In a victory for gay rights extremists, YouTube has agreed to remove a video critical of Canadian laws concerning homosexuality from its website, even though the video discusses policy issues and does not use any derogatory language about gays and does not advocate violence against them.
The video created May 16 by preacher and hard rock drummer Bradlee Dean to accompany his weekly column published by WorldNet Daily and other news outlets, exposes facts about the hatred and oppression directed at conservative Christians and opponents of gay marriage in Canada by the radical Left toward people of faith, those who hold to traditional marriage. The video also details a solemn warning to American’s to get vocal on the issue or prepare for the cultural overhaul under way in Canada.
Among the shocking examples of how gay rights extremists are using hate speech laws to silence conservatives is a ruling by a Canadian official that Christian parents who home-school their children can not teach their children that homosexuality is a sin.
Within 2 hours, the video was taken offline by YouTube after it was flagged by a discriminatory individual for “hate speech.”
The video now appears in its original version on MRCTV.
While conservatives are often victimized by the Left's abuse of automated “flag spam” filters, in this case it appears that YouTube personnel were directly involved in removing the video. This is the text of the email YouTube sent to Bradlee informing him of YouTube's decision to remove the video:
The YouTube Community has flagged one or more of your videos as inappropriate. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed by the YouTube Team against our Community Guidelines. Upon review, we have determined that the following video(s) contain content in violation of these guidelines, and have been disabled: Homosexual Marriage (WARNING!) Look to Canada – (BdeanSonsofLiberty). For more information on YouTube's Community Guidelines and how they are enforced, please visit the help center.
Nothing in Bradlee's video violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. Here is the video, you can watch it yourself:
Those guidelines include this statement:
We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).”
Bradlee's video did not attack or demean gays – it addressed serious policy questions raised by actual events and political decisions in Canada. By taking Bradlee's video offline, YouTube has shown its commitment to “defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view” isn't all that strong when it comes to defending the right of people opposed to gay marriage.
No matter what you think of gay marriage, people who think it's wrong have just as much of a right to oppose it as the Occupiers to do be against banks or the Iraq war. You don't have to be against gay marriage to think the removal of Bradlee's clip was wrong. Tolerance ought to run both ways.
