April 22, 2004
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Masked members of a group called the "Gay Militia" stormed into a meeting of Christians discussing a bill that would criminalize certain opposition to homosexual behavior in Canada.

A videotape [requires RealOne player] of the incident shows the intruders with bandanna-covered faces bursting into a meeting room at the Coast Plaza Hotel in Calgary, Alberta, where the Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. was holding its national convention Saturday night, the Calgary Sun reported.

"Right-wing bigots go away, Gay Militia is here to stay," the intruders chanted.

The Calgary paper said about seven females and one male from the homosexual group were in the room as about 25 members of the convention held hands and prayed aloud.

The female Gay Militia members unfurled a banner that read: "Liberation: Queer Invasion."

Calgary police are reviewing several videotapes of the meeting and an investigation is underway, according to police Const. Doug Jones, the hate-bias crime coordinator for the police cultural resource unit.

"What we are looking at, if we can identify [the protesters] is mischief charges, disturbing a peaceful assembly kind of stuff," he told the Sun.

Jim Blake, a member of the Christian group, told the paper he was "dumbfounded at the fact that the Gay Militia would storm into a private meeting where we were praying and discussing Bill C-250, a bill that will affect our freedom as Christians to discuss certain beliefs."

The controversial bill, which passed the House of Commons last September, adds sexual orientation as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate-crimes legislation, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

As WorldNetDaily reported, opponents fear if it becomes law, the Bible will be deemed "hate literature" under the criminal code in certain instances, as evidenced by the case of a Saskatchewan man fined by a provincial human-rights tribunal for taking out a newspaper ad with Scripture references to verses about homosexuality.

The bill now is in the Senate, where it has overwhelming support, but two amendments were introduced April 1, delaying a vote.

The Senate has recessed until April 20, when a vote is scheduled.

"The CCC feels that all groups have a right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the freedom to assemble and protect their deeply held personal and moral beliefs," Blake told the Calgary paper.

The Sun said the Gay Militia would not comment.

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