VANCOUVER, BC —The Sex Party will face off against Canada Postal Authorities on Monday as legal arguments begin in Federal Court over a pamphlet that was refused delivery because it contained a photo of a penis sculpture and an interpretive painting of two people having sex.The Sex Party, a registered political party, tried to have its pamphlet mass-delivered during the 2006 national election campaign but Canada Post rejected the material, saying it was offensive.
A section under the post office’s Unaddressed Admail Customer Service Guide prohibits delivery of “offensive articles that contain sexually explicit material.”
John Ince, head of the Sex Party said Canada Post used vague guidelines to censor a legitimate form of political expression.
He said the case revolves around why Canada Post rejected the Sex Party’s pamphlet but had no problem with a religious tract from an Ontario organization that suggested AIDS is a consequence of the sin of homosexuality.
In a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Canada Post president Moya Greene said publicly that she found the homophobic pamphlet “vile” but that the post office can’t take on the role of censoring free speech in Canada.
Ince, a former attorney and current sex-positive activist, will argue the Sex Party’s case during the three-day hearing based on a violation of free speech under the Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“The only rational explanation for the policy is some sort of superstition that sexual information is dangerous,” he said, accusing Canada Post of being prejudiced against sexuality. “We see that as fairly entrenched still, the same way that segregation was 50 years ago in the states or laws against women owning property in Canada.”
Canada Post is defending himself with the opinion of child psychologist Michael Elterman, who says in an affidavit that “some children, mainly in the eight- to 12-year-old group, are likely to react with embarrassment, anxiety, and/or guilt to the graphics contained in the pamphlet.”
“Nothing in the material purports to be aimed exclusively at adults,” Ince said of this opinion. “The same way any other political party seeks to encourage support from people of all ages, so does the applicant. It wants young people to have access to such material if they are interested.”
He said that if the government forced mainstream parties to enclose their material in special packaging marked with warnings and didn’t impose the same requirements for any other party, such action would be considered highly improper intervention by the
state.
The single-issue party was formed in 2005 and ran three candidates in the last provincial election.
