Catchin' up with Ezra

A happy (?) ending to yet another example of bureaucratic thuggery was achieved yesterday as the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint of discrimination filed against Ezra Levant by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities for reprinting the Danish cartoons of Mohammed some 2-1/2 years ago.

Whew…. There was a lot of time spent by some very diligent civil servants in determining whether or not Levant had actually committed any crimes and Levant himself shelled-out some coin to defend himself against this and other lawsuits against him that are still in progress…. so you would think Levant would be pretty happy, no?

Not quite.

Pardeep Gundara – a second-rate bureaucrat, a nobody – had to give me his approval for me to be allowed to go back to my business. For 900 days I was in the dock, waiting for this literary giant to pronounce his judgment on me. And I found favour in his eyes – but barely.

Sorry. I don’t give a damn what Gundara or the HRC says. Getting his approval is not a success. I won't legitimize his arrogant "authority" by saying "thank you, master". I'll say: "who the hell are you? Besides a busy-body bureaucrat?"

Look at his rationale for acquitting me: because the Western Standard met Gundara’s home-made tests of reasonableness. We published the cartoons in “context”; we published letters that “criticized” them; and my favourite, the cartoons weren’t “simply stuck in the middle” of the magazine. Gundara must have thought for ten whole minutes to come up with that list of journalistic do’s and don’t’s. And – phew! – he likes me. He really likes me!

Sorry again, I don’t give a damn if he likes me. In fact, it rather creeps me out that a whole squad of teat-sucking bureaucrats spent 900 days inspecting me and the Western Standard. I positively want to offend them. In fact, that’s pretty much the only test of my freedom: can I do exactly what Gundara says I shouldn’t? I’m not interested in publishing recipes or sports scores. I’m interested in bothering the hell out of government.

Did we ever mention how much we love this guy?

Levant later references the Rev. Stephen Boissoin who was “sentenced” never to speak about homosexuality again and wonders why it is he got off the hook but Boissoin did not. Levant suggests that he was just too big of a pain-in-the-ass and his star turns in his YouTube videos of the AHRC “hearings” made the AHRC look petty, subjective yet intellectually feeble all at once… all adding up to one huge PR nightmare for them. We would tend to agree but if they decided to cut bait, what took them so long? Oh yeah… we did say intellectually feeble, did we not?

We’ll try to dig up the dirt on Boissoin because his treatment at the hands of the AHRC was perhaps even more egregious than that of Levant’s.

We Trust May 30th was just an epically slow day around the County offices. (UPDATED)

We have forgotten the exact details of the story but years ago, a magazine alleged an affair between Ann Coulter and some high profile journo-political type whose name escapes us at the moment. Coulter’s response to this allegation was: “I look forward to owning (name of magazine) in the very near future.” Said magazine recanted allegation and issued profuse apologies and Coulter dropped her defamation(?) charges (she has dated both Bill Maher and Bob Gucionne Jr., so we can’t imagine who it was she was linked to that caused her to react in such a manner. Bill Maher….? That’s just, ick…..)

Anyway, we would hope that 50 or so members of the Guatay Christian Fellowship take a rather large chunk out of the County of San Diego after what they are currently enduring.

The members of the Church were given a cease and desist order by County officials because the building in which they hold services is zoned for selling beer and wine but not for holding religious services. This is not a typo – this is actually happening.

The previous owner of the building wanted to make a go of a country and western bar but when that fell through, Stan Patterson, the pastor and his flock moved in…. 22 years ago.

Deputy County Counsel Eliot Alazraki told Peterson in a May 30 letter that the county would take legal action against him if the members of the nondenominational church in the community of Guatay continued worshipping at the trailer park.

“We do not pass judgment on whether the use you are making of the building is a better use than the approved one,” Alazraki wrote. “We are only called upon to decide whether the use is legal or illegal.”

The idiot, Alazraki, is actually correct in this self-assessment as any “judgement” on his part was exercised very sparingly.

It gets better….

Charles LePla, an attorney for trailer park owner John O'Flynn, said new permits for the church would cost at least $10,000, plus thousands more for environmental studies.

Words escape us.

Thankfully, the good people of GCF aren’t taking this lying down and are suing the County for violating their rights to assemble and worship.

We don’t know what torques us off more: the jock-twisting of our American sensibilities toward the 1st Amendment, the complete absence of any common sense being applied by these lackey bureaucrats at the County offices or the fact that our tax dollars will be used to defend the County’s position which will get absolutely vaporized under a mushroom cloud in a court of law?

Actually, drop that last one. We’ll pay to see that.

… and to think that this whole thing could have been avoided if the Church were serving-up the real deal at communion instead of grape juice.

P.S. We have half a mind (no small feat, that) to roll on out there Sunday morning, Bible in hand, Welch's in the cooler and tailgate in solidarity with our east county neighbors. Who's in?

UPDATE #1: Our sources tell us that Guatay Christian Fellowship will be exercising their 1st amendment right to worship in defiance of pointy-headed bureaucracy this Sunday at 1000. Check their site here for directions.