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UN Removes Gays From Execution Protections
The United Nations has voted to remove sexual orientation from a resolution against immoral executions. Sexual orientation had been on the list for the past ten years, alongside religion, ethnicity, and language as unacceptable reasons to execute civilians.
The motion, which was introduced by Morocco and Mali, was supported by 79 countries, opposed by 70, and there were 17 to abstain.
Looking over the list, I found very few surprises, with the exception of South Africa, which voted in favour of removing gays from execution protections despite having legalized same-sex marriage in 2006 via parliamentary vote. I’m not under the impression that South Africa has solved all of its homophobia problems, but their vote is a pretty bizarre contradiction and certainly a large step backwards.
At any rate, if you need a good reason why human rights issues should never be put to a vote, this seems like a pretty compelling demonstration. The deletion sends a baffling message to the world, easily interpretable as a sort of OK to executing gays simply for having a different sexual orientation.
Good thing the UN doesn’t have any real power. Still, I guess this means I should cancel my vacation to Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Brunei Dar-Salam, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, China, Comoros, Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. (And I was so looking forward to it, too.)
(Special thanks to Slap reader Alex for the story!)
- The United Nations of homophobia [National Post]
- UN deletes gay reference from anti-execution measures [Pink News]
Pope’s Visit To Be Gayly Protested
The world’s most famous gay-disliker, Pope Benedict XVI, is being toted about Europe in his Popemobile™ this autumn, including a stopover in Barcelona. And while he’s poping it up Spanish style, he’ll be treated to quite the spectacle!
On November 7th, an organization called Queer Kissing Flashmob, has invited people from across Spain to come and protest the pope’s backward views on gays and women by locking a little same-sex lip. If all goes according to plan, while the Popemobile™ popes his popiness from the Plaza de la Catedral to the Sagrada Familia, he’ll be surrounded by hundreds of men and women, all gay-kissing each other.
Not one to be outdone, the pope is reportedly sharpening his laser-like gaze in preparation for the glowering of a lifetime. Fortunately, even the most accomplished glowerer is powerless when his subjects’ eyes are closed in a passionate and super-hot, gay kiss.
Best of luck to the organizers! May your Queer Kissing Flashmob be the queerest, kissingest, flashiest mob yet!
- Pope Benedict XVI to be greeted by ‘gay kissing’ protest in Spain [Digital Journal]
Religious Freedom Doesn’t Give You That Power
Will Goertzen, a landlord in Yellowknife, signed a one-year apartment lease for a young gay couple last year. Three weeks before the couple was set to move in, Goertzen discovered they were gay. He re-listed the property without notifying the couple, rented it to a different family, stole the couple’s $1,150 damage deposit, and left them for homeless.
Scott Robertson and Richard Anthony had to stay with various friends and keep all of their belongings scattered about different locations until they secured a new apartment. They got their damage deposit back only after taking Goertzen to rental court. Now the case is before the Northwest Territories Human Rights Commission.
Astonishingly, Goertzen is outright admitting that he denied housing, stole the damage deposit, and left the couple homeless because they were gay, saying that he recognizes the “supremacy of God over the Charter or Rights and Freedoms.” ”[Homosexuality] isn’t natural and it’s a crime against nature,” Goertzen told an adjudicator at a human rights commission last week, “I can definitely not have a part in it.”
Religious freedoms exist in Canada, but all that means is that the government cannot dictate which deity or deities you are allowed to worship; it does not—and has never—granted the power to circumvent Canada’s laws or our Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Both of which, indeed, explicitly forbid housing discrimination based on sexual orientation).
I’m not surprised some people are under a different impression, mind you. Saskatchewan has proposed a law that lets civil marriage commissioners refuse their public services for gay couples, and Alberta has just enacted a law that forces teachers to halt any discussions of sexual orientation until they receive parental permission from each parent, lest it offend their personal religious beliefs. Religious freedom is fast becoming a convenient carte blanche; a way to eschew personal responsibility, ignore or erase the rights of gay people, and nullify Canada’s guarantees of equality. Goertzen’s despicable behaviour is just a natural extension of this.
It’s time for mainstream religious people who realize that what Goertzen has done is wrong both in the legal and moral sense to stand up and say this is not acceptable.
