Brody's Scribbles... Trab On Canadian Couple Shutting Out Gay Folk In BC

By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) June 11 |  Trab from Vancouver, British Columbia, responds to the Vancouver Sun article written by Sun correspondent Kim Pemberton who wrote:

A British Columbia couple is in the "centre of a firestorm" after refusing to provide accommodation to a gay couple have shut down their bed and breakfast despite doing major renovations on their home to facilitate the business.

"We've been harassed so bad we're not running (the B&B)," said Lee Molnar, who lives with his wife Susan in the B.C. community of Grand Forks.

Their lawyer Ronald Smith said they are "devastated" but also feel they can't continue to operate Grand Forks Riverbend Bed and Breakfast for fear they will be asked again "to violate their religious beliefs" by renting to a gay couple.

Smith is representing the couple in a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal case scheduled to begin Wednesday, but it was postponed.

"They're just a retired couple in Grand Forks who thought they would open their home to guests and here they are in the centre of a firestorm," Smith said. "They're a lovely couple. They don't want to be thought of as discriminating, but they're Christians who don't feel they can violate their religious beliefs."

The human-rights hearing, scheduled for two days this week in Kelowna, B.C., was postponed Wednesday after the lawyer for the gay couple — Shaun Eadie and Brian Thomas — became ill. A new date has yet to be scheduled.

Trab states:

"I’m surprised that an older couple that “enjoyed meeting people” are so bound up in their distorted views that they are ready to shut down their B & B. They obviously don’t understand that running a B&B for the public removes the dwelling from being their house and turns it, for all intents and purposes, into public access. According to the lawyer, Ronald Smith, the couple should “have the right to decide what kinds of behaviours take place in their home.” Well, it’s not really their home if they open it up to the public, but aside from that, they didn’t even ask that the gay couple should refrain from sex (a behaviour), but condemned them simply for being gay.  

If people would only substitute words like "black" or "jew" in the place of the word 'gay' they might more readily see how terribly discriminatory they are being. Religious beliefs notwithstanding, it is still discrimination, and in this case it is particularly appalling since same sex marriage is legal in this country. 

Would the Molnars be this judgmental with heterosexual guests? I suspect that they don’t ask for marriage certificates from mixed gender couples. 

“They’re a lovely couple. They don’t want to be thought of as discriminating…”  

Ha. If you’re going to do the deed, at least have the guts to admit you are doing it and don’t try to hide behind religious claptrap and obvious double talk. But really, there’s a really easy solution if you don’t want to be thought of as discriminating; don’t discriminate. And you know what, you might just find that you can enjoy meeting gay people too."