(Evangelical Fellowship of Canada Press Release) The Ontario Press Council has upheld a complaint by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) against the Toronto Star for a column which unfairly attributed the promotion of violence and hatred to evangelical Christians.

The complaint concerned a column by Michelle Landsberg, published June 2, 2001. The commentary in question was regarding a proclamation by the mayor of Regina of Heterosexual Family Pride Day, saying the motives were "to try to enshrine one Christian or 'missionary' brand of sexuality as the only official and legal style of union."

The EFC's complaint addressed one paragraph of the commentary that said: "Seems these evangelicals feel all shook up unless the state enforces their form of belief. Their idea of social stability, however, is just what threatens us all. It creates the kind of parents who teach their children to hate and taunt their schoolmates who are children of lesbians or gay men. It gives licence to the kind of thugs who would beat a Matthew Shepard to death because he was gay. It breeds the toxic intolerance that drives gay youths to a 30 per cent higher suicide rate than other teens."

Janet Epp Buckingham, general legal counsel for the EFC, said the fellowship's concern was that the article "targets evangelical Christians and tends to engender bias and hatred toward them."

She stated that "while the reference to evangelicals occurs fairly late in the article, once the link is made to evangelicals, all the epithets used against anyone in the article seem to be linked to evangelicals. It appears to be a direct attack against evangelicals."

The Star responded that the column was not meant to apply to a specific religious faith. "The term evangelical was not capitalized and refers in this column to individuals with 'militant zeal for a cause,'" it wrote.

It suggested the article should be viewed in the context of earlier columns by Landsberg who, it said, "has long been a voice against extremist forces in several religions, including branches of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths."

The Star said the fellowship is always welcome to respond to or rebut any opinion column. But Buckingham replied that it chose not to write a letter because it would highlight the article.

Noting such references as "evangelical Christian heartland of the U.S.," and "one Christian or 'missionary' brand of sexuality," the Press Council accepted the contention that the column targeted evangelical Christians.

The Press Council, in an effort to define identifiable groups for the purposes of adjudicating complaints, has suggested they constitute people born to a group or part of a group not necessarily by choice and that such groups include religions. In rejecting the notion that the reference to "evangelicals" was intended to mean "zealots," the Council said it recognizes evangelical Christians as an identifiable group and expressed the belief that the reference to them in the column was unnecessarily hurtful.

The final paragraph of the Press Council decision reads: The Ontario Press Council is on record as declaring it believes columnists deserve wide latitude in expressing their opinions, no matter how controversial or unpopular. But, despite the newspaper's contention that the column was using the word "evangelicals" to mean "zealots" and was not intended as criticism of "any formal religious body," the Council regards the term in the column's context as an unnecessarily hurtful reference to an identifiable group and upholds the complaint.

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) is an organization that brings Christians together for greater impact in mission, ministry and witness The EFC is an association of denominations and ministry organizations collaborating for Christian mission. In addition, congregations and individuals are invited to partner in this shared enterprise. The EFC cherishes the historic Christian gospel described succinctly in the World Evangelical Alliance's Statement of Faith. There are an estimated 3 million Protestant evangelical Christians in Canada of which approximately 1.5 million are affiliates of the EFC.