Attempting To Defend The Indefensible

The Internet is a wonderful tool sometimes. This afternoon, I was doing a little follow-up on the Boissoin case to see if anything of interest had come up. I didn't find anything hugely significant, but I did find Stephen Boissoin's personal website. Between the wording on the site, and a quick check of the registration of the domain, I'm pretty sure it's legitimately his.

There isn't much real content for the site, but there's a few gems. I'll start with his "about me" page, which turns out to be an amazingly predictable bunch of whining about "media bias" and some incredibly dishonest attempts at claiming that "he doesn't really hate GLBT people", just their lifestyle:

Instead of reporting accurately they relied on unsworn statements of individuals outside of the hearing. They printed as fact information that was demonstrably not true. They blended different answers from my testimony and took one liners from the letter to the editor that is being debated and made it look like I was bashing every and any homosexual. ...
To conclude, hate my views even hate me if you like but at least be responsible enough to have weighed the facts. I do not hate anyone that claims that they are homosexual, bisexual or transgendered. I obviously disagree with the lifestyle and specifically hate the propagation of that lifestyle to impressionable children and teenagers,

Really? The classic line of "Love the sinner, hate the sin" - unfortunately, anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty would have admitted that his position is outright hostile to the lives of otherwise peaceful members of society.

Let's take a look at Boissoin's letter - which has been available on the Internet in some form or another for ages:

My banner has now been raised and war has been declared so as to defend the precious sanctity of our innocent children and youth, that you so eagerly toil, day and night, to consume.

Now, let's examine the inferences in this statement:

1) He is declaring war. It's not hard to get from a declaration like that to a 'call to arms' against GLBT people in general.
2) GLBT people are implied as preying upon children and youth. Anyone who has done even the slightest bit of study on the subject has long ago figured out that GLBT people are not doing any such thing. Normalizing the idea of being GLB or T is all about helping the next generation make it into adulthood without going through the obstacle course the previous generation experienced.

He repeats the "preying on children" theme a second time in his letter:

From kindergarten class on, our children, your grandchildren are being strategically targeted, psychologically abused and brainwashed by homosexual and pro-homosexual educators.

Newsflash for you Mr. Boissoin, but GLBT people know who they are - long before others do. There is no such thing as "recruiting" someone to be GLBT - one either is or is not.

Further, Boissoin's letter goes on to complain that *gasp* GLBT people might actually desire legal and social equality in the world:

Regardless of what you hear, the militant homosexual agenda isn't rooted in protecting homosexuals from "gay bashing." The agenda is clearly about homosexual activists that include, teachers, politicians, lawyers, Supreme Court judges, and God forbid, even so-called ministers, who are all determined to gain complete equality in our nation and even worse, our world.

This is a pretty broad-based attack - apparently somewhere in Boissoin's slightly damaged logic, there's a validity in keeping a "lower class" of people suppressed when those people don't align with his particular sense of morality.

It is only a matter of time before some of these morally bankrupt individuals such as those involved with NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Lovers Association, will achieve their goal to have sexual relations with children and assert that it is a matter of free choice and claim that we are intolerant bigots not to accept it.

Let's be absolutely clear about one basic fact - GLBT people are NOT necessarily pedophiles, any more than heterosexuals are necessarily not pedophiles. The insinuation that there is any connection between GLBT folk in general and something as vile as NAMBLA (which is essential a pedophile lobby) is a distortion worthy of the worst of WWII's propagandists.

Having read the ruling itself in considerable detail, as well as much of the media stories on the hearings themselves, I find it hard to accept the rather flimsy "I was misquoted" defense that Boissoin puts forth. It seems to me that it is quite clear that the man's opinions are pretty absolute, and have no room for acknowledging the validity of others.

Boissoin talks of "hating the lifestyle". What is this "lifestyle" he talks of? Does he know? Or does he merely suppose that lifestyle? The Bible-beating crowd loves to throw about their criticisms in terms of "the lifestyle", as if GLBT people live deeply immoral, salacious lives steeped in licentious behaviour. However, implying something doesn't make it true. The "hate the lifestyle" routine is little more than a thin veil around the evil of human behaviour - hatred, violence and bullying.

The rest of his site is pretty vacant - except for his links page, which links to "Exodus" (an "ex-gay" ministry program based on "reparative therapy"), and NARTH - an organization full of utter bigots with PhDs who claim that sexual identity is malleable. (and to judge from the utterly horrendous attempts at logic trying to explain away transsexuals, amazingly ignorant of the current state of legitimate research in the domain).

Sorry, Mr. Boissoin, but you can do better than that. Just as your letter was little more than recycled talking points and jingoism that has been vomited forth by various nut case lobbyists in the United States like Dobson, Cameron and LaBarbera before you. The false "compassion" for GLBT people you express persuades nobody except yourself.