"Free speech for me, but not for thee" at Carleton University

As the old saying goes, a liberal is someone who says, "Everyone has the right to my own opinion." I've never seen anyone more intolerant than sodomite/lesbian/(insert pervert group here) advocates, who can't stand the thought of even one person being less than 100% supportive of their aggressive agenda. Those who are old enough to remember when this movement began will recall that originally it was just about having homosexual acts removed from the Criminal Code. The advocates didn't argue that their behaviour was the moral equivalent of heterosexual behaviour, much less marriage. Who would have thought, 40-50 years ago, that the pervert rights movement would lead to payment of benefits to same-sex "partners;" adoption of children by such couples; and sodomite/lesbian "marriage"? As recently as 20-25 years ago, it was those who supported such "marriages" who were the way-out fringe element in society; now it's those who uphold the laws of nature and the traditions of anything historically regarded as civilization who are regarded as extremists.

For a particularly egregious example of the intolerance of the advocates of perversion, this backlog item is submitted for your approval. As reported by Katherine DeClerq of Canadian University Press, January 30, 2013:

The Carleton Free Speech Wall was an initiative put forth by the Carleton Students for Liberty Society (SFL) that was meant to measure the level of discourse on campus. For five days, students were encouraged to write on the wall and enact their rights of free expression.

On Jan. 21, Arun Smith, Campaign Coordinator for the Challenge Homophobia and Transphobia Campaign, removed the display from the Unicentre Galleria.

“When we talk about free speech we forget to talk about the structures behind it and the way free speech can be used to reinforce and create violence and hatred,” said Smith.

“In the case of the free speech wall, it’s unregulated free speech, and unlimited free speech will always dissolve into hate speech, and that is exactly why, to prevent the triggering of students, the expression of hatred and the invalidation of people’s identities, I took down the wall.”

Ian CoKehyeng, president of SFL, maintained that the comments on the wall were primarily positive, and that he was surprised at the maturity of the campus.
“You can’t have the good without the bad,” said CoKehyeng in response to some of the negative comments written on the Carleton Free Speech Wall.

“We wanted to challenge the monopoly of opinions that we felt were happening on the university campus and create a marketplace of ideas. We didn’t know what the end goal was going to be — it could have ended really badly or ended very well, [but] it has been very positive.”

However, Smith does not believe that the positive messages outweighed the alleged negative overtones of the others. He cited phrases such as “abortion is murder” and “traditional marriage is awesome” as examples of how the Carleton Free Speech Wall was not conducive to a safe and tolerant university space.

CoKeyheng explained that Smith had always been wary of the project, insisting that it would create an unsafe space on campus.

“[Smith] was already complaining about it before the wall was up, accusing us of putting up a platform for potential homophobia,” said CoKehyeng.

A second wall has been erected Unicentre and there have been no further damages.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), the organization that sponsored the project, was saddened by the display’s removal, but said that they were proud of the way the SFL rebounded its efforts.

“It’s very disappointing to see that level of ignorance about what free speech is about. The person who stole or removed the wall had their opportunity, along with everybody else, to express their opinions,” said JCCF president John Carpay. “If we allow personal subjection of hate to be a tool for censorship, then neither Smith nor anyone else has any free speech left over.”

“These students have character and persistence, and it is good to see that they won’t allow themselves to become completely discouraged by this.”

Student Affairs at Carleton University is currently considering the application of sanctions against Smith based on the Student Rights and Responsibilities Code for damage to property under $500.00. Disciplinary action can include a fine and an apology.

Student Affairs has confirmed that this is the first incident of its kind at Carleton.

As reported by Tristin Hopper in the National Post, January 22, 2013:

...Installed on Monday in the Unicentre Galleria, one of campus’ most high-traffic areas, the wall was really more of a 1.2 x 1.8 meter wooden plank wrapped in paper and equipped with felt markers.

By Tuesday morning the wall was gone, destroyed in an act of “forceful resistance,” by seventh-year human rights student Arun Smith.

“In organizing the ‘free speech wall,’ the Students for Liberty have forgotten that liberty requires liberation, and this liberation is prevented by providing space … for the expression of hate,” he wrote in a 600-word Facebook post in which he identified himself as an anti-homophobia campaigner.

Calling the area around the wall a “war zone,” he intimated that it was “but another in a series of acts of violence” against gay rights.

In a Tuesday afternoon Twitter exchange with a CBC reporter, Mr. Smith dubbed free speech an “illusory concept” and declared that “not every opinion is valid, nor deserving of expression...”

...In truth, the wall’s only overt references to sexual orientation were pro-gay, such as “QUEERS ARE AWESOME,” “Gay is OK” and “I [Heart] Queers.”

The only comment that verged into anti-gay territory was a scrawl reading “traditional marriage is awesome.”

According to Mr. CoKehyeng, the four-word phrase prompted a visit from Ryan Flannagan, the university’s director of student affairs.

“He saw that it wasn’t inciting hate speech at all, so he let that one slide,” said Mr. CoKehyeng...

The reader will note that's it's a "human rights" student who exhibited the most intolerance--which is why for the last several years I've been saying that I don't believe in human rights; I believe in freedom, as opposed to "human rights." My friend Ezra Levant's book Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights (2009) is must reading, and not just for Canadians (The U.S.A., unfortunately, has increasingly been adopting Canada's bad ideas in recent years, which is why Americans should pay attention to what's going on in The Great White North to see what they should be avoiding).

That such an innocuous statement as "traditional marriage is aweseome" would be perceived as an "act of violence" against sodomite rights shows that such activists are not only incapable of distinguishing speech from behaviour, but that their whole movement isn't about affirming anything positive on their own behalf as much as it is bent on destroying traditional morality (and National Post columnist Jonathan Kay provided appropriate commentary on students who have been in university for seven years without yet, apparently, earning a degree).