The messy scrawl of writing, punctuated by different coloured words or targeted faces in newspaper clippings, is not hard to distinguish.

The message is clear: “watch your back,” “death to homosexuals,” and “death to Darren Lund.”

It is a message Lund, an education professor at the University of Calgary, doesn’t enjoy receiving in the mail.

And the letters are posted from Cochrane, Alberta.

Lund’s name first made headlines in 2002 when Rev. Stephen Boissoin wrote a letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate newspaper that said gay people are just “as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities.”
Boissoin went on to say that society should rid them of their wickedness by any steps necessary.

“This is what you say when you want to make people afraid and hateful,” Lund said .

The Human Rights Commission heard testimony  that shortly after the letter appeared in the paper, a young gay male was beaten in Red Deer.

“You don’t have to agree with someone’s lifestyle, but living free of violence would be a great start,” said Lund.

A sample of the letters Darren Lund has been receiving from an anonymous writer. They are postmarked from Cochrane. Photo by Rachel Maclean

Lund, a high school teacher in Red Deer at the time, complained to the human rights commission that the letter was spreading a message of hate towards homosexuals, and won the case in 2007.

But Boissoin appealed the ruling through the Court of Queen’s Bench, and won in 2009. The presiding judge said it was mostly due to legal errors made by the Human Rights commission.

But while all of this was going on, the hate mail towards Lund started to pour in.

“In a way it shows how ignorant they are,” said Lund, who happens to be a father of two teenage kids with his wife.  “Standing up for the rights of a homosexual must mean you are a homosexual.”

He also finds it ironic that most people sending him hate mail claim to be Christians.

“I was raised in a traditional Lutheran church, and the message from Jesus was accepting all those that society rejects — the lepers and prostitutes,” he said. “The message was all about love and kindness.”

It’s not the first time Lund has been threatened.

“(The letters) remind me that I’m on the right track,” he said. “I am reminded of the importance and that more people should do this work.”

He has heard from many people that disagreed with him standing up for human rights, but has a small group of serious stalkers who have decided to take things farther.

“It’s pretty distressing,” said Lund as he displays the latest letter posted from Cochrane.

It came back from the Calgary Police with a distinguished fingerprint lifted from the paper.

“You expect some resistance and healthy debate on these issues. People aren’t all going to agree on sexual orientation. . . . But they are trying to use methods to intimidate and silence me.”

One man from Edmonton even drove three hours to Calgary to distribute by hand to several neighbourhoods “pornographic flyers” of Lund superimposed on another image.

Another “fan” was stalking him, and continually phoning, so Lund approached a judge to ask for something to be done.

Before the court, the man agreed to stop contacting Lund, but when the university professor lost the appeal in December 2009 the man couldn’t resist and phoned right before Christmas to gloat. So Lund got a restraining order.

“It was a minor success in terms of limiting the type of hate these people are expressing.”

Lund said he knows there are negative aspects for standing up for what is right, but plans to keep doing it.

He is glad to see younger people doing better at living with diversity.

Currently, he is debating whether he wants to appeal the December ‘09 ruling.

But for right now he is working closely with the Calgary Police to find some leads on the people who have been sending him hateful and threatening letters.

“I would just like to be left alone . . . but I’m not the first person to get a threat for human right work,” he said.

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