I do a monthly “Letter from

Dallas” column in French for La Presse, the Montreal daily. (To be precise,

I write it in English, and they translate it before publication). I wrote

the other day about the rather shocking effect Canada’s human-rights

statutes regarding homosexuality are having on freedom of speech and

religion for conservative Christians. I spoke the other day with a Canadian

Catholic friend, who told me in all seriousness that there are Canadian

Christians who are considering emigrating to the United States out of fear

of what’s going to become of them given the current trends in their

homeland. I said in my column that freedom of speech and religion are vital

to a healthy democracy, and that Canadians ought to be more concerned about

protecting religious dissenters.

Anyway, I find the e-mail I’m getting from Canadian readers fascinating.

Christians say, Thank you so much for speaking out, it’s incredible what’s happening here, I don’t recognize my own country anymore, why are my countrymen letting this happen etc. Nonreligious types — by far the

greater number of letter-writers, say, basically, I’m not religious, but hey, you American idiot with your stupid Bush president, there’s no problem here in Canada with anti-religious discrimination, where do you come up with this stuff, and besides, you can have all our Evangelical idiots anyway.