A court will finally decide if “groomer” is a defamatory slur

A Canadian court has allowed an LGBTQ+ organization to proceed with its case against an online commenter who allegedly accused them of “grooming” kids with their Pride celebration’s drag events.

The Rainbow Alliance had prepared a series of all-ages drag events for its September 2022 Pride celebration in the small town of Dryden, Ontario: a drag story-time event at the local public library, an all-ages drag brunch, and a drag show for adults. In quick succession, the Alliance’s plans came under attack.

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First, a malicious call to police prompted cops to interview the lead organizer of the events, a local drag king. An area man insisted that the scheduled drag events were designed to harm children. He cited the lewd drag name of one performer as evidence.

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Then Brian Webster had his say.

Webster runs a Facebook page he calls Real Thunder Bay Courthouse Inside Edition from the nearby city of Thunder Bay. He linked to a news article covering the police visit, which included a photo of members of the Rainbow Alliance, one holding her child.

“ASK YOURSELF WHY THESE PEOPLE NEED TO PERFORM FOR CHILDREN?” Webster wrote on his linked post.

“GROOMERS. That’s the agenda. Just look at the face of the one child in the photo. Tells you all you need to know,” he added.

Webster’s post inspired a deluge of hateful and violent comments from members of the public, allegedly encouraged by Webster’s interactions with the page. Commenters called Rainbow Alliance members “deranged”, “f**king pedophiles”, and accused them of bestiality. One commenter threatened to buy tags to “hunt these animals” and “take care of them.”

In the following days, posters appeared around Dryden, denouncing the Pride events as harmful to children and referencing pedophilia.

Rainbow Alliance decided to sue.

The group alleged that Webster’s post was a hateful and defamatory attack that falsely accused them of predatory behavior, citing, in particular, the use of the word “groomer.” Webster’s post was designed to provoke hostility against a protected, identifiable group, the plaintiffs claimed.

In a first test of their complaint, a judge agreed.

In a preliminary hearing responding to the suit, Webster claimed he was merely expressing his opinion about the CBC news story that he linked to, not the subjects of the article, and that his comments were made in the “public interest”.

The judge found Webster’s argument nonsensical.

“The Defendant’s comments went well beyond that, perpetuating hurtful myths and stereotypes about vulnerable members in our society,” Judge Tracey Nieckarz wrote. “Webster’s argument that he was accusing the CBC of grooming has no merit based on a plain reading of the post.”

She ordered the case to trial.

In doing so, the judge asserted there is no “public interest” in protecting baseless accusations of child sexual abuse against LGBTQ+ people.

The trial will determine if Webster’s use of the term “groomer” was defamatory. The exact date of the trial is currently unclear.