Hurrah for Rex Murphy...

There are three Globe columnists I love - Rex Murphy, Margaret Wente, and Christie Blatchford....here's Rex's take on the human rights kangaroo courts...

Speaking of which, the comedian in the heckling lesbian case is holding a fundraiser in Toronto tonight. He and his confreres in the chuckle industry want to raise a few bucks to bear the cost of officious scrutiny of joke night in B.C. They should be careful. Perhaps they could mail in the jokes to Barbara Hall, the Ontario human-rights czar, and get a pre-emptive ruling on their “hate-content.” There's no one quicker with an obiter dicta, as Maclean's has already learned.

Might save a lot of time and a few bills down the way.

They should also avoid any jokes involving sex, religion, politics or global warming. Outside those boundaries, I think they're safe. Chicken crossing the road jokes are safe. Assuming, of course, the fowl pedestrian is free-range and it doesn't meet a vegetarian halfway over. Absent those elements and I fear cries of chickenphobia will rear their squawking heads.

The really funny joke in all of this, however, is not going to come of out the mouth of any comedian. It is the dreary fact that comedians are the latest targets of Canada's human-rights commissions. Did you ever in your wildest dreams see heckling as the subject of a human-rights inquiry?

The mirthless sitting in adjudication over the mirth-makers, telling Canadians what they're allowed to laugh at.