Well, it’s better late than never: Alberta removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders that doctors can charge the province for treating late last month.

The American Psychological Association delisted homosexuality as a disorder 38 years ago, but Alberta tends to fall a tad behind the times. (A metric tad being 38 years, for those who don’t know.)

Unusually, some doctors in the province had used the code as recently as 2005, and I’d be very interested in finding out who these doctors are.

Fortunately, Gene Zwozdesky, the minister for Alberta Health and Wellness under Ed Stelmach’s Conservative government, removed the classification as soon as it came to his attention. “I ordered the immediate removal of something I thought was incorrect, unacceptable, rather ancient in its thinking and otherwise demeaning,” he told the press. And good for him; that was exactly the right course of action.

I interned for Alberta Health and Wellness briefly between my undergrad and masters degree. And let me tell you, if I had known about this… Well, I wouldn’t have had any semblance of authority to change things, but you can rest assured that I would have brewed the weakest pot of coffee that the Health Accountability Division had ever tasted.

Update: As if this story wasn’t already incredible, Slap reader Kevin has informed me that Québec, my own province, is even further behind Alberta and still lists homosexuality as a billable mental disorder.

Franchement!

I looked through the French media and couldn’t find much attention to the story, but the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec has indicated that they’ll be fixing the oversight after the holidays, which should be any day now. According to an interview with Le Journal du Québec, The RAMQ says homosexuality has been listed for all these years because they’ve got an old computer system and couldn’t update to the World Health Organisation’s latest codes.

Gee, I’m sympathetic. Except the WHO removed homosexuality from their IDC codes back in 1992. I guess that means we’ve got some old computer system here in Québec!

• Homosexuality pulled from Alberta disorders guide [CBC News]
• L’homosexualité, une maladie selon la RAMQ [Le Journal du Québec]

Alberta’s strange new law requiring teachers to notify parents before tackling any lessons dealing with sexual orientation has been delayed until next year so that the school boards can prepare formal procedures.

The Alberta Teacher Association as well as several large municipal school boards was against this bill from the start, but the provincial Conservative government has so far been adamant that the law is necessary for parents to be able to pull their children out of classes, preventing them from learning anything about gay issues.

The law was part of a revision to the Human Rights Act, which means that any teachers who violate the new law will see themselves before the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

The whole thing is a bad idea, so sparing an extra year’s worth of children from all this is welcome news. Too bad it’s not delayed indefinitely.

• Alberta parental opt-out to take another year [CBC News]

When Edmonton’s Pride Parade organisers invited Conservative MLA Doug Elniski to join in the festivities last week and be among the first-ever Tory participants, they probably hadn’t guessed he’d be Twittering and posting to his conservative blog at the same time. While waving to the crowd alongside three of his colleagues, Elniski proceeded to mock the event and its participants in real-time on his public Twitter account. Class act, that Doug!

While the controversial tweets have since been scrubbed clean and his entire blog has been deleted altogether (it hasn’t escaped Google’s cached copy, mind you), here are just a few of his observations:

i am surrounded by bumping and grinding lesbians waiit 20 then send help

i am certian that one is real those however i doubt

Darkest humor was either “Dyke’s on Bikes” or “Queers for Beers” the latter was a particular irony as most of the people in the beer garden were drinking pink coolers

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO glad it did not rain, had it rained there would have been so much mascara, glitter and cake makeup on the roads we’d have needed one of those sweepers that follow the horses in the Capital Ex parade.

It was ‘just’ a parade, relax

It’s kind of a nice gesture simply joining the parade in the first place, but it’s disappointing for an invited participant to not acknowledge the meaning behind Pride parades. Contrary to what Doug wrote, it’s not “just a parade,” but also a celebration and protest in commemoration of a minority’s struggle. While I can’t blame Doug for revelling in the spectacle of some of the more flashy groups, I don’t think he cares much for the underlying purpose. An even more recent blog post of his directed toward young women has gotten some bad press, and reveals that he’s, sadly, pretty much just a creep:

Men are attracted to smiles, so smile and don’t give me that “treated equal” stuff, if you want equal it comes in little packages at Starbucks.

Yeah, who needs equality when we’ve got aspartame?

(Thanks to Tamara for sending this story along!)

• ‘Men are attracted to smiles,’ Alberta MLA advised girls on blog [CBC News]
• Tweeting MLA angers local gays, lesbians [Edmonton SUN]

Alberta is the only province in Canada that does not explicitly include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation in its human rights code. This, despite a ten-year-old Supreme Court ruling stating that provinces must not exclude gays and lesbians from their human rights legislations.

