Members of the Canadian Parliament are debating legislation that would remove exemptions for religious speech from laws that forbid “promotion of hatred or antisemitism.”

Canadian law punishes those who willfully promote “hatred against any identifiable group” with prison sentences as long as two years. Legislation called Bill C-367, which was introduced last fall, would strike a paragraph in the law which establishes exemptions for those who express an opinion “on a religious subject” or “based on a religious text.”

Yves-François Blanchet, a member of Parliament from Quebec, said in support of the legislation that a “cost to living together” as a society includes religious groups sacrificing their speech.

“That cost may simply be to refrain from giving inappropriate and undue privileges to people within a society who use them to disturb the peace and harmony, especially if those privileges enable people to sow hatred or wish death upon others based on a belief in some divine power,” he said. “That is even more true in a country that claims to be secular or that claims that there is a separation between church and state. That is why it is high time that someone took action.”

Canadian Christians believe the legislative effort is an attempt to suppress biblical views on sexual ethics. Laura Klassen, a Christian who runs an anti-abortion organization called Choice42, said in comments to The Sentinel that believers in her nation would “lose our freedom of speech” as any “talk about the gospel could be viewed as hate speech.”

“All ministry-based organizations would also be in trouble,” she said. “My organization is already regularly called a ‘terrorist organization’ by those who oppose our anti-abortion work.”

The move to impose criminal penalties for those who profess biblical sexual ethics occurs two years after Canadian Parliament overwhelmingly approved Bill C-4, which classified as “myths” the views that homosexuality and transgenderism are “undesirable conditions that can or should be changed.” Anyone who “knowingly causes another person to undergo conversion therapy” as defined by the bill would be liable for a prison sentence as long as five years.