Honourable senators, I support Bill C-16 for all of the reasons already given in this place and by our House of Commons colleagues. Members of the transgender community, one of our most vulnerable and misunderstood communities, are often victims of discrimination, hatred and violence, even though there can be no doubt that this community is entitled to the same rights all other citizens enjoy. That is perfectly clear.

Nevertheless, I understand and respect those who, in good conscience and good faith, believe otherwise. Their arguments deserve our consideration. I would therefore like to take a few minutes to examine those arguments and share my observations. This won't take long.

The first objection is that the bill is simply not necessary because existing human rights codes already extend protection to people who are transgendered.

Let us leave aside the obvious point that, if that is the case, there would be no harm in making the law that much clearer, but the objection or argument misses a more fundamental point about law and about the different functions that the law plays in our society.

The law sets boundaries for our behaviour. It tells us what we can do and what we cannot do. That much is clear. But the law does more than that. The law also plays an educative and symbolic role, what one writer has called an "expressive role" or an "expressive function." Our laws tell us something about our fundamental values and who we are as a society. Seen in this light, the passage of Bill C-16 would send a message of support and solidarity to a vulnerable and often frightened community, and this is no small thing.

So even if many human rights commissions have already taken the step to formally recognize trans rights, it is important that Parliament does so as well. Respectfully, it's as simple as that.

The second objection is that Bill C-16 would infringe upon our constitutional rights to free speech by both inhibiting criticism and compelling the use of, amongst other things, gender-neutral pronouns.

These arguments have been answered adequately and eloquently, and dare I say conclusively, in this and the other place. In my reading of the law, a failure to use a person's pronoun of choice does not rise to the definition of discrimination under any sensible reading of this legislation, and nor would it amount to hate speech under the proposed amendments to the Criminal Code.

I believe that the objection may be based upon a broader concern about human rights commissions, that they somehow overreach their targets, or about the hate speech provisions in the Criminal Code generally speaking, that they unreasonably infringe upon free speech.

Honourable colleagues, I understand these concerns. Moreover, I must admit that I share some of them, to the great surprise of my friends in the human rights community. However, given that we already have human rights commissions and provisions on hate speech, these objections are simply irrelevant.

It is perfectly legitimate, of course, to argue against the reach of human rights commissions or the limitations on free speech that the Criminal Code sets out, but these arguments should not and cannot be done on the backs of this or any other vulnerable minority group in Canada. It's simply not fair.

I could and maybe should stop here because you've heard all the arguments before, and most of us, I suspect, have fairly settled views on this issue. But I think there is another reason why some Canadians, and why some in this chamber, continue to have serious reservations about Bill C-16, and I want to address these directly. Let me conclude by saying a few words to the people of faith here and beyond this chamber.

For all people of faith, all human beings, all of us on this earth, were created in the image of God, in the image of the Creator. But the "us" that were so created are not simply our bodies — our flesh, our blood, our parts. The "us" are also our identities — our minds, our feelings, our spirits, our souls.

We all know too well that there are places in this world where it is a crime for Christians to practise their religion, where Christians are vilified, discriminated against and subjected to violence. The same holds true in other parts of the world for Jews, Muslims and other religious minorities.

Imagine you were discriminated against in such a way. Would you not feel hurt? Would you not feel aggrieved? Would this not feel hateful to you? Would you not be afraid?

Two thousand years ago, a famous religious leader in Jerusalem was asked to summarize the teachings of his religion in one phrase, and this is what he said:

That which is hateful unto you do not do unto your neighbor. . . . The rest is commentary.

Honourable senators, members of the transgender community are our neighbours. They, too, were created in the image of God. Let us not do unto them that which would be hateful unto us.

Please support Bill C-16. It is the right thing to do.