One way you can circumvent accepted practices and laws is to dust off an old forgotten statute from a few centuries back. In the U.S., the Trump administration is currently disrupting and endangering many lives with the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Intended for times of war and last used against the Japanese during WWII (because they were easily identifiable to racists) it is now being applied against Venezuelans. Oddly the U.S. is currently not at war with Venezuela which should be a major prerequisite when being applied.
Civil Liberty organizations and even the Supreme Court are fighting back.
How has Canada handled their own outdated statues to ensure they don’t return to haunt us? We used to have a blasphemy law where blasphemous libel could earn someone two years in jail. It was resurrected for use in 1980 against owners of a movie theater in Sault Ste. Marie for screening a satire about the life of Jesus Christ. Who knew the screening of a Monty Python movie could get you incarcerated. The hit flick entitled The Life of Brian offended someone’s religious sensibility and could have cost some businessmen money to launch a defense of something we all assumed was a fundamental right for Canadians – free speech. Fortunately, the Ontario Attorney General stepped in to stop the case.
In the U.S. which prided itself on being a secular society, we are seeing that principal being under attack and elected officials chipping away at the values CFIC members hold dear. Religion zealotry is being used to take away rights. Who knows if a future Ontario Attorney General may see the screening of the Life of Brian as an affront to God. They may, but one law to threaten free thinkers has been removed from their arsenal.
Here is where our group (CFIC) stepped up with a concerted effort to remove this stain from our law books. After a long campaign, CFIC with the help of other organizations and concerned Canadian citizens could claim a victory in 2018. At that time Bill C-51 was passed and the blasphemy law along with a few other outdated decrees were repealed.
This battle was one of my first introductions to this institute. I shared with them my letter in the Toronto Star and eventually became enamoured with the ability to write “longer letters” on this site. This was the reprinted letter from 2016.
It is a worthy accomplishment that all of us together were able to effect real change.