{"id":216178,"date":"2023-12-30T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/?p=216178"},"modified":"2023-12-29T06:21:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T11:21:09","slug":"canadian-court-upholds-defamation-laws-against-labeling-drag-performers-as-groomers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifamnews.com\/en\/canadian-court-upholds-defamation-laws-against-labeling-drag-performers-as-groomers","title":{"rendered":"Canadian court upholds defamation laws against labeling drag performers as &#8220;groomers&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Canadian courts have recently affirmed that labeling drag queens as &#8220;groomers&#8221; falls outside the boundaries of the country&#8217;s laws protecting speech. This decision could potentially pave the way for future rulings that criminalize the use of derogative terms against drag performers. This emerges from a court ruling on December 14, 2021, following a case filed by Rainbow Alliance Dryden et al. against Brian Webster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Justice Tracey J. Nieckarz of the Ontario Superior Court ruled that it&#8217;s defamatory to categorize drag performers as &#8220;groomers&#8221; purely based on their sexual or performance identities. She clarified that such language doesn&#8217;t fall under Ontario\u2019s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Webster is a Facebook blogger hailing from Thunder Bay, Ontario. He faced a defamation lawsuit filed by a local drag king, with financial support from Rainbow Alliance Dryden, a Pride organization, and Egale Canada, a federally funded LGBT group. The case revolves around a Facebook post by Webster in which he accused Rainbow Alliance Dryden of sexually grooming children to indoctrinate them into the LGBT community. Webster filed an anti-SLAPP motion to get the case dismissed, which was promptly rejected by Nieckarz, who stated that his expressions against the drag king were not in the public&#8217;s interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The dismissal of Webster&#8217;s anti-SLAPP motion now allows the plaintiffs to proceed with legal action that could potentially lead to the banning of derogatory terms like &#8220;groomers&#8221; for drag performers in Canada. These recent developments come amid a rising trend of drag story hours for children in public places &#8211; a phenomenon that sparked in 2015 via a collaboration between RADAR Productions and author Michelle Tea in San Francisco, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lifesitenews.com\/news\/american-library-association-group-endorses-drag-queen-storytime-for-librar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LifeSiteNews reported<\/a>. While resistance to exposing children to LGBT ideology has grown, Canadian children remain vulnerable, with parental and public vigilance acting as primary safeguards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Canadian courts side with drag performers and exposure of children to inappropriate and explicit materials, performances and imagery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":593,"featured_media":216470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"Canadian courts side with drag performers and exposure of children to inappropriate and explicit materials, performances and 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by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"510","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[804,510,805],"tags":[12973,14104,1451,4861,16897,21679],"class_list":["post-216178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-family","category-foreground","tag-canada-4","tag-child-abuse","tag-drag-queens","tag-gender-ideology","tag-grooming","tag-sexualization-of-children"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Canadian court upholds defamation laws against labeling drag performers as &quot;groomers&quot; - IFN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Canadian courts side with drag 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