Sean Feucht, a self-described missionary and proponent of Christian nationalism, in Washington, October, 2020.Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press
The continuing controversy involving Sean Feucht, the American Christian rocker and MAGA darling who has been denied permits for his concerts all across Eastern Canada, has become just dreadfully irritating.
It is irritating to watch Mr. Feucht’s critics conflate his opinions – on abortion (he’s against it), on homosexuality (he believes it is a perversion of God’s will), on the “trans agenda” (“demonic,” according to Mr. Feucht) – with the promotion of hatred, as defined by the Criminal Code. Hate speech is not protected speech, but not all offensive speech is hate speech. We as a society went over this, ad nauseam, during the peak of the cancel-culture furor around 2017 or so. Apparently we’ve forgotten what we learned during that time.
It’s irritating to see various authorities and jurisdictions fall in line, one by one, to cancel or deny Mr. Feucht permits for his concerts. First it was Parks Canada, which revoked the singer’s permit to perform at a national historic site in Nova Scotia, citing “evolving safety and security considerations.” Then the City of Charlottetown followed suit, even though it said in a prior news release that “from a legal standpoint we are limited in restricting access to public spaces.”
The City of Moncton declared Mr. Feucht’s planned event was “non-compliant with the City’s Code of Conduct.” The City of Vaughan, Ont., denied Mr. Feucht a permit “on the basis of health and safety as well as community standards and well-being.” Quebec City said: “The presence of a controversial artist was not mentioned when the contract was signed.” And so on.
MAGA-affiliated American musician faces wave of cancellations on eastern Canadian tour
It’s like when a single fish detects the presence of a predator, and suddenly the whole school is swimming in the opposite direction. The other fish are just following the change in movement, even though they themselves don’t actually detect the predator.
It’s irritating, too, that many have defended the decision to cancel Mr. Feucht’s concerts on the basis that his performances were to be held in public spaces. Canadian Senator Kristopher Wells, for example, posted on X that, “No one is stopping Sean Feucht from hosting his shows in Canada, despite his criminal record.” (Mr. Feucht has been charged with petty offences including illegally hunting turkey on his property.) “He has no Charter right to have his shows hosted at public facilities, which must be safe and discrimination free spaces that uphold community standards,” Mr. Wells declared.
The Senator has it precisely backward, however; there is no Charter right that obliges a private venue to lease out its space to anyone and everyone, but there is a Charter right that protects access to public spaces for anyone and everyone in Canada, including non-citizens. In other words, public authorities cannot discriminate against would-be performers because of their race, religion, ethnicity and so on, unless that space is being used to promote hatred (which, as discussed above, is distinct from sharing merely offensive beliefs). With the exception of staffers for Quebec City, who outright admitted they were cancelling Mr. Feucht’s permit because he is “controversial,” frightened fish at various other federal or municipal licensing desks have decided that “security concerns” is a good enough excuse to cover what is clearly an ideological decision.
Montreal fines local church for hosting MAGA-affiliated musician Sean Feucht
But perhaps most irritating of all is that this totally unnecessary controversy has made a MAGA martyr of Sean Feucht: a man who was, and should’ve continued to be, mostly anonymous – a D-list celebrity, if that, in Canada. It is irritating that many of us now know how to pronounce his name; irritating that he has accidentally stumbled upon the type of mainstream attention his brand of worship rock could have never organically drawn; irritating that there will be more eyes on his Pride month posts about the “agenda seeking to destroy our culture and pervert our children.” And irritating that those who value and understand the rights protected by our Charter – of free speech, and free assembly, and freedom from discrimination – have to defend this guy’s rights, even if they loathe what he’s saying.
Had licensing officials politely shut down the minority of protesters who knew of Mr. Feucht’s existence and objected to his performances, the majority of us could have continued to exist in blissful ignorance, and Mr. Feucht would’ve soon returned to his long list of other grievances. Instead, they’ve set a terrible new precedent for access to public spaces, while inadvertently forcing the rest of us to give him what he clearly desires most: attention.