This is how is starts. A group of 12 parishioners at a Catholic Church in Canada wrote letters to their bishop complaining that an adult altar server was openly homosexual. The bishop responded by removing the man from that role.

Who knows the full story? Not me.

But the story doesn’t end there. Nowadays there’s always more. Because no perceived injustice fails to be blown out of proportion. No self described victim fails to lawyer up.

Now, the allegedly openly gay altar server has brought the case to a Human Rights Tribunal in Canada.

Uh-oh.

The moment you get the government involved you go from a minor community dustup to establishing nationwide precedents.

And let’s face it, these human rights tribunals are primarily a vehicle of the radical left which has shown some measure of antipathy to the Catholic Church.

Michael Coren of the National Post writes:

This latest nonsense should outrage honest atheists, statists and gay people just as much as it does Catholics and other Christians. Nobody is demanding that Corcoran not be gay and nobody is denying him a home or an income or even preventing him from attending a church. Those given authority within the Catholic Church are daring to act as people given authority in the Roman Catholic Church — to govern and decide regarding internal issues as they are obliged by oath and faith. For a non-Catholic body to interfere at all in such a manner is disgraceful; for an obviously politically driven human rights tribunal to potentially smash the barrier between church and state is terrifying.

The eyes of Canada will surely be on this case.

The man bringing the case has announced his demands, according to thePeterborough Examiner:

Corcoran wants the 12 parishioners to each donate $20,000 to a charity of his choosing and he is seeking as much as $25,000 from the diocese to cover his legal costs.

Corcoran also wants the bishop to restore his role as a server, to apologize and to preach a sermon at St. Michael’s on the consequences of discrimination and spreading rumours, hate and innuendo.

This isn’t about the money, Corcoran said.

“I don’t want their money, I just want their attention,” he said. “I kind of want to hold them to the same public scrutiny that they were holding me and the priest in this case.”

If the man wins, he may have moved the ball down the field for leftists who would like nothing more than to transform the Catholic Church into some kind of “faith community” with “inclusive” hiring practices.

The thing is that all these Human Rights Council still seem to be finding their way about. As of yet, many of them are still unsure how much power is allotted to them. This case may clarify that for us all.