Canada: ‘Homophobic comments’ cost man $12,000

Anyone who has been following my blog knows that I dispise the words "human rights" - it's like waving a red flag at a bull. The oh-so PC "Quebec Human Rights Tribunal " has awarded a gay couple $12,000 after their neighbour apparently called them faggots made "homophobic comments". This same neighbour was acquitted of the charges in a court of law nearly five years ago. Luckily for these fellas (may I say that word?), they can always take it to some government sponsored special interest group who are sure to do something ludicrous in order to justify their suckling off the public tit (and that word?). Note the last paragraph: they received $10K in 2007 because some kid put loo paper in their tree and set a cracker off on their property. Hey, maybe I should turn gay and sue anyone who looks at me funny or calls me names. Anyhow, I was just wondering....if homophobia is unacceptable, what do we do with people suffering this affliction? Should they be forced into treatment or would "attitude adjustment" camps be good enough? I hope these 2 men don't read my commentary - I don't have $14K to give them!The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal has ordered a Montreal man to pay his gay neighbours $12,000 for allegedly subjecting them to “homophobic comments,” death threats and invitations to fight, even though he was acquitted of the charges in a court of law nearly five years ago.

The happy couple, Roger Thibault and Theo Wouters

The tribunal ruled that Gordon Lusk, a married father of two, must pay the “moral and punitive” damages after his neighbours, Theo Wouters and Roger Thibault, accused him of addressing them as “faggots” during a June 2006, altercation.

Mr. Lusk’s lawyer, Stephen Angers, characterized the tribunal’s sanctions as “far too serious,” saying the circumstances surrounding his client’s interaction with Messrs. Wouters and Thibault were “blown out of proportion.”

“It makes no sense that Mr. Lusk could be acquitted in a Quebec court and then found liable for moral and punitive damages in front of a human rights tribunal,” Mr. Angers said. “These tribunals are just in another world.”

Mr. Angers accused the tribunal of being unfair to his client: “They have a mission and that is to preside over hearings for human rights. I don’t know if they can be objective.”

The case against Mr. Lusk, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Canadian Forces, stems from an April 2004, incident in which Mr. Thibault is alleged to have driven recklessly down their street in the Montreal suburb of Pointe Claire while neighbourhood children, including Mr. Lusk’s son, were playing road hockey.

A witness testified that Mr. Thibault had run a stop sign and driven at high speed toward one of the kids, nearly hitting the child. The witness testified that two years earlier, Mr. Thibault had inadvertently squashed a tennis ball the children were playing with, prompting one of the children to yell “f---ing fag,” a comment that encouraged others to join in a “chorus of fag.”

When Mr. Lusk heard about the latest encounter with Mr. Thibault, he decided to take the matter up with his neighbours.

Messrs. Thibault and Wouters allege Mr. Lusk showed up at their home yelling and hitting their metal gate, an accusation Mr. Lusk steadfastly denies. The couple said Mr. Lusk accused Mr. Wouters, who had not been in the car, of driving dangerously and endangering the lives of his children, calling him a “f---ing faggot.”

Mr. Lusk is alleged to have invited the couple out onto the street to fight, saying, “I will kill you. I will kill you both here.”

Mr. Lusk affirmed he neither made death threats nor threatened to hurt the couple, but subsequently signed a recognizance to keep the peace and be of good behaviour, in addition to promising to donate $500 to a community group. Police also charged him with assault and uttering death threats, but he was later acquitted.

Still, the Human Rights Tribunal, using surveillance footage of the encounter captured by cameras Messrs. Thibault and Wouters had installed on their home, ruled “by a preponderance of evidence, that the defendant, by his behaviour, his comments and his attitude, has violated the rights of the plaintiffs, on the basis of their sexual orientation.”

Mr. Wouter, 68, told the National Post he and Mr. Thibault, 64, are “very happy” with the latest Human Rights Tribunal ruling.

“It sends a message to the rest of Canada that homophobia is not acceptable,” he said.

Messrs. Wouters and Thibault, who were the first gay male couple in Quebec to formalize their union under the province’s civil union law, have a history of pursuing lawsuits and complaints against neighbours whom they believe harbour homophobic attitudes.

The couple moved into their Parkdale Avenue home in 1978 and lived in relative peace with their neighbours for more than two decades. But in 2001, they began complaining of harassment from a neighbour, Bob Walker, resulting in criminal charges and a 4,000-person anti-homophobia march through their neighbourhood. Mr. Walker was acquitted a year and a half later after the judge in the case encountered difficulty with the credibility of the two men. Six years later, the couple signed a letter of apology to Mr. Walker in which they stated all the complaints made against him were “baseless.”

In 2007, the Quebec Human Rights Commission recommended damages of $10,000 be awarded to the couple after a neighbourhood teen covered their trees with toilet paper, set off a firecracker on their property and made violent threats.

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