From ecdl@wpg.ramp.net Wed Sep 11 11:54:32 PDT 1996
Article: 70465 of can.politics
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From: Joe Lockhart 
Subject: A B.C. Pedophile is also a Homosexual
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Saturday September 7, 1996 


Police are alleging that Bennest had a secret life


DOUG WARD, Vancouver Sun

It's been said that we all have three lives: a public one, a private one and a secret one.
William Bennest, 52, led an exemplary public life. He was a popular, enthusiastic teacher and
principal with an unblemished record of 25 yearsof service in the Burnaby school system.

Bennest also led a private life - he was a gay man, and had an exemplary record of service in that
community. Bennest helped organize the Gay Games held in Vancouver in 1990. He sat on the
games' board of directors and donated $1,000 to the event.

The police are alleging that Bennest also had a secret life beyond his public and private lives. They
say he collected and produced child pornography and had sexual contact with minors.

This clandestine life is a secret no longer and professional colleagues, neighbors and friends, gay
and straight, are grappling with its dramatic exposure.

Burnaby school board superintendant Elmer Froese said that teachers and administrators who
knew Bennest are still shattered by what they didn'tknow him.

"I just came from a room where there are people who are as close to Bill Bennest as anyone can
be professionally and did holidays together and some of those people are in a state of denial," said
Froese Friday.

"They asked us: Is there a chance that this can be a mistake? And we answered - based on what we
know - we think no. And there was devastation.  Absolute devastation."

Froese said most of his colleagues - though not all - were unaware that Bennest was gay. Froese
said Bennest's sexual orientation was not part of his persona at Burnaby schools.

"He had a private life like all of us do. I don't think it was hidden. But he was not like some people
who wear their whole life on their sleeve.

"Nor was it clandestine. I did find out that there people who were aware of his orientation. And
others who found out said: 'No big deal.' This is 1996. Probably in 1975 it would have been
different."

Bennest, the suspended principal of Clinton Elementary School, had been a principal for 12 years,
five of them at Clinton. He graduated from high school in Oliver, in southeast B.C. and was hired
directly out of the University of B.C. teaching program in 1971.

After taking a leave to complete a masters' degree, he was promoted to principal at Rosser
Elementary in 1984 and transferred to Clinton in 1990.

He had a reputation for working with "gifted" children and his record was perfect.

So was his reputation in the solidly middle-class, tree-lined west-side Vancouver block where he
owned a home. Neighbors described him as a quiet but friendly person. He had a cat and an
immaculate garden. One neighbor described him as someone you would trust with your child with
or exchange small talk with over the fence.

One neighbor who refused to be identified said: "He was a nice guy. I'm in a lot of pain about this.
I did like him. I do like him." Bennest's next-door neighbor, Dr. Gabor Mate, declined to talk
about him. But Mate said that as a child of the Holocaust, he is not shocked by the contradictions
in human behavior. "I've long ago come to terms with the fact that human beings are capable of
extremes of good and evil and that in many people there may be a mix of both."

Mate said Bennest appeared to be a man who "was genuinely good and positive in his life and
people have benefited."  He added: "But, if these charges are right, he also had a dark side, that
he hadn't resolved, and it got the better of him. And while any children or families harmed by him
deserve support and emphathy, he also deserves empathy."

Another neighbor, Lori Roth, is producing a film on the sexual exploitation of children. She had
never seen her neighbor. She had just returned from an international conference in Stockholm this
week only to learn that an alleged source of child pornography was literally behind her back yard. 
"It's tragic," said Roth. "But I think that what this might do is open people's yes to the fact that the
monster is not a horned devil." 

Gay journalist Dan Gawthrop recalled Bennest as a low-key type, rarely seen in gay clubs but
active in gay sports.  "He struck me, as did other people on the Gay Games board, as a small-c
conservative gay who was not the activist type. They all seemed, at least initially, worried about a
lot of public exposure because of their jobs." Bennest was instrumental in bringing the Gay Games
to Vancouver. He was also past-president of the Vancouver Gay Volleyball Association, founding
member of the the Vancouver Gay and Lesbian Summer Games and Metropolitan
Vancouver Athletics and Arts Association. 

Bill Amundson, a member of the Gay Games board, was a good friend of Bennest who travelled
with the principal to Mexico and the Gulf Islands. "He was a great guy," said Amundson. "Just
about all of my friends know him. He's very well-known. And everyone is very shocked."
He added: "I just find this whole thing completely out of character. It's  absolutely incredible."

Another Gay Games board member, Mary Brookes, was similarly upset: "I was very shocked. If
the allegations are untrue then the guy's had his life destroyed for him.
"If the allegations are the truth, then like any other abuser of children then I wish him to rot in
hell."


