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Lorne Gunter: Don't go if you don't like Christian rocker, but he has a right to perform

Lorne Gunter: Don't go if you don't like Christian rocker, but he has a right to perform

Pro-Trump Christian rocker Sean Feucht must be allowed to perform a concert in August on the Alberta legislature grounds, even if it means extra police have to be assigned to keep protesters from stopping the event.
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I don't like Feucht's pro-Trump stance. I'm not a fan of Christian rock, the genre of music Feucht performs.
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It's not very good, even by the mediocre standards of Christian rock. I'm sorry if you're a fan of Christian rock, but it's even more formulaic and musically vapid than most pop music. To make matters worse, the Feucht singles online sound as if they were recorded with a single microphone, at a live concert by someone sitting far from the stage.
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But this newspaper didn't hire me to be its music critic.
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I'm not concerned about Feucht's politics. If political intrusions in artistic performance were enough to get an artist banned, then most lefty musicians, artists and actors would need to be kicked off public stages.
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Have we forgotten that old axiom from the French writer Voltaire, 'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it?'
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Free expression is a two-way street. Those who would not see their ideas and words banned must agree not to ban the words and ideas of those they disagree with. That applies equally to both sides.
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The CBC insisted during its coverage of Feucht's Atlantic Canadian tour that the Montana-born singer is 'anti-diversity, anti-2SLGBTQ+ and anti-women's rights.'
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By whose say-so? Who gets to sit in judgment of what does and does not constitute sufficient tolerance?
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It's not the Christian right who are most often guilty of censorship, although some of course seek to bar pro-LGBTQ and pro-choice messages. For instance, it's Canada's 'progressive' left behind the push for internet laws banning online 'misinformation,' then placing themselves in charge of deciding what is and isn't misinformation.
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