Gwen Landolt On Russia and Uganda

It seems that Gwen Landolt's organization has gotten its knickers in a twist over the Harper Government's flaccid response to Russia's recent spurt of severely anti-LGBT legislation.

While the CBC's article is fairly bland about the whole business, wandering over to REAL Women Canada's website, we find Landolt's entire "news release":

by C. Gwendolyn Landolt.  August 7, 2013.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, John Baird, has abused his position as a cabinet minister to impose his own special interests in the foreign countries of Uganda, Kenya and Russia.

He awarded $200,000 of Canadian taxpayers’ money by way of the Department of Foreign Affairs to special interest groups in Uganda and Kenya to further his own perspective on homosexuality.  He also insulted the speaker of the Ugandan Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, at a meeting of the International Parliamentary Union in Quebec City when he criticized Uganda for its position on homosexuality and same-sex marriage.  In response, Ms. Kadaga stated that Uganda was a sovereign nation and not a colony of Canada, and no one could tell Ugandans what to do.

Last week, Baird admitted working extensively behind the scenes to prevent Russia from passing legislation designated to protect Russian minors from homosexual propaganda.  Baird blasted these laws as hateful, anti-gay and intolerant.  Russia has also restricted foreign adoption of Russian children after incidents of horrendous child abuse; for example, adoptive “fathers” in Australia together with other men, sexually abused a 6 year old boy, starting at 22 months of age, born of a Russian surrogate mother.

It is a fact, that homosexual activists in Canada are intolerant of any resistance to their demands, and, as such have become a tyrannical minority.

Conscientious objections based on religion and traditional values have led, in Canada, to public officials, educators and business owners facing heavy fines and lengthy court battles for rejecting the homosexual lifestyle.  This is not democracy.  It is not equality.

This is the strange, intolerant world Mr. Baird wishes to impose on sovereign countries, despite their own cultures and religion which find this unreasonable and unacceptable.

Gwendolyn Landolt, National Vice-President, stated, “Just who does John Baird think he is, using taxpayers’ money to promote his own personal agenda and endeavouring to set standards of the laws of foreign countries?  He argues that homosexual rights are a ‘Canadian value’, but this applies only to himself and his fellow activists and the left-wing elitists.  These are not conservative values and that of grass roots Canadians, who after all, pay the bulk of the taxes”.

Mr. Baird’s actions are highly offensive to conservative taxpayers.  He cannot and must not undermine other countries’ sovereignty and dignity, rooted in stable family structures and religious faith, in order to impose his own value system on them.

Mr. Baird’s actions are destructive to the conservative base in Canada and causing collateral damage to his party.

Source:  REAL Women of Canada

Ms. Landolt apparently thinks that any kind of support for Canada's LGBT citizens is an unjustified use of taxpayer resources.  This isn't terribly surprising given her past utterances.  I can only imagine what her outrage would be if Uganda was passing laws which criminalized being a Christian, or Russia passing laws against "Christian Propaganda" which outlawed attending church.

What she is missing is that both Russia and Uganda are passing laws which explicitly attack not only their own citizens, but the citizens of other nations who should happen to end up in those countries.  A state which moves against its own citizens in such a hostile manner is in fact a threat to itself and to those around it.

Her argument also fails to consider that LGBT Canadians are also taxpayers.  These laws create an explicit hazard for LGBT Canadians who have to travel to these countries.  While it is easy to look upon travel as a luxury, the fact is most travel is done for business reasons.  Therefore, these laws create an economic constraint that affects Canada's economic fortunes as well.