Or, if this whole thing turns out differently, I could just start a religion of my own…
(Huge hat tip goes to Jason over at The Gay White North for the story.)
- Yellowknife landlord says he tore up gay couple’s lease over fear of God [Winnipeg Free Press]
- Gay couple left in cold by landlord [CBC News]
Academic Studies Weirdly Excluding Gays
A statistically significant percentage of medical studies in the United States have been excluding gay participants for no logical reason, a new survey has found.
The survey was started when one researcher, Brian Egleston, noticed that a clinical trial about cancer patients deferred all gay couples from participating. That study turned out to be just one of about 15% to exclude gay participants without any obvious link to the subject matter. Results of the survey have now been published in last Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
It’s definitely odd for such a disciplined field of academics to arbitrarily exclude subjects for research as generic as a cancer study. Unless they know something I don’t. Say… Are—are we gays immune to cancer? ‘Cause if we are, I’m totally starting a new, gay-only, asbestos fashion line.
Tourisme Montréal Temporarily Turns Off The Gay
James over at Gay Persons of Color noticed something odd the other day. Tourisme Montréal, which recently launched a new promotional blog called The Montréal Buzz to replace the five separate ones they started last summer, had added an on/off switch to the top of their page labelled “LGBT Content.” It was off by default.
I emailed Daniel Baylis—Tourisme Montréal’s amazing gay events blogger—to see what was up. Here is his explanation:
Tourisme Montréal is very aware of the LGBT market, and wanted to ensure that LGBT content was still part of “The Montréal Buzz.” But they were also concerned about reactions to people landing on a webpage and seeing too much “gay” — for instance, the perhaps-under-sophisticated couple from the mid-west who is thinking about Montréal as a destination. There is a risk that they would see some of half naked men kissing each other and think that Montréal was not for them. Ultimately we want all types of people to visit our city and experience the joie de vivre.
I don’t envy the tourism marketing industry; they have to advertise a city as being the perfect destination for all people, including crazy bigots who feel faint at the thought they might be sharing the city with a gay. (Shock horror!)
The solution, though, shouldn’t have been to hide us gays behind a curtain with a drawstring tucked away in the corner for the curious. I mean, this is Montréal we’re talking about here; all tourists will encounter a gay person every thirty seconds. Pretending that we didn’t exist for the benefit of some extra closed-minded visitors wasn’t just offensive to gays, it was an inaccurate portrayal of an incredible, diverse city. It was the sort of ill-advised compromise that I’d expect from one of Canada’s more, uh, shall we say “perhaps-under-sophisticated” tourism marketing organizations.
Whether a post features half-naked men kissing each other or not (and let’s face it, photos of half-naked people are a staple of the entire tourism industry), Tourisme Montréal had identified all GLBT content as a special hazard, unshared by any other post category. Why, even a post about Piknic Électronique, Parc Jean Drapeau’s weekly outdoor DJ set, was hidden by default because it was presumably too gay. This ran completely counter to the original idea of a unified blog to showcase all of Montréal’s vibrancy.
The switch is gone now—as of last night—but that probably still leaves The Montréal Buzz with a dilemma: How do you advertise the same place to people who are looking for very different experiences? Their old solution of having multiple blogs (including a gay one) made sense, but meant that people interested in more than one category had to follow several subsites.
Personally, I’d recommend fairer category filters that don’t single out any community as being somehow risky or problematic. After all, a couple of young gay tourists are probably just as uninterested in child-friendly stroller parks as conservative mid-westerners would be for Divers/Cité. Having a small list of check boxes for categories like “Family,” “Seniors,” “Night life,” “GLBT,” etc. would keep the spirit of a unified blog that can be browsed all at once, while still presenting an audience-targeted view of the city and not unfairly singling out the gays.
Whatever they end up doing now, I’m happy to see that Tourisme Montréal recognized their mistake and got rid of the switch so quickly. In fact, to facilitate the matter, it has been moved here. I don’t think I’ll put it at the top of the page, but it’ll be well taken care of, I promise!
A tremendous hat tip to James over at Gay Persons of Color for alerting me to the story.
Customs Seizes Gay Festival Films
Ottawa’s Inside Out Film festival had to make some urgent, last minute arrangements after the Canadian Border Services Agency seized three films scheduled to be presented. The seized films include Patrik 1.5 (Rated PG), Clapham Junction (Rated R), and I Can’t Think Straight (Rated PG-13).
