Excuses for bigotry

The big news today is the federal Cons' apparent decision to bring forward a bigotry bill to enshrine gay-bashing as a statutory entitlement. But as offensive as the idea is generally, it's even more striking to see the lengths the Cons are going to in trying to invent problems to justify the bill:

Justice officials have also been told to search for ways to protect the rights of individuals to criticize homosexual activity because it contravenes religious teachings, or to refuse to do business with organizations whose purposes he or she disagrees with, without being brought before a human-rights tribunal.

In other words, the intention of the bill isn't even to deal with what the Cons perceive as current limitations on the ability of gay-bashers to go about their prejudice. The plan is to first look for every conceivable area where it's possible to insult gays, and then introduce the bill as a pre-emptive strike to cover all such contingencies.

It's worth noting also that the timing of the bill appears intended to make sure that courts don't have an opportunity to actually balance the interests involved. (Which, as pointed out by Vues d'ici, fits nicely with the Cons' elimination of the court challenges programs) Instead, the Cons' intention is to conclusively resolve any dispute against the rights of gays - effectively denying that there could be any competing rights worthy of court protection.

Needless to say, the proposed bill shouldn't stand a chance of making it through the current Parliament. And indeed the news of the bigotry bill may only encourage opposition members to vote against reopning the gay marriage issue. But it's still striking to see the Cons going this far out of their way in favour of discrimination while holding onto a tenuous minority government - and the move should only highlight just how much more damage the Cons' reactionaries would do given a chance at a majority.