Brookes said the arrest has sent shock waves through Vancouver's gay community. Many fear the
affair could prompt an anti-gay backlash - something she feels is unfair.

"The reality is that 97 per cent of pedophiles are heterosexual. And when a heterosexual pedofile is
caught, every heterosexual doesn't go oh, that's a bad example for our community. Bill Bennest
can't represent all gay people or all white males."

-30-

The typical responce from the 'gay' community is that most pedophiles are heterolsexual. Most
people blindly believe that. In this next artical the truth is exposed.

The Western Report  December 4, 1995 Page 36

Lovers, or just good friends?

Despite denials by some, gays are leading the push to legitimize pedophilia

     At least three major studies in the U.S, have found that among child sex offenders there  is
a wildly disproportionate presence of homosexuals. Prominent homosexuals, writing in gay 
literature and the mainstream press, have publicly endorsed adult-child sex. Despite all this, 
however, the Edmonton Journal concluded in a lengthy weekend think-piece on November 12 
that there is no connection -- biological, psychological or social -- between pedophilia and the
larger homosexual community. 

     Three  days  before  the  Journal  story  appeared, the Ontario  Press Council  (OPC)
censured  the Globe and Mail for publishing an article by Gerald Hannon, a journalism instructor
at  Toronto's Ryerson Polytechnic University, in which he vilified the London,Ont. police for
trying  to suppress homosexual child prostitution.

     In his March 11, 1995 Globe story "The kiddie-porn ring that wasn't," Mr. Hannon
defended the filming of men having anal intercourse with boys under 14, because the youngsters 
"came on to" the men who sodomized them, and the videos were not intended for sale. London 
police complained to the press council that the Globe presented an opinion piece as a factual 
account, and failed to mention Mr. Hannon's past support for "intergenerational sex."

     The Globe admitted it ran the pro-pedophilia article, according to the OPC, "because the 
editor believed there was a version of events that had not been reported." The OPC said the  article
should have been more "balanced," However, the council said it was unnecessary for the 
newspaper to identify Mr. Hannon as someone who believes sex with children is morally
acceptable; the OPC was "satisfied with an editor's note that identified the author as a teacher who
often writes on gay issues."

     However, the implied admission that pedophilia is a "gay issue" is vehemently denied by 
gay activists in the mainstream press. The denial is rendered difficult by the frequency with  which
adult-child sex appears in homosexual porn and political literature. Mr. Hannon's  infamous 1977
essay, "Men Loving Boys Loving Men," published in the gay newspaper The  Body Politic,
declared that consensual "boy-love is not child molestation," and described  approvingly a Big
Brother volunteer who habitually has sex with his "little brothers."

     Moreover, in the January 1994 edition of Xtra, Canada's largest circulation gay magazine,
Mr. Hannon wrote, "I could  never understand before  how children's hockey differed from an
organized child-sex ring. Both involved children and adults. Both involved strenuous  physical
activity (adult coaches taking the role of adult lover). Both involved danger. Both involved
pleasure. Yet we approve of hockey but deplore child-sex rings."Mr, Hannon, who denies having a
sexual predilection for young children, regularly discusses his beliefs with his students in the
classroom at Ryerson. Although the institute's administration is investigating Mr. Hannon's views,
the chairman of Ryerson's journalism school, John Miller supports the teacher. Mr. Hannon, he
insists, "is not causing harm to my students" and that anyone who questions his right to be in the
classroom is "homophobic."

     Still, Mr. Hannon's approval of adult-child sex appears to make gay activists nervous.
When asked to comment on the controversy, John Fisher, president of Equality for Gays and
Lesbians Everywhere in Toronto, said, "EGALE does not support pedophilia. There is no link
between pedophilia and sexual orientation. That is the only comment I'll make."

     Conservatives believe gay lobbyists distance themselves from pedophilia for political
reasons. The movement is in the thick of a campaign to enshrine "sexual orientation," a purposely
ambiguous phrase, into various pieces of federal and provincial legislation. To allow that
pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation would prompt a furious public backlash.
              
