are concerned the mayor was forced to do something he didn’t believe in good conscience he could do,” said Kingston, stating the obvious. She contends that elected officials must separate their personal preferences from their public duties.
Mayor Woodside and his supporters beg to differ, believing that if the mayor’s interpretation of his mandate from voters is mistaken, they can vote him out in the next election. If some people want to oppose him on a gay rights platform, they are entitled to do so.
Rev. Csaszar says that he and his group are disappointed that Ms. Kingston dismissed their request, but they are more convinced than ever that removing “sexual orientation” from human rights law is the right thing to do. He says he is confident that this can be accomplished at the provincial level, at least.