All three films had already been shown in Canada. Patrik 1.5 debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008 and I Can’t Think Straight was a mainstream theatrical release over the summer.
Canadian customs regularly seizes materials it suspects to be obscene, and often classifies gay films, books, and artwork as such. In 2000, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the CBSA was unfairly targeting GLBT content and ordered it to stop its discriminatory policies.
The CBSA is still permitted to seize materials randomly, something that the film festival’s director, Jason St-Laurent, doubts is the case here: “It seems biased at some times, and at other rimes random, but to me, this time, it is not a random event.” Brice Dellsperger, a filmmaker featured at the festival agrees: “It happens all the time; it’s something that we constantly face.”
Well, that settles it. Slap Upside The Head: The Movie will be distributed digitally!
Canada’s New Immigrants Guide Leaves Out Gays
The Government of Canada has released a new guide directed toward new immigrants to help them adjust to Canadian culture. Not a bad idea, actually!
Still, while the guide has entire sections devoted to gender equality and diversity, the GLBT community was somehow left out of both. In fact, the only mention of gays anywhere occurs in a section about sports, arts, and culture; tucked away in the sidebar is a photo of Mark Tewksbury, accompanied by the caption: “Mark Tewksbury, Olympic gold medalist and prominent activist for gay and lesbian Canadians.”
Surprising, given Canada’s advancements in equal rights and the exhaustive coverage of gender and diversity issues, you think there’d at least be a mention of same-sex marriage or other details of interest to gay immigrants.
Then again, Canada has an abysmal record of accommodating GLBT refugees, many of whom simply want asylum from unjust laws in their home countries. If the government doesn’t feel the responsibility to welcome those who need to immigrate the most, then why have the courtesy to acknowledge those who are coming under standard immigration circumstances?
Canadian Blood Services Sues Gay Man For Donating Blood
Canadian Blood Services is suing Kyle Freeman, a perfectly healthy gay man, for donating blood against CBS policy. Freeman had admitted to lying on the donation forms, which asks all men to reveal their sexual orientation, because he had been recently tested as clean for blood-borne diseases. While the admission was made in an anonymous email, CBS launched an investigation, eventually linking the email to its sender.
Canada permanently bans all gay men from donating blood, even if they practice safe sex or are in monogamous relationships. Interestingly, this does not apply to women who have had unprotected sex with bisexual men, despite them being at the same risk.
The ban, of course, has its share of critics, including none other than the American Red Cross, which called gay blood bans “medically and scientifically unwarranted” in 2007—and statistics support them. Nevertheless, Canadian Blood Services has repeatedly refused to lift the policy and replace it with one involving temporary deferrals based on unsafe sexual behaviours instead of permanent bans over sexual orientation.
CBS says it bans donors which they deem to be high-risk, because their extensive blood screening process cannot yet detect malaria and the human version of mad cow disease. (Both of which, I guess, are rampant throughout the gay community… Moo.)
Kyle Freeman is counter-suing for pain, humiliation, and degradation suffered over being banned for being gay.
- Blood services sues gay donor [Canoe.ca]
- Ontario man makes charter challenge against blood-donation screening [Ottawa Citizen]
High School Still Dangerous For Gay Teens
A professor researching harassment of gay teens is calling high school “the land that time forgot,” a place where aggressive anti-gay sentiment pervades student life.
Catherine Taylor, a professor of education and communications at the University of Winnipeg, regrets to have discovered that virtually all gay teens are verbally harassed, with a startling number even being physically abused. Worse, homophobia so ingrained in school culture that very few students step up to condemn the abuse.
This is the same study, incidentally, that was forbidden from being conducted inside several Catholic school boards in Canada. The study is currently in its second phase, and is seeking funding for its third and final phase to take place early next year.
- Gay teens ‘terrorized’ in Canada’s schools: prof [Ottawa Citizen]
British Government Apologises To A Hero
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has officially apologised to Alan Turing, one of my biggest personal inspirations, for the appalling treatment he received from the government before his death in 1954.
OK, it’s not exactly a household name, but I guarantee you’ve used the fruition of his theoretical and practical work.
