A Book Full Of Crappy Excuses

   A gay couple in Yellowknife, NWT was awarded $13, 400 by a tribunal because a landlord refused to rent to them.

  The man to your right, William Goertzen brought his Bible to the court to read passages that he claimed supported his decision to violate terms of a signed one-year lease and boot out tenants Scott Robertson and Richard Anthony.

  In 2009, the couple rented the main floor of a building owned by Mr. Goertzen and signed a lease that included payment of a $1,125 security deposit. The landlord then put the rental back on the market and kept their security deposit because he claimed that God would exert a heavy judgment against him for renting to gay people.

  In the decision, justice Posynick ruled that Goertzen " willfully and with disregard for their legal rights, including their rights under … a valid tenancy agreement, for reasons relating to the sexual orientation of the complainants, denied their tenancy and the respect and dignity they are entitled to as fellow human beings," and  that "I heard no evidence that God's word included ignoring his legal obligations to treat other people — even people with different beliefs and different lifestyle choices than his own — with respect."

  William Goertzen has fired back, claiming that the Canadian legal system is discriminating against him because of his religious convictions, yet offered no reason for why he did not give back moneys already paid by the plaintiffs. But are Mr. Goertzen's religious beliefs really the basis for his blatant hateful statements, and if so, does it justify it?

  The Bible  states that women who have sex before marriage should be stoned to death, so would he be able to justify murdering non-virgins because the Bible says so in the same sections he quoted in his tirade against gays? (A douchebag who murdered a friend of mine tried the God excuse and was given one of the longest sentences in Canadian history.) Or how about all those non-believers? Over a quarter of the people residing in Yellowknife are atheists. And if he rents solely to the mere 2% of the population that follow his denomination, he'll be one broke fellow. If religion becomes an excuse to violate the laws of the land, we are no better than Saudi Arabia.

  The fact is that the landlord was looking for someone to rip off and thought that a gay couple wouldn't go through the public shame of trying to get their money back. William Goertzen is a thief who tried to blame a supernatural entity for the fact that he is a weasel. Yes folks, he violated not only Canadian law, but one of the 10 big ones handed down to Moses.
  Prior to signing the lease agreement, Mr. Goertzen could have found a million reasons not to rent to the couple, but he didn't because he wanted an easy buck from people he thought wouldn't have the stones to complain.

 It's a pretty unChristian thing to discriminate against someone, but it is even worse to claim to know the word of God and use it to steal from people.