Barbara Kay on REAL Women Canada's Outburst

In one sense, I was very happy to read Barbara Kay's column excoriating Gwen Landolt and REAL Women Canada for their attack on Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird this week.  I was pleased to see that at least someone on the far right could see the ridiculousness of Landolt's position.

That said, there are a couple of aspects of Kay's column that I find somewhat troubling.  Superficially, it gives off the impression that she is truly outraged by Landolt's statements.  But, there is an undercurrent of a parent scolding a wayward child for doing something phenomenally stupid ... like throwing a rock through the window of the neighbour that nobody on the block likes.

On one hand, the child went too far, acting in part based on what they've heard their parents say over dinner.  In effect, the child has given expression to what the parents have said in private but would never act on in public.

The child has to be disciplined for what they did, even though the parents may well think that it's perfectly apropos.

I've read enough of Ms. Kay's columns over the years to be fairly confident that she is generally sympathetic to most of the positions that REAL Women Canada has expressed.  In broad terms, she lives on the political right of Canada's spectrum, and would qualify as a social conservative no matter which way you examine her statements.

Ms. Landolt is out of line here. What Mr. Baird does or does not believe about homosexuality is irrelevant to his job, which is to represent official Canadian positions. Our government, and most Canadians, perceive homosexuals as fully equal citizens under the law, including the right to marriage and parenting. Whether or not many Canadians are uncomfortable with those positions (as indeed many are) is not pertinent to this situation. Mr. Baird is not demanding other countries enact gay-marriage laws. He is reacting to punitive measures for the “crime” of being homosexual. 

It gets worse. 

Ms. Landolt told a CBC interviewer that gay rights is not a human rights issue per se. She said, “according to the culture and the religion of, you know, Uganda, it’s not a human rights issue. You can’t imply that every country has to take our human rights issues and plunk it down in another country.” When pressed to comment on the fact that Uganda has contemplated the death penalty for practicing homosexuality, Ms. Landolt responded: “It may be unwise by Western standards, but who are we to interfere in a sovereign country?” [ http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/08/08/barbara-kay-canadas-socially-conservative-womens-organization-just-went-too-far/ ]

For a long time, I have felt that Canada's social conservatives have an unwritten rule about what they say publicly:  "Don't let the ugliest stuff out of the closet - believe it, advocate for it behind the scenes, but never say it where Canadians will hear it".

It's almost as if the Conservatives have an unacknowledged monologue that gets brutally suppressed when it surfaces.  (Not unlike the "in the closet" experiences of many LGBT people, I might add)

Ms. Landolt's outburst was that voice coming to the surface when the body politic of the right wing wasn't willing to face itself.  Ms. Kay is acting very much in the role of the parent scolding the child.

I'd feel better if I saw a general renunciation of these positions coming from Ms. Kay rather than what appears to be a scolding of an errant child.

Gwen Landolt Resurfaces ...

I have been somewhat surprised that we haven't heard more from Gwen Landolt during the debate on C-279.  Then she popped up with a bunch of comments on Lifesite...which really refers to a press release from Landolt's REAL Women Canada organization.

Frankly there isn't much new being said here.  The press release is fundamentally the usual set of deliberate misrepresentations that we've heard during the debate of C-389 and during the debate over C-279 as well. 

However, it does warrant taking a closer look just to see how Landolt and her bunch are twisting things:

“It’s all in how the word ‘gender identity’ is defined,” said Gwen Landolt, National Vice-President of REAL Women of Canada, to LifeSiteNews.com.

The bill, put forward by NDP LGBTT Critic Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC), defines “gender identity” as an “individual’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex that the individual was assigned at birth.”

Landolt explained that “gender identity” is a catch-all phrase that could be interpreted by activist courts to legitimize “any kind of sexual deviancy”.

“This could include pedophilia, if that’s their deeply felt experience of gender and if that’s their sexual preference.”

Landolt is, as one would expect, confusing sexual orientation with gender identity.  Whether she knows the difference or not is immaterial - she's lying.

