Canada's Supreme Court ordered Alberta to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination April 2.

In a case brought by a man fired from a Christian college due to his sexuality, the court said Alberta's failure to include sexual-orientation protections in its Individual Rights Protection Act violated the national Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The exclusion sends a message to all Albertans that it is permissible, and perhaps even acceptable, to discriminate against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation," Justice Peter Cory wrote for the court. "The effect of that message on gays and lesbians is one whose significance cannot be underestimated. Perhaps most important is the psychological harm which may ensue from this state of affairs. Fear of discrimination will logically lead to concealment of true identity, and this must be harmful to personal confidence and self-esteem."

The 7-1 decision inserted the words "sexual orientation" into Alberta's human-rights statute effective immediately.

The plaintiff in the case, Delwin Vriend, 32, told reporters after the ruling:

"Ha ha, I win! ... I think it is extremely shameful that the government of Alberta kicked and screamed and whined for the last seven years all the way to the Supreme Court in an effort to ensure that discrimination against gays and lesbians continued to occur."

The Canada Family Action Coalition denounced the decision.

"By every objective measure -- economic income, cultural influence and political clout -- Canada's homosexuals are a privileged, even pampered community, carrying none of the natural burdens of families," said spokesman Roy Beyer.

All other provinces and territories protect gays under their human-rights laws except Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories. PEI has announced plans to rectify the situation.

COLOMBIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT REINSTATES GAY STUDENTS

Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled March 26 that private religious schools cannot ban gay students.

Two effeminate teenage boys, Gustavo and Andres, had been prohibited from re-enrolling in a school in Ginebra after they had dropped out for financial reasons.

The court declared: "Homosexuality is a condition of the human person that implies the choice of a life option equally as respectable and valid as any other.

"It is clear to the court ... that the rector of the school that was sued was operating from a discriminatory and intolerant attitude that is unacceptable in a person who has as his charge the direction of the educative process, whose principal objective is precisely the integral formation of children and youths."

Contributing to this week's report: Brett Shephard.

Rex Wockner's weekly international news reports dating back to May 1994 can be searched at http://www.wockner.com. The reports in their original form are archived at http://www.qrd.org/qrd/www/world/wockner.html, which also archives Wockner's Quote Unquote column and some of his longer gay-press articles.