Talk:Chris Kempling/Archive 1

Is Kempling a Canadian activist or a Canadian social justice activist?

Let's keep this based on facts and neutral logic. I know I'll lose a vote on any social conservative topic each and every time with fellow Canadian wikipedians.

The social justice article speaks of freedom of speech as a "basic liberty". Freedom of speech is specifically what Kempling is fighting for. Deet 02:41, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia defines social justice as follows:

Social justice is a philosophical definition of justice, that is, giving individuals or groups their due within society as a whole. As a concept, "social justice" has fascinated philosophers ever since Plato rebuked the young Sophist, Thrasymachus, for asserting that justice was whatever the strongest decided it would be. The debate continues today as to whether an objective or universal test of 'social justice' can be formed, or whether 'social justice' is merely determined by power, or the lack of it, or by changing custom. The former argument is the position taken by the classical western philosophical tradition: in The Republic, Plato formalized the argument that an ideal state would rest on four virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. This virtue ethics foundation of social justice was further developed by Aristotle, and the philosophical systems of Stoicism and Thomism, and also has parallels in Confucianism. The argument that 'social justice' is an artificial construct is equally ancient in western philosophy, with the Sophists being early proponents; it was revived by the writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, furthered by the subjective philosophy of René Descartes, and is a central idea in many modern and postmodern philosophies. This latter view of social justice is seen in the application of positive law and amoral social control.

Related to social justice are distributive justice and procedural justice.

Social justice is also used in two other contexts:

• to refer to the overall fairness of a society in its divisions and distributions of rewards and burdens and, as such, the phrase has been adopted by political parties with a redistributive agenda.
• to describe the policies of the political Left, presented in a positive light in comparison to the policies of the political Right. Consequently, its use in partisan politics and manichean stance (its antithesis being "social injustice"), makes it a loaded term.

The general definition isn't applicable to this argument, and the two specific definitions emphatically do not refer to Kempling. If we include him in the "social justice" category, we're effectively rendering the term meaningless. CJCurrie 03:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to reprint the article, but again I refer you to the basic liberties section of the article. The first 3 of 6 points apply here. I am concerned that Canadian wikipedians have been applying the term social justice only as defined by the second bullet you refered to ("policies of the political left"). As such, wikipedia calls it a "loaded term", and considers such use POV. The reality is the entire category is POV and should be merged into the general activist category, or specific subcategories should be made (freedom of speech activists, LGBT rights activits, etc).Deet 21:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not certain the John Rawls interpretation is universally accepted. CJCurrie 21:25, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

But you do think of social justice in terms of policies of the political left, no? Deet 21:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Rather than answering that question, I'll respond to the question you didn't ask:

Yes, I can understand the logic of categorizing a free speech activist as a social justice activist -- even when the "free speech" in question involves something unpopular, hateful or unpleasant. I'm familiar with the battles over "free speech law" in late 19th century + early 20th century America, and I know that many civil libertarians from this period made their careers by defending the rights of some genuinely horrible human beings.

Along similar lines, I can understand the logic of listing Kempling as a "social justice activist". The problem is that this approach is completely off-centre from the modern definition of "social justice", and would open the door to all sorts of unsavoury people claiming the designation for themselves (Doug Christie, perhaps?). If Kempling is to be categorized as a social justice activist *today*, then the term is meaningless.

You may be within your rights to question the validity of the category, but I don't think this is the right place for it (see: WP:POINT). CJCurrie 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I had not seen the link before, and I get the point, although in this case it is in direct conflict with the NPOV mandate. Well, the points have been made. Change it back if you like, it's too minor to tar the entire article over it. Deet 22:27, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

If I understand your meaning correctly, you may want to start a discussion on the "social justice activists" category. CJCurrie 22:31, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that the category is up for debate now. You can go here to register your opinion. Deet 11:07, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

I'm making a speedy failing of this article for good article. Per WP:WIAGA, this article does not conform with the Wikipedia manual of style. This include lead section, structure, headings' name and most importantly guidelines of biography of living person, where the prose is not presented in a neutral way with an encyclopediac tone. When this matter has been resolved, you may renominate this article again. — Indon (reply) — 13:43, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Public Opinion Section

I don't want to wade in too much on this issue, but the public opinion section is misleading and perhaps not entirely relevant. It suggests that all Kempling did was voice his disapproval on homosexuality. In fact, the BC Court of Appeal would accept letters to the editor of that sort. It was rather the violation of the "inherent dignity of the individual" in addition to the disapproval that the Court used to find Kempling's writings to be discriminatory.

I would also have to criticize the referenced article. At the very end it gives only a half-hearted attempt at a more critical perspective. I would suggest paras. 20-29 in Goertzen v. Department of Justice, Government of Saskatchewan[1] for a good analysis of the potential problems of allowing marriage commissioners in general to restrict who they serve (note also in the poll regarding this issue framed the question as "provided there are enough marriage commissioners available for same-sex unions.")