Turing was a mathematical genius who not only helped break the German Enigma codes (a monumental turning point for the Allies in the Second World War), but who also founded an entirely new field of science—the one in which I hold my M.Sc.
Described by friends and colleagues as an accomplished marathon runner with a shy personality and annoying laugh—Turing was also unapologetically gay in a time where such an existence wrought severe and unjust consequences.
Truly, the list of accomplishments achieved during Turing’s life is matched only by the tragedy surrounding his death. Robbed by an ex-lover, Turing was forced to reveal his personal relationship with the burglar to the police, drawing an immediate conviction under criminal laws barring homosexuality. The agreed punishment was chemical castration via a year’s worth of regular hormonal injections. The hormones permanently changed his physical appearance, including the development of breasts (of which us gay men aren’t particularly fond), but it was the loss of his security clearance with the government that devastated him the most. He died two years later of apparent suicide, a poisoned apple sitting on his bedside.
For me, the sadness of Turing’s life is balanced by its immense personal influence. As I sit here, typing and illustrating on what is still known in academic and mathematical circles as a Universal Turing Machine, I can’t imagine what my life would be like had he never existed. I wonder how he would react to all the joys being unlocked within the branches of science he founded. And what an injustice that I get to study these joys so intimately, while the mind that sparked them had no such opportunity.
It doesn’t make up for history, but the British government’s recognition and apology was the right thing to do. You deserved better, Alan, and recognition of that is spreading.
(And a gentlemanly tip o’ the hat goes to Slap reader Mark from the UK for alerting me to this important development, and for participating in the petition that helped bring it about!)
Tornado Punishment For Same-Sex Blessings: Preacher
Looks like there’s even more evidence that us gays control the weather! A Minnesota pastor has announced that a tornado which terrorized Minneapolis last week is the direct consequence of an effort to allow the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to bless celibate, gay couples who vow to remain “chaste, monogamous, and lifelong.”
Pastor John Piper said that city’s downtown Lutheran church had its steeple damaged because “Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornadoes,” emphasizing that all destruction was a sign that the church needs to “turn from the promotion of behaviours that lead to destruction.
The church was amidst discussions to possibly bless and acknowledge gay parishioners, so long as they do nothing to express each other’s love physically. The measure passed on Thursday with exactly the two-thirds majority required, and not one vote more.
Now, you all better stay on my good side or—so help me—I’ll summon some moderately strong winds to topple over your patio furniture. Mark my words, you will be inconvenienced!
- Baptist Preacher Says Minneapolis Tornado was Message from God [Digital Journal]
Tories Donate $400,000 For Toronto Pride Week
The federal Conservatives have donated close to half-a-million dollars for Pride Toronto to promote the city’s 10-day gay Pride festival and make it more accessible for people with disabilities.
Toronto Pride brings in millions of tourism dollars each year, and the money will help keep the event competitive in a weak economy. The generous gesture has also secured an appearance by a major headliner, yet to be announced.
Neat!
I guess it just goes to show you: The federal Conservatives will fight to stop you from having equal marriage rights; they’ll fight to prevent you from being protected by hate crime legislation; they’ll embrace dangerous and unscientific organ donation practises at your expense; they’ll fight to keep you from getting retroactive pension benefits; but if your cultural event’s incoming tourism dollars are in danger, you can bet instant help will be on the way!
- Government of Canada Supports Pride Week Toronto [Marketwire]
- Pride to get nearly $400,000 from feds [CTV News]
Canada Heads Effort To “De-Gay” Figure Skating
Skate Canada, the governing body for figure skating in Canada, is trying to re-imagine the sport in an attempt to increase spectatorship for Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Olympics. Their approach: Get rid of the gay. (Or, to put it in their words, inject some “masculinity” to draw in the “hockey crowd.”)
Elvis Stojko, the Canadian gold medal figure skating champion, is feeling rather smug about the suggestion, communicating a firm “I told you so” to Skate Canada:
Skate Canada is saying “we want to make men’s figure skating more macho, we want to make it more masculine.” And I’m like, “I told you guys that, like 15 years ago, and you guys hammered me for it.” And now they’re paying for it.
If you’re very lyrical and you’re really feminine and soft, well, that’s not men’s skating. That is not men’s skating, OK? Men’s skating is power, strength, masculinity, focus, clarity of movement, interpretation of music.