Rachel Notley, an Alberta MLA, has now brought the matter up in the legislature, calling out the government for its embarrassingly slow response to the court ruling. “Why,” she asked, “does the government continue to give a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to homophobes and gay-bashers by refusing to include sexual orientation in our human rights code?”

Great question, Rachel.

Just last year, Premier Ed Stelmach said that the human rights code would not be updated to include sexual orientation in that legislative session, calling the process “complicated.”  Now, Lindsay Blackett, the Minister responsible for the human rights code and the first black cabinet minister in Alberta, has said the same thing for this legislative session, announcing that updating the human rights code would be a “knee-jerk response:”

We do not make changes to legislation… or make amendments to any particular body just because of the whim of one particular individual in this House.

I guess avoiding a knee-jerk response justifies a plain ol’ jerk response. Isn’t politics just the classiest?

Here’s the thing: this issue is not just the wishes of one lone MLA—it’s the wishes of the Supreme Court of Canada, and Alberta has no excuse for letting this go unattended since 1999, when Rosie O’Donnell hosted the Grammys that debuted Ricky Martin—and only one of them was suspected of being gay.

So, yeah, if updating the human rights code is truly complicated and requires cascading updates, then say so—say unabashedly that it was a mistake to ignore it, that you’re on the case now, and that it will be in place soon. But, frankly, I don’t think it’s complicated, especially since the courts must already interpret the human rights code as if sexual orientation were present. Alberta has a long history of institutionalized homophobia by the government, and dragging their feet on updating the human rights code—while continuing to introduce homophobic legislation—gives me reason to suspect that they’re just being… What’s the most recognizable word for it?

Let’s say: “Alberta-governmenty.”

• Alberta accused of ignoring gay rights [Edmonton SUN]
• MLA wants gay rights protected [iNews 880]

Concerned Christians Canada, an Alberta-based Christian lobby group, has announced that they will launch a human rights complaint against the Alberta Tories.

The complaint stems from the rejection of a Tory candidate’s nomination back in November. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach failed to endorse Craig Chandler’s candidacy due to a history of anti-gay human rights violations. Concerned Christians Canada is furious with Chandler’s rejection, accusing the Stelmach government of anti-Christian discrimination.

So, refusing to endorse a bigot amounts to… bigotry?

Lobby chairman Jim Blake called it just that, adding that Stelmach’s actions were “reflective of wartime Germany,” and that it’s all part of a growing initiative to repress Christians:

It’s definitely anti-Christian bigotry. We’re concerned about a growing trend of anti-Christian behaviour in politics and society at large.

If this was done over someone being Muslim or homosexual, there’d be a huge outcry, a riot.

Well, I have to agree with one point: If someone’s nomination were rejected simply because they were Muslim or gay, there would be an outcry.

However, Chandler was not rejected simply for being Christian; if that were true, most of the MLAs in Stelmach’s government wouldn’t be there today either. Chandler was rejected because he repeatedly infringed upon the human rights of gay people. Having been raised Catholic, I’d argue that such views are decidedly non-Christian.

Blake’s faulty justifications aside, this human rights case doesn’t have a hope of succeeding. Human rights statutes prohibit discrimination in services that are commonly available to the public. Having your candidacy rejected because you don’t represent the views of the political party to which you applied does not fall in that category.

Concerned Christians Canada knows that this case is destined to fail, though. Their HRC complaint is a publicity attempt that will gain additional attention once their case fails. At that point, they’ll accuse the commission of having a bias toward gay and Muslim groups and present their failure as a flawed case study in their campaign to have the HRC abolished.

‘Cause opposing human rights is exactly what Jesus would do, apparently.

• Christian group accuses Tories of bigotry [Calgary SUN]
• Religious Group Plans Human Rights Case Against Stelmach, Tories [AM 770 CHQR]

It’s official. Craig Chandler, Tory nominee for Calgary-Egmont, has had his candidacy rejected by Premer Ed Stelmach over anti-gay human rights violations.

Undeterred, Chandler vows to run as an independent.

And with that, an Alberta tory has been ousted over anti-gay views. Do do do do do do do do…

(That was supposed to be the theme to the Twilight Zone.)

• Alberta Tory denied provincial nomination [CBC News]
• Tory linked to anti-gay letter denied nomination [CTV News]
• Anti-gay letter broke human-rights law, panel says [Globe and Mail]