Finally, about the "72% of those contacted for the survey saying that clergy should have the right not to marry a same-sex couple if it runs counter to their beliefs."[2] Of course, this is exactly what the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with in Reference re Same-Sex Marriage, stating religious officials cannot be compelled to marry couples contrary to their religious beliefs. The article seems to feed public concerns about neglect of religious freedom when in fact the Canadian courts have already recognized this conflict of rights. Ikcotyck 20:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree that citing a poll question involving a somewhat similar but crucially distinguishable fact scenario is misleading, and shouldn't be included in the article.--Trystan 23:07, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

First, this isn't about marriage commissioners, it's about teachers, so I don't understand that reference. There is plenty of precedent for polls in many other Canadian articles (see Same-sex marriage in Canada. I'll reword the title of that section. I don't see the point in deleting interesting related facts, such as the poll. The poll was clearly designed with Kempling in mind, and I believe the organization that paid for the poll said as much. Deet 00:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the problem with the poll is that it is in effect an editorialization: it seems to aim to portray Kempling's actions as consistent with majority Canadian opinion. But why does that matter? Kempling would have taken his position regardless of whether it was supported by 90% or 10%. I've deleted it as gratituous. Bucketsofg 01:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Deetdeet's summary: "This is not unrelated information. The poll was good enough for the front page of one of our 2 national newspapers"

The question isn't really whether the poll got attention. The question is what it had to do with this article, and why it should be mentioned here. Bucketsofg 02:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. I just don't see what a superficially related hypothetical adds to the article.--Trystan 02:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, the poll's question (should a teacher be able to write a letter-to-the-editor about same sex marriage) is not strictly relevant to Kempling's case. His trouble was for writing that he thought homosexuality was itself wrong. Bucketsofg 02:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not wed to this particular poll, but there is a double-standard when you compare to other articles like Same-sex marriage in Canada. I used to maintain a table that showed Canadian wikipedians had a left-wing bias. We need to be sure we are keeping articles in the centre and not pulling them to the left. I find that each time there is a debate on a Canadian article, many reasons are given for moving an article left, but if an article is debated in a wikipedian forum with international participants (like an afd), suddenly more central thinking prevails. This can be true of the afd for this article, and also the attempt by Canadian wikipedians in deleting Status of religious freedom in Canada, which also failed. That being said, if you think this article is truly more neutral without the poll, then remove it. Deet 11:19, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not involved in those other debates, so cannot comment except to note that problems with POV elsewhere are not a very good reason for including material here that can't stand on its merits. If you're not wedded to that poll, are we agreed to remove it? Bucketsofg 12:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I've heard that logic a hundred times before also. As I said, remove it if you think it improves the article. I won't revert. Deet 15:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, I don't think poll itself is offensive, but seems more relevant to a broader discussion of the underlying issues. To clarify, the language used for the teachers poll question was somewhat misleading in relation to the Kempling issue - support for anyone voicing disapproval of homosexuality in newspapers does not necessarily mean support for the writings of one particular individual who happens to also be a teacher. Ikcotyck 19:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Other similar cases

It may be relevant to include parallel cases of a Montreal Police Officer who was dismissed for creating an anti-immigrant song "Ca commence a faire, la!" that said that immigrants are undermining Quebec values. (See: <a href="http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/montreal/story.html?id=5e7aebf4-67ae-473a-b6fe-518c98aaa13f">Montreal Gazette: Cop hits sour note with song about 'ethnics'</a>

There was also a case where Terry Tremaine was let go from his job as a University of Saskatchewan mathematics professor in 2005 because he was spreading anti Semitic literature on his website. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Tremaine">Wikipedia: Terry Tremaine</a>

It would put Kempling's case in context. All of these people are in positions of public trust and operate under a different set of standards than others. If they take actions, even on their own time, to undermine that trust, they diminish their job effectiveness. (Would gay students and their parents trust Kempling to provide evenhanded counseling? Would immigrants trust the police officer to uphold the law fairly? Would Jewish students trust Tremaine?)

There is a comment on this article that somehow gay rights are hurting religious freedom, but Kempling's case is one of many where people have lost their jobs for actions they took on their own time.

• I don't think it would be practical to work these references into this article, not least because while these cases seem analogous to you, there are going to be others who deny it. The thing to think about is whether there is some other article (say on freedom of speech in Canada or something) where these cases, together with the Kempling case, could be included. Bucketsofg 15:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

• Although I disagree that they are equivalent (as the two examples do not stem from classic religioius understanding), the correct place to discuss the links between the cases is the Censorship in Canada article. Deet 17:15, 17 June 2007 (UTC)