A troubling incident here could turn out to be a harbinger of what’s ahead for the already strained relationship between conservative Christians and the homosexual community’s more radical elements.

In late September, the Vancouver Sun reported that Roman Catholic Archbishop Adam Exner had severed his archdiocese’s ties with the VanCity Credit Union. That ended a

partnership in which VanCity offered a "junior banking" program to students at four Catholic schools. Exner took the action because of the credit union’s overt bid to attract gays and lesbians as new members. (One recent print ad featured two men sitting cheek-to-cheek over the caption, "I want to bank with people who value all partnerships.")

The result was an outpouring of letters, faxes and e-mails to the archdiocese and the Sun both for and against Exner’s decision. But for some of the archbishop’s harshest critics, that was not enough. "A small but angry crowd screamed obscenities and threats outside my window late at night," Exner wrote in the Sun. That in turn prompted Vancouver police to advise the archdiocese to take extra precautions to protect Exner’s safety when in public.

"[It] is disturbing," Exner noted, "when people of faith are accused of hatred, intolerance and fascism for acting according to their principles. Homosexuals have a right to respect, compassion and dignity. But Catholics have a right to their beliefs and a right to act on their beliefs. Some of the public comment seems to deny us these basic rights."

Get used to it

Sadly, the archbishop-and we-had better get used to it.

More and more, Christians are being told, in effect, to get out of the way as Canada is transformed into one of the most gay-positive societies in the world. And that message is coming not just from a few disaffected homosexuals, but also from the social mainstream.

Take the case of Chris Kempling. He is the Quesnel teacher-counsellor challenging the ruling of the B.C. College of Teachers that he displayed professional "conduct unbecoming" because he expressed publicly his concerns over the positive way in which homosexuality is being presented to schoolchildren.

At a court hearing in July, the college’s stance was supported by Elliot Myers, a lawyer representing the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. In an interview, he said it did not matter that Kempling had never expressed his opinions on the subject in the classroom. What mattered was that he had indicated his "clear intention" to discriminate against homosexual students.

"Our position," he said, "is that Mr. Kempling evinced an intention to teach and counsel in a manner-if the issue came up-that would be discriminatory, so there’s no need to wait and prove whether harm in fact occurs."

But how can being found guilty of a harmful "discriminatory" act you have only allegedly "evinced an intention" to commit be called justice? Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? It seems that upholding deeply held principles is no longer acceptable in Canada, especially when those views are out of sync with the prevailing social ethic.

This is why so many Canadians are fearful of Bill C-250, NDP MP Svend Robinson’s attempt to label as "hate" potentially any statement that expresses a negative opinion about a person’s sexual orientation. If that had been the law when Kempling’s lone accuser first lodged her complaint, he could be in jail by now for hate-mongering. As it is, the bill needs only Senate approval before it does become law.

Fascist legislation

Good for Canadian Alliance MP Vic Toews for giving C-250 the label it justly deserves. It is "fascist," he told me. "I call it New Age fascism-the softer, gentler looking fascism-but it’s enforced political ideology backed up with the hammer of the criminal law."

So this is where we have arrived in such a short while. Those pleading for tolerance are themselves increasingly displaying intolerance and even intimidation tactics, erstwhile defenders of the Charter would now deny some of its privileges and protections to an identifiable minority-and a "new democrat" sees nothing wrong in enshrining in criminal law a totalitarian proscription of free speech.

Winter is approaching. But that’s not the only "chill" being felt across this land.