60 days plus a fine imposed for alleged ‘hate’ speech
This article originally appeared on WND.com
Guest by post by Bob Unruh
A writer has been jailed for two months for calling an activist a “fat lesbian.”
Alain Soral, a Swiss writer, critiqued Catherine Macherel as a “queer activist” and described her as “unhinged,” including the descriptive “fat lesbian.”
A report from Fox News said that a court in Lausanne, Switzerland, ordered Soral, who also goes by the name Alain Bonnet, to jail for 60 days for the “crimes” of “defamation, discrimination and incitement to hatred.”
The comments were posted online in a Facebook video several years ago.
Macherel is a writer for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures.
“This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” boasted Murial Waeger, of an activist organization promoting lesbianism.
“The conviction of Alain Soral is a strong signal that homophobic hatred cannot be tolerated in our society.”
Soral also was ordered to pay thousands of Swiss francs in penalties.
Pascal Junod, a lawyer for Soral, mocked the conviction for a “crime of opinion” in an email to a media outlet. He said the case aimed to probe whether a person had “sinned against the dogmas of single thought.” An appeal is planned of the punishment, to the European Court of Human Rights if needed, the lawyer said.
The issue arose because of a Swiss law making it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation.
While similar punishments have not yet developed in the United States, there are multiple jurisdictions where there already have been schemes to make it “illegal” to criticize, or “discriminate against” someone based on their gender beliefs.
In fact, in one case already under way, 16-year-old Abbigail Wheeler was removed from her local YMCA swim team for expressing alarm at having a biological male in the women’s locker room, Fox reported.
And there have been the cases involving 303 Creative and Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, where extremists in the homosexual and transgender communities have claimed they have the right to force Christian business operators to violate their faith to accommodate their demands of those businesses.
Both of those companies have won their disputes at the U.S. Supreme Court, but activists continue to level charges against any company they perceive as not advocating for the alternative lifestyle choices they’ve made.
Copyright 2023 WND News Center
