Scott Brockie, a Toronto printer, refused to print material for a gay and lesbian advocacy group. In 2000, a board of inquiry established by the Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled that Mr. Brockie should have done the work. It ordered him to apologize to the gay group and to pay it $5,000.
It ruled, “Brockie remains free to hold his religious beliefs and to practise them in his home, and in his Christian community,” but that he must not apply those beliefs to the practice of his business. In the real world, religious rights take a back seat.
Dagmar and Arnost Cepica owned the Beach View Bed and Breakfast in Stratford, PEI, until they shut it down in 2001 rather than adhere to a human rights ruling that they accept gay guests, contrary to their religious beliefs. Chris Kempling, a school counsellor in B.C., was suspended from his job last year, not because he attacked gay rights in the classroom, but because he wrote letters to the editor of his local paper outlining his views on the nature of homosexuality. Last week, he was suspended again for writing the same paper to oppose same-sex marriage.
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