So, basically, femininity is bad. Men behaving artistically? Pfft! Leave that to the women. For men, it’s gotta be more like hockey! Where’s the tripping? The fights? The shattered teeth shards sliding across drops of frozen blood?
Oh! They should totally add some explosions. Kaboom! And maybe have everyone come out in teams and blast paintball cannons at each other. The first to triple salchow over their injured, bloodied competitor wins—then BAM! Medicine ball to the back of the neck!
Skate Canada can practically taste the ratings now…
And all they had to do is give everyone who’s secure and respectful enough to appreciate the beauty and art of figure skating—regardless of the athlete’s gender—a massive slap in the face.
- Figure Skating Gets Macho Makeover [ABC News]
- Elvis Stojko: If you’re very lyrical and you’re really feminine… [Toronto SUN]
Homophobic Candidate’s Behaviour Worse Than His Words
Marc Dalton, a candidate in the upcoming B.C. election, has drawn criticism over the surfacing of a homophobic email that he authored back in 1997. The email, which was sent while Dalton was an elementary school teacher, tiresomely equates gay people to adulterers and gamblers:
There are [...] behaviours and acts that most of us would not condone: rape, robbery, assault, drunken driving, pedophilia, incest, and so on. There are other moral issues that large segments of our society do not see eye to eye: gambling, adultery, pornography. I believe that homosexuality fits in this category.
As is increasingly customary amidst elections, the email was revealed by a rival party, accompanied with a demand that Dalton resign for its content. NDP rival Spencer Herbert called the email’s message “disturbing,” adding “to say people like myself and other gay people are the same as pedophiles is an offensive remark.”
In fairness to Dalton, I don’t believe the email equates gay people to pedophiles, and frankly, the whole tone of the email seems like just another woefully misinformed repetition of religious morality talking-points. Still, Dalton, who is also a former pastor, has only provided a meaningless—even snarky—apology, saying “if Spencer Herbert or any other individuals have taken offence in their reading of this 12-year-old e-mail, I extend my unequivocal apology.”
The email is old, but much like the Tom Lukiwski fiasco, I think the age of the offending comments is irrelevant. I also think that all this talk of the email content and when it was made is a distraction from the larger issue.
Dalton’s email wasn’t sent out of the blue; it was sent to a fellow teacher in response to an anti-bullying initiative brought up by the B.C. Teacher’s Federation. The initiative was to protect children who were being bullied and harassed for having gay parents, or for being gay themselves. Not only did Dalton disagree with protecting students from this anti-gay harassment, but he actively started a counter-petition, circulating it among teachers, trying to get the anti-bullying initiative struck down. In Dalton’s words:
There are many, many people who hold homosexuality to be an improper and high-risk behaviour. [...] I am against the BCTF ram-rodding the homosexual motion against the wishes of great numbers of parents (and teachers) in this district and in this province.
This, the act of actively thwarting an initiative to protect children from bullying under the disingenuous guise of somehow protecting parental freedom to oppose homosexuality, is the true vulgarity here. This important character revelation has relevance to the current election, and its in this respect that I agree with Spencer Herbert. MLAs are required to represent everyone in their community, and Dalton, having shown that he is not up to the task, should quietly remove himself from candidacy.
Anti-Gay Lobbyists Batten Down The Hatches
Well, it’s the Easter long weekend, so let’s have some fun!
National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay lobby group based in the United States, has released one of the wackiest anti-gay advertisements I’ve seen, comparing same-sex marriage to a violent storm. YouTube has the goods.
The disparity in outlook has taken a turn for the melodramatic, has it not?
I’ll leave the final bit of amusement courtesy of the Human Rights Campaign, who has managed to get the audition tapes for the spot—and, interestingly enough—every one of those concerned individuals is a California doctor and Massachusetts parent. Fascinating!
Anyway, thanks to everyone who sent this ad in. Have a great long weekend! Slap will be back on Wednesday instead of Monday. Cheers!
Conservative Christian Not So Pro-LIFE
A mother has complained to the media after discovering that her daughter was able to select two females as marriage partners in the free trial of The Game of Life, a computer version of the popular Milton Bradley board game.
