October 2, 2011

Homophobic Transphobic Canadian Freaks...


I am fortunate as a gay man to live in Canada -- we have all kinds of anti-discrimination laws, I can can get married (did it!), I can serve in the army (uh, pass...), I can run for public office, I can blog about my gay life, I can make fun of Fox News...

And then sometimes you get a reminder from a hateful politician or small town redneck or big town newspaper that all is not so warm and fuzzy and friendly and safe.

This week The National Post, the more right wing of our two national newspapers (founded by felon Conrad Black), ran this offensive ad. It is from some group calling themselves The Institute for Canadian Values -- and it is about protecting our children from people who are different. This crap is just bigotry and ignorance. Would they print this if it was about Jews or Arabs? The uproar would be huge. This ad is just hateful, and yet there has been little uproar here, and I haven't seen any comeback from the paper.

The ad calls on the leaders of the three political parties to “stop teachers from confusing” children on issues of gender identity and expression. It revives a “StopCorruptingChildren.com” campaign that launched last year to protest proposed revisions to the physical and health education curriculum that would include more sex education for younger children, reports Xtra!, Canada’s LGBT newspaper. The ad quotes from a Toronto School Board curriculum document called “Challenging Homophobia and Heterosexism,” and implies that the optional lessons are mandatory. It is factually incorrect, and totally offensive. The National Post should be embarrassed, and apologize. I haven't seen either yet.

Fortunately, the website Kennethinthe212 found this clever response:



Oct 2 update: While The Toronto Sun has since reprinted this ad, The National Post has issued an apology: "The fact that we will not be publishing this ad again represents a recognition on our part that publishing it in the first place was a mistake. The National Post would like to apologize unreservedly to anyone who was offended by it. We will be taking steps to ensure that in future our procedures for vetting the content of advertising will be strictly adhered to."

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