A public elementary school in King City, Ontario has cancelled “opposite gender day” over concerns that it would result in gender identity issues or turn the students gay.

The day was proposed by the elementary school’s student council as a fun idea where kids could dress up as the opposite gender, if they wanted to. However, opponents, including Charles McVety—head of Canada’s largest anti-gay lobby group, the Canada Family Action Coalition—were infuriated with the concept.

“If this was so innocent, then why did the principal not stop this right away?” McVety asked the press rhetorically. “This was part of a greater agenda to teach gender identity and to confuse our children at a young age, and to tell them they can’t be truly happy until they discover their inner identity.”

In reality, this “greater agenda” was the idea of elementary school students, including Ripley Antonacci, an eighth grader and president of the student council. “We just wanted to have a fun day and came up with the idea,” he told a reporter. “A lot of people do it for Halloween and we just thought it would be a cool idea.”

“We didn’t mean to offend anyone,” he added apologetically. “I was a little confused because I didn’t know why people would say those things.”

And that’s how the kids at King City Public School were taught that taking a lighthearted look at gender roles, even in the context of a fun dress-up day,  is never acceptable.

• School cancels spirit day after complaints about ‘gender opposite’ theme [Parent Central]
• School cancels cross-dressing day [Toronto SUN]

Charles McVety, the president of Canada Family Action Coalition, Canada’s largest anti-gay lobby group, has ramped up his opposition to Bill C-389. The bill, if passed, will prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity, giving transgendered men and women equal rights in housing, employment, and public services.

This, of course, has thrown McVety into utter fits, conjuring some pretty bizarre ideas. “As adults,” he told the media, “we can handle these things, but my daughter turned 13 on Saturday, and I don’t want some guy showering beside her at the local swimming pool.”

McVety continued, saying that the bill would allow people like convicted killer Russell Willams, who was photographed wearing women’s lingerie, to enter gender-restricted spaces.

Well, I hate to alarm McVety, but convicted killers can already enter locker rooms in public pools. Karla Homolka could be in his daughter’s locker room right now. Heck, there could be murderers in the men’s locker room too. Who knows who’s waiting to jump out from behind the shower curtains? No one is safe from the these maniac killers—no one! What was that sound?! AAAAAH!

Bill Siksay, the Bill’s sponsor, put it eloquently: “I think this is Mr. McVety being his alarmist best, once again, when it comes to an issue of human rights, equal rights, for minorities in Canada.” Clarifying the obvious, Siksay continued: “There is nothing in this bill that will change our understanding of appropriate behaviour in public washrooms or in gendered spaces.”

Indeed, transgendered people can largely already use the gendered spaces with which they identify, and it hasn’t even entered my mind that they’d somehow be any more likely to be voyeurs or act inappropriately than anyone else. Bill C-389 is simply about ending discrimination, particularly with regards to employment and other standard rights. And as it enters its third and final reading, things are looking promising, regardless of whatever paranoia McVety is content on spreading.

• Evangelical leader accuses Tories of helping push NDP bill on gender [Globe and Mail]

Name: Brian Rushfeldt

Gayified Name: Bri

Works For: Canada Family Action Coalition

Favourite Colour: Whichever ones aren’t in the Pride Flag.

Actual quote: “It’s interesting that they would have chosen Alberta to film [Brokeback Mountain] in. I think that was a deliberate move on the part of some of the homosexual activists and some of the directors from corrupt, immoral Hollywood.”

Brian Rushfeldt reacts to a Pride flag fluttering in the breeze.

What he does: Rushfeldt is a former Bible college dean and air traffic controller. He’s now the executive director of the Canada Family Action Coalition, which has lobbied against (among other things) same-sex marriage, tax credits for gay-themed films, and the adding of sexual orientation to the list of minorities protected by hate crimes. Brian was instrumental in legislation that forces teachers to require parental permission before acknowledging the existence of gay marriage in classrooms.

Craziest Moment: Brian led a boycott of the NHL for licensing the Toronto Maple Leafs logo for use in the film Breakfast with Scot, an adorable family comedy that features a gay hockey player and his partner who becomes the unexpected guardian of an 11-year old orphan. “The most disturbing aspect,” Brian said of the film “is that an 11-year old boy is being promoted as a poster child for gay sex.” The boycott of Canada’s national pastime wasn’t very popular.

Party invitation index: A neutral 5. While not an intentionally interesting guest addition, Brian’s air traffic controller skills would not only come in handy helping your other guests manoeuvre into tight parking spaces, but also likely make him an excellent charades partner.

One of Canada’s largest anti-gay lobby groups is seizing on Alberta’s Bill 44, a proposed amendment to the Human Rights Act that would disallow teachers from mentioning or discussing gay topics in front of students that did not receive parental permission.

The bill is ominously vague—a point which has piqued the interests of Brian Rushfelt, head of Canada Family Action Coalition. “It’s up to the parent to make [the legislation] as broad or narrow as they want,” he said, adding that neither “the schools nor the government should be the ones to put parameters on it and say it’s only sexuality classes or only evolution classes or only religion classes.”

Anti-gay lobby groups have been actively opposing measures to prevent the bullying of gay students for years, but now may have a new tool beyond the mere lobbying of school boards to get what they want.  Parents, according to Rushfeldt, should file human rights complaints against teachers who promote tolerance of gay students so that the boundaries of the new law can be broadened. Broadened, of course, in a means befitting only to those crazy enough to devote time to this nonsense.