The game is a relatively dull 1960s carry-over that lets you move a little car around a board, following a generic script starting from graduating school, to marrying, to buying a house, and finally to retirement.
“You know how kids are,” the anonymous complainant told WorldNetDaily, a political website, “My daughter noticed right away—even before I did—and clicked on one of the girls instead of one of the men and then asked ‘Mom, how come I can marry a woman?’”
Gee, that’s awful. Although, really, I’m not sure I see what’s so difficult about saying “some girls marry other girls.” I guess this parent also wanted to inject all her personal objections to gay people alongside the simple, matter-of-fact explanation. Knowing how sex-obsessed anti-gay folks are, that likely involved concepts beyond what a 6-year-old is capable (or ready) to understand.
So, rather than simply omitting her objections and just acknowledging the reality of the situation, the unnamed mother went and did the next easiest thing: She went to the game’s website and tried to persuade the administrators to censor the game. But—the poor dear—her publicly viewable complaints were promptly deleted for being inappropriate. ”I had no idea how insidious they were being with pushing the homosexual agenda,” she remarked.
The 1960s version of the game, incidentally, also “pushes the homosexual agenda” by allowing players to put two blue or two pink pegs in their little car.
- Christians Attack “Gay Agenda” in PC Game [The Escapist]
- Conservative Christian site decries Game of Life’s ‘gay agenda’ [Joystiq]
That’s Not Religious Freedom
David Popescu, the crazy fringe candidate from Sudbury who declared that all gays should be killed during a federal election debate, has been charged by the Greater Sudbury Police Service for two counts of the wilful promotion of violence and hatred toward an identifiable group.
Canada outlaws speech that promotes violence or hatred toward minority groups through section 319(2) of the Criminal Code. Despite this, Popescu has only stood by his remarks, saying that his promotion of LGBT genocide is protected by his freedom of religious expression. (Maybe he skipped over the “Thou shalt not kill” bits?)
Already, some right-wing commentators have leapt to Popescu’s defense, claiming that his prosecution is just an example of the oppression and intolerance that Christians are currently facing.
Sigh… Let’s just get this out there, shall we?
Reporting a death threat is not opression or intolerance; investigating a death threat is not oppression or intolerance; charging and prosecuting those who utter death threats is not oppression or intolerance. I will not accept that threatening an entire group of people with death is OK because one interprets their religious texts as such. In fact, I don’t believe that resistance to any of the harmful, hateful messages often repeated by those shielding themselves behind religious texts is oppression or intolerance. Tolerance has never meant submission into being treated as inferior and unworthy of human dignities.
So, to those who seriously believe it’s intolerant for gays to resist being told we are lesser, that we shouldn’t ask for or deserve equal rights, or that we simply write off a call for our death as a religious freedom: Suh-lap!
- Popescu charged for comments on gays [Sudbury Star]
- Anti-gay views land fringe candidate in hot water [Daily Press]
Anti-Gay Lobbyists Warn Canada Not To Sign UN Initiative
David Quist, the executive director of the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada lobby group, has said that Ottawa should reject a UN declaration opposing the criminalization of homosexuality.
The Institute of Marriage and Family Canada was, of course, a furious opponent of same-sex marriage in Canada, as well as an opponent of adding sexual orientation to the list of identifiable minorities protected from hate crimes. But don’t go thinking their opposition to the UN measure is motivated by anti-gay sentiment; oh my no. David Quist explains their real motivation:
The UN shouldn’t be unilaterally attempting to change the laws of a sovereign country. [...] Any laws that Canadians change should be debated by Canadians.
Aw, how nice. They just don’t want to meddle with other countries’ laws.
Of course, over 85 countries jail or fine people just for being gay, and several even impose the death penalty, but that’s really none of the world’s business, is it?
And, of course, the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada would never, ever influence, condemn, or support another nation’s laws. I’m sure the front page of their website would never contain two articles written by Andrea Mrozek, the Institute’s manager of communications, decrying New Zealand’s decriminalization of prostitution, as well as an article supporting the banning of same-sex marriage via constitutional amendment in three U.S. states, and another lamenting the passing of Washington’s Death with Dignity Act.
Why that would make them a… what’s the word again?
- Gay activists urge Ottawa to sign global declaration [Canada.com]
