Volitional Chill

Our rights to freedom of expression and freedom to act as we see fit through an expression of our personal ethics and moral choices - let alone those accepted through religious affiliation are being steadily eroded. And since those freedoms set us apart from authoritarian states which offer no such freedoms to their citizens, we're permitting a dangerous and precedent-setting interruption of our social customs, our political culture, on the way to utter disintegration.

All sacrificed on the altar of sensitivity to others. In our zeal to appear to be open and non-judgemental to the values of others - from other cultures, those who espouse values that have strayed from mainstream acceptability - we have allowed our own values to become endangered. And that's a pity. Not all things have equal value to all people. Many culture groups or those of ethnic or religious backgrounds, or those who espouse differential sexuality reject the majority culture.

In fact, there's nothing too dreadfully wrong with that. There are certain entitlements in a society that thinks of itself as egalitarian, fair-minded and welcoming of others. It's just that when that welcome gets stretched a little too thin by additional demands extended on the part of those whom the general culture has encouraged, to the extent that the majority finds itself treading on eggshells, matters have advanced well beyond balance.

There should be more than enough leeway within a liberal democracy for alternate ways of achieving a desired lifestyle based on an individual's orientation, without necessitating the sacrifice of fundamental values shared by the majority population. We should, ideally, be adult enough and sufficiently secure in our own skins, to behave in a tolerable manner toward others. How could it be otherwise in a diverse society?

Human nature being what it is, and human beings comprised of such monumentally diverse attributes, we cannot all espouse similar values, other than those that are so based in elemental human need, that we do intrinsically share. If someone's gender expression does not match general expectations, that's all right, there's room for alternatives. If values held by the majority are not shared by minority groups that too is acceptable.

We do not, however, want to go about challenging the veracity and legitimacy of other peoples' values. As long as they remain comfortably within the bounds of legal and social acceptability. The commission of crimes, of violence against others, of truly egregious instances of vile discrimination, are verboten in any society; these are universal unacceptables.

When Canada's various human rights commissions poke about relentlessly, determined to bring about constrained consensus behaviours through duress, we've gone a mile too far. So that with the Ontario Human Rights Commission recommending to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario that they alter they professional code of conduct to pry physicians away from their personal codes in the practise of medicine, it's wrong.

If a very particular service, even a medical service, is not available through the personal auspices of a particular practitioner, then seek out those services elsewhere, through the willing participation of a medical practitioner for whom the provision of such services does not constitute an assault on his or her personal values. It's as simple as that. Yet that doesn't appear as a solution to those who feel justified in pushing the issue.

Somewhat like members of the gay community deliberately targeting private owners of businesses whose personal code of values don't coincide with those of the gay community. Which might include social counselling, religious or medical services, matrimonial services, publishing services, catering services, and a whole host of other businesses whose owners might balk at clients whose orientation they find personally offensive. It is their human right to withhold their services.

Move on. There are other business owners whose values sensibly do not preclude giving empathetic service to all people, who don't regard the client's gender orientation or religion, or ethnic or cultural values all that substantially different than their own. These are surface differences, and those who wish to deny their humanity do so as a social insult to others, but society cannot guarantee that its members will not feel personally slighted by others.

We are not universally polite and accommodating to others, as a species, in any event. Many choose to be reserved and indifferent to the presence of others. This is human nature at its most basic level. In a free society people should feel free, and protected by law, to emote or somehow produce their free thoughts and feelings. Social reserve and public conservatism generally ensures that those expressions don't circulate as pure unadulterated hate expressions.

So when disaffected individuals like William Whatcott of Regina distributed leaflets in which he expressed his personal opposition to bringing the exploration and explanations of sexuality and alternate sexuality into public school classrooms to teach children about diversity, that might be seen as his right of expression. Doubtless there might also exist numerous parents who feel likewise, but feel powerless or socially constrained, to protest.

When he also vigorously protested advertisements taken from a gay magazine, finding it unacceptable that a personal classified ad stated "searching for boys/men for penpals, friendship, exchanging video, pics..." that too was his right, to express freely his revulsion at what he takes to be unnatural and offensive. He pounced on the word "boys" in the advertisement, obviously meant for a target audience, but don't we all use the terms "boys and girls" interchangeably with young men and women?

In any event his stance was held to be personally offensive to four individuals, who suffered bruised feelings and who prosecuted the man under Saskatchewan's human rights law. The result of which, now under appeal, was that Mr. Whatcott was ordered to pay $17,500 to the complainants, and ordered as well to refrain from producing additional, similarly offensive materials for public distribution.

This might fly in an autocratic society, the truncation of civil liberties; not that any society other than a democratic one would be eager to guarantee freedom of expression to its population - and then shift that freedom into the realm of hate propaganda. We're permitting ourselves and our rights to be high-jacked by self-availing groups entirely too sensitive and combative toward social criticism.

While some of those groups have a legitimate grievance in the sense that they have been, at some time in the not-too-remote past been dreadfully discriminated against, the current reaction is vastly disproportional to the flimsiness of the complaints. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that no one body has a monopoly on truth, and that our democracy is predicated on faith in the marketplace of ideas.

If we don't encourage the free exchange of ideas, how can we begin to understand one another? If we undertake strong-arm messaging to those who balk at performing services that would effectively serve to destroy their personal values, how are we strengthening and upholding diversity and freedoms?

We, as individuals, go through life dealing with disappointments and criticism. As we mature we learn to deal with life's little let-downs. No one is perfect, no one can be expected to be all things to all people, let alone can we achieve universal agreement on anything. Including full acceptance of others' life-styles that appear to degrade normalcy in society, according to some.

No one can be guaranteed freedom from hurt feelings. Death delivers us from all unpleasantness, human-derived or otherwise.