     Despite the writings of gay activists such as Mr. Hannon, the Journal's Mr. McKeen wrote
that the purported link between pedophilia and homosexuality was conjured up by the political
right. He quoted local gays saying that it's a "campaign of hate against homosexuals."      
     One difficulty with the gays' right-wing conspiracy theory is that no serious conservative
writer maintains that most homosexuals are pedophiles; it is an accepted fact that most child 
molesters are heterosexual. But two studies in the mid-1980s, in the Journal of Sex and Marital 
Therapy and Psychological Reports, found roughly 35% of pedophiles are gay, even though gays 
make up only 2% of the population. If both numbers are true, it means, statistically, that a
homosexual is 26.4 times more likely to be a pedophile than is a heterosexual. Furthermore, 
homosexual pedophiles are more active. A 1992 study in the Journal of Sex and Marital  Therapy
found that heterosexual pedophiles commit an average of 20 acts of child molestation;   for the
homosexual kind, the number is150. 

     Citing these studies, Dr. Larry Burtoft, a social research analyst with Focus on the Family 
in Colorado Springs, Colorado, concludes that, "In terms of both the likelihood and the extent of 
child sexual molestation, homosexuals, as a group, represent a serious threat." Dr. Burtoft adds 
that advocates of pedophilia "are not street corner perverts. They are fairly well-known, educated 
perverts,' whose strategy is to slowly gain public acceptance by grinding away at social and legal
barriers.
     Grande Centre, Alta. psychiatrist Michael Ferri says, "Pedophilia is a heterosexual and
homosexual problem. They are equal wrongs."  That said, he adds that gays are overrepresented in
the pedophile population "because they have problems defining the boundaries of normal sexual
behaviour. They are already outside what is considered good, wholesome sexual relations." 

 -- Peter Verburg 

-30-




From ecdl@wpg.ramp.net Wed Sep 11 11:54:34 PDT 1996
Article: 70466 of can.politics
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From: Joe Lockhart 
Subject: Big Brother (CHRC) wants more power
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Rock and roll is here to stay

The federal justice minister suggests further social engineering

The Western Report Setp. 9, 1996 P 26

Those who thought that with the passage of Bill C-33 federal Justice 
Minister Allan Rock was done trying to reshape Canadian society should
think again. Less than three months after rewriting the Canadian Human 
Rights Act (CHRA) to allow things like gay spousal benefits, Mr. Rock 
mused in late August about further amendments. This time, he wants to 
give Canada's federal rights police carte blanche to launch intrusive
investigations wherever they see fit.

  Mr. Rock made the suggestion at the annual convention of the Canadian 
Bar Association in Vancouver. Speaking at a question-and- answer session 
on August 25, he told lawyers that he was considering more CHRA 
amendments. Most notably, he hinted that he would remove some of the 
fetters on the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) by allowing
it to start investigations of so-called "systemic discrimination" without 
awaiting actual complaints. "If, for example, there is a particular category 
of employers who seems always to have women preponderately in a
secondary role," Mr. Rock asked rhetorically in a Vancouver Sun news
story, "then should the commission be able to start an investigation of that
rather than waiting for a complaint?" He plainly thought it should not have
to wait.

   The notion that the CHRC might have even more power alarms social
conservatives. After all, even when it was supposedly constrained by its
inability to accept complaints involving homosexuality (not a protected
ground under the CHRA until C-33's con- tentious passage), the CHRC 
nevertheless investigated a series of gay discrimination complaints and
thereby helped lay the groundwork for this year's amendments.

   Allowing investigations without complaints would make a mockery of
the whole rationale of human rights commissions, argues Real Women of 
Canada vice-president Gwen Landolt. In Canada, the quasi-judicial bodies
have always been solely complaints based, the Toronto lawyer says, and 
are immune from normal evidentiary procedures and other safeguards of 
defendants' legal rights because they are intended to help resolve 
complaints between two conflicting parties amicably and without recourse 
to formal court hearings.

   The purpose was never to allow commissions to pursue liberal social 
agendas by aggressively seeking ut targets on their own, Mrs. Landolt 
adds. For one thing, their operations are blatantly skewed in favour of 
complainants. Commission procedures mandate that commissions pay all 
the plaintiff's costs during an investigation but none of the defendant's.
Furthermore, commission members are almost exclusively drawn from 
the ranks of liberal activists, and if a matter is referred to a tribunal, the 
commission selects who will sit in judgement. These are almost always
liberal-minded arbiters.

   To unleash such an unbalanced entity on an unsuspecting public 
without even the legitimacy of a formal complaint would be a legal
travesty, Mrs. Landolt warns, "Allan Rock is insane," she snaps. "He's 
using the tyranny of these human rights commissions to promote a 
destructive liberal agenda over and above the courts."

  Calgary lawyer Gerald Chipeur, a past president of the constitutional 
section of the CBA, is less extreme in his criticism but he too is dismayed. 
While he says it is not unknown to grant human rights agencies the right 
to act without complaints, citing as an example the U.S. Equal  
Employment Opportunities Commission, Mr. Chipeur worries Mr. Rock's
suggestion could open the door to an expensive and aggressive 
bureaucracy. "I think this is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist,"
he remarks. "Human rights commissions would be better served if they
resolved issues where people have a real problem."

