There's two basic themes on his website now.
The first being his take on the "evil homosexual agenda", after all, we couldn't possibly tolerate having GLBT folk going into schools and talking with students about how they have families, loves and lives, now could we? After all, in doing so, they might be recruiting, right? (If it wasn't so laughably awful reasoning, it would be worth my time to dissect it)
Suffice it to say, what Boissoin seems to think is the "evil agenda" that's going to "ruin young minds" is no more than the exposure to a broad range of different peoples and lives that I got when I was in grade school. People of dramatically different faiths, cultures and backgrounds were often brought into our classrooms to talk about their lives - which mysteriously came out sounding little different than our own rather middle class Canadian lives. The effect? Well, a basic understanding that even if someone speaks a different language or dresses differently from you, they are still people.
The second theme in Boissoin's space is a combination of whining about how Dr. Lund "libelled" him, and how the uproar over his "innocent" letter isn't his fault.
I will point out that the libel suit that Boissoin filed against Lund didn't go very far - Boissoin uses the phrase that 'Lund should be thankful that we agreed to settle. ', while an article says that Boissoin dropped it. In either case it didn't go very far.
My letter was far from a baseless rant, it was intentional. Actually, I had no way of knowing if it would be published and less than two months after it was, I was served with a AHRC complaint submitted by Dr. Darren Lund, a pro-gay activist and now University of Calgary faculty member.
Like I said in my 2002 letter, "War has been declared."2 Cor 10:4
If I get this straight, Boissoin wrote the letter, sent it to his newspaper as a "letter to the editor", and didn't hope or expect it would be published? - what a mealy-mouthed attempt at "I didn't do it". I've hear more coherent excuses from grade school children. The fact is that he did write it, and it was published. If you didn't want it published, or didn't think it would be, why the heck did you send it to the newspaper in the first place?
Frankly it doesn't matter, as it boils down to part of Boissoin's pattern of whining and refusing to take responsibility for his own actions and the consequences of them. I respect the old saw 'we are all the heroes of our own stories', but do we not also have a responsibility to ourselves to accept and acknowledge our own role in the events that have unfolded around us?
There's a great irony in Boissoin's position with respect to GLBT people. On one hand, he decries being held accountable for the expression of his religious views - complaining that to do so is a violation of his protected rights. Yet, his argument rests upon the validity of protecting religious freedoms. Much of his moralizing arguments about GLBT people rest upon his supposition that sexual or gender identity are purely matters of choice when they fall outside of the "normal" spectrum - and therefore, those people do not deserve human rights protections in law. Yet, there can be few who would argue that religious belief and practice is anything other than a matter of choice.
If something that is such a matter of human choice as religious practice can be acknowledged as a valid and protected domain in the concept of human rights, then why is it so difficult to accept that someone's gender or sexual identity should be granted protection from discrimination and hostility?
(Oh yes - while Mr. Boissoin would like you to believe that NARTH has some kind of "proof" that being GLBT is purely a matter of choice, what they really have is a series of dubious assertions, and little or no concrete data to back them up. It is notable, and significant, that few of NARTH's spokespeople and quoted sources publish in respected peer-reviewed forums)
No comments:
Post a Comment