Boissoin to appeal
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
An appeal will be filed next week concerning a former Red Deer pastor and an anti-gay letter he wrote and had published.
“We do plan to file Monday or Tuesday through the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta,” said Calgary lawyer Gerald Chipeur on behalf of his client Stephen Boissoin, on Thursday.
The appeal will centre on a recent ruling and decision made by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.
In November, the commission ruled the Concerned Christian Coalition and its former executive director, Boissoin, broke Alberta’s human rights law after a letter was published in the Red Deer Advocate in June 2002.
The commission said Boissoin’s letter likely exposed homosexual people to hatred and contempt.
On May 30, the commission ruled that Boissoin and the coalition would have to pay $5,000 in damages to former Red Deer school teacher Darren Lund.
Lund had filed the complaint that the letter was a hate crime after a gay teen was attacked in the city.
Another $2,000 would have to be paid to Janelle Dodd, one of Lund’s witnesses who spoke at an earlier commission hearing.
Boissoin and the coalition were also ordered to stop publishing in all forms of media any “disparaging remarks” about gays and homosexuals.
As well, they must give a written apology to Lund, and request that the Red Deer Advocate publish a copy of the May 30 order and their written apology.