  But if Mr. Rock does proceed, he would not be the first leftist Canadian
politician to enact that interventionist approach.B.C.'s NDP regime 
amended its own human rights legislation last year to allow the B.C. 
Human 1 Rights Commission to launch investigations without receiving a 
complaint  from  a  directly-involved party. Those powers will come into
force this fall.

-- Tom McFeely 

-30-

As you can see, the thought police are going to get more powers. What
are you going to do to stop them?

The Euro-Christian Defence League
P.O. Box 345 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3C 2H6
24 Hr Hotline (204) 775-0878

Visit our Web Site at:
http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/ecdl/

Or visit the Freedom Site at:
http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/


From ecdl@wpg.ramp.net Wed Sep 11 11:54:35 PDT 1996
Article: 70470 of can.politics
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From: Joe Lockhart 
Subject: Censorship - even the media must ask permission to speak
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The right to upset people

A court battle could destroy B.C.' gag order

The Western Report Sept 9, 1996 P 26

In the two years since the North Shore News ran afoul of the B.C. Human
Rights Council, (HRC) for printing a column condemning the movie
Schindler's List, Peter Speck, the newspaper's founder, has repeatedly
vowed to "retire Bill 33." He refers to the 1993 legislation which prohibits
all public expression exposing "a person or group of persons to hatred or
contempt."

   Mr. Speck has now decided to challenge Bill 33 in court. His decision
was triggered by the August 7 announcement by HRC officials that they
will conduct a hearing on a complaint that the News, and columnist Doug 
Collins, violated Bill 33 provisions. A guilty verdict could carry a fine of
up to $100,000.

   "If we appeared before this kangaroo court we would be giving it
legitimacy, so I decided it was time to fight back in a real court," says
publisher Speck.

   The complaint against the News was filed by the Canadian Jewish
Congress in May 1994. Its cause was a March 9, 1994, column in which
Mr. Collins called Schindler's List propaganda, and observed that
Germans who had nothing to do with the Hitler period are still 
compensating Holocaust survivors. He also disputed accounts of the 
number of Jews who died in concentration camps. 

   Dr. Michael Elterman, past chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress, 
did not take exception to Mr. Collins questioning mortality rates. But he 
said the columnist stepped over the line by "calling Schindler's List 
propaganda and saying the point of it is to extract war reparations. That's 
what invites hatred."

   In October 1995, after six months of deliberation, the B.C. Press
Council, stated it would not condemn Mr. Collins or the News "for
exercising their constitutional right of free expression."

   But the Congress has pressed on with its complaint to the HRC. No 
date has been scheduled for the hearing, but Mr. Speck expects any 
action against him will pale in comparison to his counter-attack. "I'm
furious that the NDP is denying British Columbians freedom of speech," 
he says. "Bill 33, and Bill 32" (introduced in June 1995 to provide for 
permanent gag orders preventing newspapers from publishing stories
people find offensive) "are bits of the same rancid cheese."

   News lawyer David Sutherland confirmed that he is preparing "either by
writ or petition" to challenge Bill 33 and the Council's jurisdiction in B.C.
Supreme Court.

   Although Mr. Sutherland refuses "to argue the case in the press," it is 
expected that his chief legal weapon will be Section 2(B) of the Canadian 
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees freedom of expression. 

     Section 1 of the Charter states that such freedoms are subject to 
reasonable  limits. However, that section also stipulates that rights can 
only be infringed upon when a clear and urgent need is demonstrated. 
Furthermore, the court is obliged to balance the beneficial effect of an 
infringement -- such as placating a minority group -- with the amount of
damage it will cause those who are silenced.

    Lawyer Sutherland thinks the case will be heard before Christmas. And 
publisher Speck is obviously looking forward to the court battle. "If the
power of the  press hadn't been stifled in Germany" prior to the Second 
World War, "many horrible things would not have followed," he argues. 
"I'm dismayed by the Canadian Jewish Congress. But if I have to go all 
the way to the Supreme Court of Canada to fight this, I'll do so."

-- Robin Brunet

As you can see even the media must have approval from the Canadian
Jewish Congress before it can speak.

Stop censorship and thought control.

The Euro-Christian Defence League
P.O. Box 345 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, R3C 2H6
24 Hr Hotline (204) 775-0878

Visit our Web Site at:
http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/ecdl/

Or visit the Freedom Site at:
http://www.ftcnet.com/~freedom/

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