I think I found what you're referring to

But it's not the way you put it if the case in question is about Stephen Boisson. I am quite confident that no pastors are being arrested in Canada in their pulpits for reading Romans or anything else from the Bible. This case of Stephen Boisson is the closest thing I could come to, and probably what you are referencing. And it's not about the Bible, it is about his comments on gays in a non-religious forum - the newspape, not the pulpit. And he's not been arrested or fined (yet) nor will he be sent to jail.

I read a number of sites that have bits and pieces about this case but nothing that gives me a clear picture of what happened. I don't necessarily believe Mr. Boisson's slant on his website either, although maybe that is the way it happened.

Generally speaking though, I believe freedom of speech comes with responsibility and I don't believe that people ought to be able to say whatever they want to say in whatever forum just because they have an opinion. Opinions, are like you-know-whats - everyone has them. I don't believe that letters written in the style of Mr. Boisson's does anyone any good. It doesn't follow that I think he should be fined or forced into a public apology, but I just don't think he did Christ any good.

Christ didn't go out railing at the fallen women of the world, or the homosexuals. He spoke to the individual about grace and forgiveness. He knew that they knew when they were doing wrong. They didn't need to be told they were wrong. The people who needed most to be told they were wrong were the religious leaders who thought they had figured it out.

And you know, all kinds of things happen in Alberta that never happen anywhere else, with all due apologies to Albertans. It's like our version of Texas. Bigger, better, louder, richer. I recall a teacher there teaching students that the Holocaust was a lie and he too jumped on the freedom of speech band wagon....

But you can't take an example that is extreme and assume that it is the norm, even if your original belief that some pastor had been hauled out of his own church pew was true. There are nuts on the side of the law as well, who every now and then behave irrationally and contrary to the law. The system has never failed to straighten itself out.

My husband remembers when he was a kid in school many years ago and in order to promote dental hygiene, toothbrushes were handed out to students, and the parents said, "It's a communist plot...."

Layla