Tourisme Montréal Temporarily Turns Off The Gay

March 5th, 2010

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!

Gay toggle button

A tremendous hat tip to James over at Gay Persons of Color for alerting me to the story.

Gay Rights Deliberately Nixed From Immigrants Guide

March 3rd, 2010

Remember the government’s 63-page guide for new immigrants? Intended to teach potential citizens the ins and outs of Canadian culture, the guide was mysteriously missing any meaningful mention of GLBT rights.

Shortly after the final draft of the guide was released, Canada’s largest gay rights group, Egale, arranged a meeting with Jason Kenney, the Tory minister for Immigration and Citizenship in November. At the time, he told the group that gay rights had simply been “overlooked” during the design of the guide.

Interestingly enough, the Canadian Press revealed yesterday that not only were gay rights not overlooked in early drafts of the guide, but they were actually ordered to be removed by Kenney himself back in June.

The order to nix the gay rights sections didn’t go over well with civil servants, mind you. In August, a memo addressed to Kenney from Neil Yeates, the department’s deputy minister, urged that the GLBT-related sections be readded. Two bullet points from the memo read:

Recommend the re-insertion of the text boxes related to [...] the decriminalization of homosexual sex/recognition of same-sex marriage

Recommend the addition of ‘equality rights’ under list of rights. Had noted earlier that this bullet should be reinserted into the list as a means of noting the equality of all based on race, gender, sexual orientation etc.

Kenney—who fought against same-sex marriage from 2005-2006 and voted to open a debate to ban same-sex marriage in 2007—vetoed the recommendations, and 500,000 copies of the guide were printed without mention of GLBT rights.

So, I guess that’s what’s Kenney means by “overlooked.” (Perhaps he has a different edition of the dictionary that I do.)

Applicants for Canadian citizenship, incidentally, will be tested on the contents of the guide starting March 15th. So beware the Ides of March, new immigrants—and especially gay ones; your future government is the type that would censor your very first introduction to our country and culture.

Anti-Gay Crusader Wins Court Challenge

March 1st, 2010

Bill Whatcott, Canada’s most hysterically obsessed anti-gay activist, does not have to pay $17,500 in fines after successfully challenging a Human Rights Tribunal ruling in Saskatchewan.

Whatcott was fined in 2005 over a “clear pattern or practice of disregard for protected rights,” sparked largely over some insane, anti-gay fliers.

The ruling was upheld by the Court of the Queen’s Bench in 2007, but the appeals court overturned the ruling, saying that the fliers didn’t violate Canada’s hate speech laws by inciting hatred and violence, and were therefore protected by freedom of expression.

Hey, I guess that means the Bill Whatcott flier collection fundraising effort for GLBT organisations is still on!

Ugandan MP Says He Would Kill His Gay Family Members

February 26th, 2010

There was a human rights forum in Kampala late last week, with speakers largely discussing the horrifyingly anti-gay bill currently before parliament in Uganda. Otto Odonga, an MP in said parliament, decided to take the opportunity to declare that he would kill his own son if he ever found out that he were gay.

“There is something deeply wrong with you,” replied Makau Mutua, the forum’s keynote speaker.

And I really have nothing to add to that!

Right On Schedule: Olympic Commentators Make Anti-Gay Figure Skating Jokes

February 24th, 2010

Claude Mailhot and Alain Goldberg, two commentators for RDS, Canada’s French-language sports network, have issued a public apology over homophobic comments made during the men’s figure skating competition at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. The comments were made in reference to a performance by three-time United States figure skating champion, Johnny Weir, and came just after two Australian commentators landed in hot water for similar, but tamer comments about the same athlete.

“This may not be politically correct,” Mailhot began in French, “but do you think he lost points due to his costume and his body language?” Goldberg agreed, saying that Weir’s performance reflected badly on male figure skating: “They’ll think all boys who skate will end up like him. It sets a bad example.”

“We should make him pass a gender test at this point,” continued Goldberg, with Mailhot joking that Weir “should compete with the women.”

Franchement!

It’s kind of like clockwork, mind you. Male figure skaters are often criticized for being perceived as too feminine, and it’s a form of misogyny that’s getting pretty tired. It’d probably take a decorated figure skater to cure such a lack of creativity.

Weir is as much an artist as an althlete. If you ask me, the only “bad example” here is the suggestion that some forms of art should be dismissed instantly due to the gender of the performer.

Honte à vous deux, Claude et Alain.

Homophobic Pastor Shows Gay Porn In Church

February 22nd, 2010

Martin Ssempa, a pastor in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, is showing gay porn as part of his church sermons.

Ssempa began showing the sexually explicit videos, which he downloaded from the Internet, in an effort to sway his parishioners in support of a terrifying anti-gay bill currently before the Ugandan legislature. When interviewed about it, he said he’s showing the films—and will continue to do so—in order to “educate churchgoers on gay sex.”

Well, that’s all kinds of crazy. I mean, can you imagine if homophobes like Ssempa treated straight people the same way they treat gays?

Still, as unbelievable as it sounds, it has come to this: Gay porn in church. And, naturally, it’s the anti-gay people that have done it. The method is entertaining (I joked on Twitter that Ssempa’s sermon would have kept me in the pews), but the thinking behind it is really tired. In retrospect, I shouldn’t even be surprised.

People involved in anti-gay campaigning are obsessed with gay sex in ways that no one else is, and quite strategically so; human sexuality falls under special moral scrutiny, making it an effective platform for criticism. When speaking of heterosexual relationships, these people have no problem glossing over the intimate sexual details of the partnership in order to convey a larger meaning: Love, commitment, support, unity—all the qualities that make unions special.  But when it comes to the subject of gay relationships, they turn to hysterics, engrossed in their own imaginations over what could be going on in the bedrooms.

Sexual attraction is what biologically orients us toward partners, and it works for straight people in exactly the same capacity as gay ones. This means that, when speaking of relationships, kooks like Ssempa must either gloss over the sexual details for everyone in exactly same way, or act all aghast in about them in exactly the same way.

Well… Unless, of course, they expect that all straight couples have had sex precisely as many times as they have children. But then they’re crazy for an entirely different reason.

Thanks to Slap reader Tom for alerting me to this incredible story.

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