OTTAWA – A radio host and his station should have been responsible for "controlling" or "mitigating" negative comments about homosexuals made by callers to an open-line program, the CSBC said today.
The comments occurred on an episode of the English-Punjabi program the Harjinder Thind Show broadcast on CKYE-FM (Red FM) in Vancouver on January 31, 2008. Host Thind interviewed a representative from an organization called Parents for Democracy in Education about proposed changes to the B.C. school curriculum designed to ensure “proper” representation of homosexuality.
The guest alleged that the B.C. Government had “secretly” entered into a contract with a gay couple which allowed that couple to review the curriculum. He also asserted that parents should have more say in the review and encouraged listeners to write letters of protest to their MPPs and school board officials.
The host took a number of calls from listeners, some of who spoke in Punjabi which Thind translated into English. One caller said, in Punjabi, that young people who feel an attraction to members of the same sex are “sick” and that homosexuals are “a little sick group”, while another alleged that homosexuality “is a sickness” that also contributes to the spread of AIDS and HIV. The host’s loose translations in no way commented on or corrected the callers’ assertions.
The CBSC received a complaint about the comments, which said that “negative and false views” were being communicated to a “new immigrant population that needs to be better educated about [the] Canadian Charter of Rights and our community.” Red FM replied that they had intended to provide “a fair and balanced representation” and encourage “healthy dialogue”.
The CBSC’s British Columbia Regional Panel examined the complaint under Clauses 7 (Controversial Public Issues) and 2 (Human Rights) of the CAB Code of Ethics. Clause 7 requires fair treatment of controversial issues, while Clause 2 prohibits abusive or unduly discriminatory comment on the basis of, among other things, sexual orientation.
Clause 7 was not breached, but in relation to Clause 2, the panel found that some callers violated the clause by referring to homosexuals as “sick” and responsible for the spread of disease, and that both the host and the broadcaster were responsible for letting those comments make it on the air.
“(T)his Panel considers that the comments describing gays and lesbians as sick, assimilating homosexuality to a sickness, and attributing the causing of AIDS to homosexuals do exceed the tolerable threshold. They are abusive and unduly discriminatory. Such comments can always be controlled by delayed broadcast technology; however, should a caller make such a comment, the host is in a position to mitigate its effect by his or her observations. That opportunity was doubly available in the present matter, since the host played a translating role for callers and the audience. He ought to have known his responsibilities pursuant to the CAB Code of Ethics,” says the decision.
