Colby Cosh writes:
The REAL Women keep things REAL without having to police their every word for partisanship. Their endurance is more impressive when you consider that they’re pretty much the Washington Generals of political advocacy.
RELATED — roughly translated from the French Le Devoir article:
The gaiety of the Harper government — 14 August 2013 | Francine Pelletier
It is one of the great enigmas of the incumbent government and possibly the greatest mystery: how a right-wing government, much more right than anything Canada has long been known, has it become a strong advocate for the rights of gays and lesbians? Historically, the issue of homosexuals is defended by the left and the right, just as we remember Gwendolyn Landolt, President Emeritus of the group Real Women of Canada REAL Women of Canada. “Who does it?” She asked John Baird, after the federal minister had criticized the Russian anti-gay laws.
Its position is “an insult to countries that have faith and have stable family structures,” she said. Born in reaction to the feminist movement in the early 1980s, Real Women claim to speak for the silent majority in campaigning for retention of women at home, submission to her husband, and against all laws ensuring equality for women on the market labor. Not surprisingly, they are also against abortion and gay marriage.
The group encourages women to see “how to choose a good husband can satisfy their needs.” They obviously thought dead and buried, but now these dinosaurs are brandishing their fist on the issue of gays. Or, should I say, face a particularly gay, John Baird, who was, according to Ms. Landolt, the nerve “to impose its own interests.” The spokesman REAL Women is the second person to point the finger sexual orientation Minister. Two years ago, Pamela Taylor, Conservative candidate in a by-election in Ontario, was the first to refer to it in a radio interview. When asked why does one find any openly gay Conservative candidate in the federal or provincial scene, Taylor said tit for tat “Openly? John Baird.”
Since then, rumors of a “gay channel” in the Harper government rage. In addition to imposing foreign minister, who has never denied the rumor and also frequents the gay community in Ottawa, there is the wife of PM himself, Laureen Harper, who is obviously a lot of talk (I’ll leave it to peel the Internet on it) and, more importantly, the other big gun Conservative Jason Kenney.
Although visibly uncomfortable with the issue of homosexuality, Mr. Kenney, another notorious single Conservative cabinet (a devout Catholic, he boasted, a few years ago, to always be “virgin” ) began also to defend the rights of homosexuals. Besides a speech at the United Nations on the situation of gays refugees, ex-Minister for Immigration and Citizenship has sent a letter last September to thousands of gays and lesbians citizens supporting his defense of the rights of sexual minorities. Many wondered, moreover, how the minister was able to get their email address.
MM. Baird and Kenney beautiful minimize their crusades recalling Canada sided with the “rights” there is no other topic that could be confused with the conservative position that the Liberals and the NDP. The Conservatives certainly have not shown the same sensitivity to the rights of women, Aboriginal peoples, ethnic minorities, or to such other basic right to a healthy environment.Curiously, the Conservatives, whose ears curled, not so long ago, at the mention of gay marriage, did not cut funding to film festivals and gay parades, while rushing to cut elsewhere .
In June 2012, the Harper government has even organized a specifically gay event, the Fabulous Blue Tent, attracting more than 800 people at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa.
Since the decriminalization of homosexuality in 1969, public opinion has evolved, it is true that even a Conservative government can not ignore. But the answer to the riddle – how to explain the gay fervor among conservatives? – Is elsewhere. The fervor is mainly due to the personalization of the issue in the Conservative cabinet. In other words, it is because a man like John Baird knows what it is to live as a sexual minority that Canada raises his voice today to defend gays.
Too bad the Conservative cabinet does not include women, or Aboriginal or Black feeling sufficiently challenged by the “condition” to do so.
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The Le Devoir article is just stating the obvious. Wonder why Cosh didn’t mention it. Too tacky?
Everybody knows Baird is gay.
My gay conservative friends hem and haw when I ask about Kenney.
My sources tell me that there are lots of gay men in the PMO of the “socially liberal, fiscally conservative” species.
