After its shameful intervention in the Boissoin case, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association should think seriously about changing its name.

The CCLA intervened in, and has warmly welcomed, an Alberta appeals court ruling that in essence upholds the right of bigots to spew homophobic propaganda in the local press.

Precisely whose civil liberties does this now-discredited organization uphold? Not those of the gay kid in Red Deer, beaten after “Rev.” Boissoin’s sick muck was published. Not those of bullied gay and lesbian kids in our schools, some driven to suicide, victims of a homophobic culture that the CCLA has just helped to enable and promote.

A sample from “Rev.” Boissoin’s hateful screed:

Come on people, wake up! It’s time to stand together and take whatever steps are necessary to reverse the wickedness that our lethargy has authorized to spawn. Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds.

…Don’t allow yourself to be deceived any longer. These activists are not morally upright citizens, concerned about the best interests of our society. They are perverse, self-centred and morally deprived individuals who are spreading their psychological disease into every area of our lives. Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.

The homosexual agenda is not gaining ground because it is morally backed. It is gaining ground simply because you, Mr. and Mrs. Heterosexual, do nothing to stop it. It is only a matter of time before some of these same morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers [sic] Association….

This is nothing less than a call to arms. Some people take such calls seriously.

The beating of a gay teen a short time after “Rev.” Boissoin’s letter appeared may or may not be directly linked to these hateful words. That’s not the point. A letter in a local paper linking homosexuality to all manner of other evils, one from a clerical figure, can only help to reinforce active homophobia. It serves to further isolate and stigmatize gay teens struggling to survive in an already-hostile social climate. It lends a spurious moral authority to the bullies, in fact, who can always use a handy alibi for their sadistic impulses.

The CCLA stands with the bigots, not with their victims. The rights of homophobes come first. As such, the organization is a willing accomplice in homophobia.

And this is the sort of thing that inevitably comes of promoting, reinforcing and enabling that odious point of view.