This proposed abuse should be enough evidence for even supporters to reconsider the bill, but the real flaw lies within its intended uses. The effect of this legislation is to always postpone discussion of gay rights, student reports on gay historical figures and role models, anti-bullying campaigns, and sexual education information until all parents can be consulted. But parents who want their children to be able to actively examine different sides of issues as they arise, who wish for spontaneous discussion to be encouraged, whose lives—if they are gay—will now be treated as a topic so dangerous that all discussion of it must be halted until every student’s family gives their blessing to proceed, and who would have to see their child’s fellow classmates ushered out into the hallway when their family is up for discussion, would have no say in any of these matters if Bill 44 passes.

Although, come of think of it, this bill may have its uses, too. Why, I actually heard of a teacher once explaining that her name was changed to “Mrs. so-and-so” because she had just married her husband. Can you imagine? Flaunting her heterosexuality and the myriad bedroom implications it entails to the whole class! And don’t even get me started on lessons that contradict the teachings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

• Parents must get say in all teaching, group says [Calgary Herald]

Before the holidays, I linked to an excellent blog post by Montréal Simon about St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and how anti-gay lobbyists had launched a campaign to tear down the rainbow Pride flag that is hung there.

Displaying the rainbow flag or a small rainbow flag sticker is something that many businesses and campuses across Canada choose to do—and many people probably can’t imagine the relief that this gesture can bring to a gay person.

Having the rainbow flag sticker affixed to a storefront window or an office door signifies to gay people that we can let our guard down and know that we will be treated fairly. To me, it means I won’t have a repeat of my experience at a walk-in clinic where, after answering questions about my sexual health and disclosing my orientation in the process, I was treated with a noticeable disrespect, ordered to have STD tests, and was put on antibiotics without any telltale symptoms—all for an upper leg / groin pain that ultimately turned out to be caused by a cheap, folding office chair.

On campuses across Canada, the rainbow sticker is known as the “positive space” or “safe space” program, and the University of Victoria is just the latest institution to consider it. It’s an accurate title for an important program—and it’s one that’s under relentless attack by anti-gay groups and lobbyists.

In 2004, employees at the Royal Bank of Canada launched an employee-driven, non-mandatory, safe space program. It meant that if I needed to go into the bank as a couple for a loan, mortgage, joint account, or other service—I could seek out agents displaying the rainbow sticker and know that I’d be treated with the same respect as any other customer. Almost immediately, The Canadian Family Action Coalition launched a boycott against the Royal Bank, instructing members to close their RBC accounts and send angry letters and phone calls to the company. The bank panicked and caved, and all RBC employees were forbidden to display the rainbow sticker.

The pettiness, disingenuity, and hostility toward safe space programs and rainbow flags has been a sore spot for me for quite some time. Anti-gay groups call these programs an endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle—whatever that is—and have the audacity to claim that it’s a discriminatory practise: That employees who don’t wish to display the sticker would be treated with disrespect (a notion I reject). Yet these groups encourage hostility toward anyone who chooses to display it.

So, if you run a business, or work with customers in an office—consider a simple gesture to signify that you will treat everyone respectfully. Put a rainbow sticker somewhere visible. And if anyone objects, clarify that they are welcome too; that it’s just a safe space.

• UVic eyes positive space [Martlet]
• Royal Bank clerks asked to show pro-gay unity [CTV News]

Breakfast With Scot, an unbelievably sweet comedy about a closeted gay couple who unexpectedly finds themselves raising a bubbly 11-year old boy, is under attack once again by anti-gay lobbyists.

Previously, the Canadian Family Action Coalition led a boycott of the NHL over the film, which licensed the Toronto Maple Leafs logo. The boycott wasn’t very successful. (Go Habs!)

This time, though, Charles McVety, a spokesperson for the group, is seeking government intervention. He singled out the family comedy as being one that would have all its tax credits revoked by the government if Bill C-10, which is currently in front of the senate, were to pass into law. The bill seeks to deny tax credits to films after they’ve been produced if the content is found to be “objectionable.”

McVety—who previously claimed responsibility for Bill C-10, but has since backpeddled—summarized Breakfast With Scot as a film about “an 11-year-old boy who is being raised by a homosexual Toronto Maple Leaf to be a homosexual.”

Ignoring, for a moment, that the notion that someone can be raised to be homosexual is rejected completely by the psychological, medical, and academic community, I’m amazed by this misclassification. Either McVety has never seen the film, or he is lying about what he saw.

I had the privilege to see Breakfast with Scot last autumn in attendance with the director, producers, and its young star. It was a sweet, family comedy about a closeted hockey star and his lawyer husband who like to keep their lives discreet. They suddenly find themselves caring for a tragically orphaned 11-year-old, who enjoys cooking, dressing up in feather boas, singing Christmas carols in summer, and drawing exactly the sort of attention that his new guardians like to avoid. I won’t ruin the story, but to describe the film as anything but a gentle holiday comedy with strong, moral themes is dishonest.

Still, McVety has targeted and seeks to punish this film because the guardian characters are gay—a point central to the film’s comedic premise. “We are objecting to films that proselytize young people into homosexuality,” he told reporters. Laurie Lynd, the filmmaker, was stunned, adding that if the movie’s tax credits were revoked, it “could have killed the film completely.”

McVety has said multiple times that Bill C-10 is about ending the funding of pornography with tax dollars. That’s not what he’s demonstrating, especially since policies are already in place to prevent that. Instead, this bill is about revoking tax credits (not even funding) from any films that disagree with McVety’s ideology—and after they’ve been made, to boot. With this broad definition of what constitutes an objectionable film, and with an after-the-fact process, Bill C-10 will force filmmakers to reconsider producing anything with content as edgy as, well, a gay couple.

Sigh. Maybe I’ll just produce Slap Upside The Head: The Animated Film stateside.

• Activist decries tax break for gay comedy [Toronto Star]
• Rightwing activist decries tax credits for gay film [Xtra]
• Film tax credit proposal falls short, evangelist says [Globe and Mail]