Gender Identity is not Sexual Orientation.  Period.  End Of Statement.  The two intersect with each other in some interesting ways, but make no mistake - they are distinct.   The language of the bill is actually derived from the Yogyakarta Principles document which reads:

1. 1)  sexual orientation is understood to refer to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender or the same gender or more than one gender.
   
2. 2)  gender identity is understood to refer to each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms. 
   

 It doesn't take a genius to understand the distinction that is drawn between these two points.

So, turning back to Landolt's idiotic twisting of things, and we find her concluding that C-279 could be used to "legitimize" pedophilia.  Absolute nonsense.  This is nothing more than a transparent attempt at fear mongering on the part of REAL Women.

The press release goes on to discuss the Australian law's definition:

The phrase sex and or gender identity is used … as a broad term to refer to diverse sex and or gender identities and expressions.  It includes being transgender, trans, transsexual and intersex.  It also includes being androgynous, agender, a cross dresser, a drag queen, gender fluid, genderqueer, intergender, neutrois, pansexual, pan-gendered, a third gender, and a third sex…

The list that the Australians have used are predominantly gender identities.  The only one I question is the Pansexual, which according to wikipedia is more of an extremely broad sexual orientation.  That said, I can see how someone who is pansexual could well have a very fluid notion of gender and its expression.

REAL Women's press release then goes on to say:

It would seem, therefore, that this bill may have been brought before Parliament for purposes other than promoting sound public policy. Rather it will be used to extend legal protection to other questionable sexual activities without having these matters exposed to Parliamentary debate.  That is, this is an attempt to deliberately by-pass Parliament, where these changes may not be acceptable.

Since when was sexuality something that should be subject to "parliamentary debate"?  In writing this one paragraph, they have told us a great deal about their objectives.  Groups like REAL Women are all about regulating sexuality and everything that they perceive as related to it.

Lies and Distortion - Gwen Landolt Parrots The Ezra

It's amazing how the right wingnuts manage to parrot each other. Over at the magazine Catholic Insight, we find "Real Woman" Gwen Landolt whining and snivelling about how the Charter of Rights and Human Rights commission infringes upon her right to be a religious bigot where GLBT people are concerned...and of course, the HRC's are "out of control".

The crux of Landolt's complaint appears to be that because the courts have been persuaded that it is in fact valid to recognize discrimination against GLBT people, they have thereby constricted her rights as a religious person.

The guarantees for religious freedom have, in fact, most often been used to restrict or narrow religious freedom rather than expand it, especially when it has come in conflict with the “equality” rights of homosexuals. The latter’s rights were written into the Charter by the courts and, in contrast to religious rights, have increased and been strengthened step by step by the courts, so much so that, for the most part, homosexual rights now trump religious rights.

Her conclusion that treating discrimination against GLBT people as being just as wrong as discriminating against someone because of their gender, religion or ethnicity somehow impinges upon her religious freedoms is distinctly misguided. Nobody has told Ms. Landolt that she has to renounce her belief that being GLBT is somehow sinful. She is perfectly free to believe that, and few in the world would really care. Of course, for Landolt, and others, it's not good enough for them to believe that GLBT people are sinful, they want to punish by social and legal sanction as well.

It is significant that actual proof of discrimination against homosexuals has never been introduced at any time in evidence in any court in Canada.

Ummm...incorrect, Gwen. Remember the case of Vriend v. Alberta? There is a clear case of government discrimination in a matter, based on an intentional omission in law.

Of course, Landolt completely misinterprets the Vriend decision, and twists it around to being a matter of "judicial activism", as the Alberta legislature had clearly not voted to provide protection to homosexuals in the province of Alberta:

On the basis of this broad definition of equality, the Supreme Court of Canada in Vriend ordered the Alberta government to include sexual orientation in that province’s human rights legislation, even though that legislature had previously voted against such an inclusion. It is noteworthy that the purpose of the Charter was supposed to be to protect individuals from government legislation and policies that discriminated against them; it was not to provide new rights to individuals to be written into legislation. The Vriend decision, therefore, was a twist in judicial activism which strengthened judicial power.

Of course, what Landolt has completely failed to admit and accept is that the legislation in Alberta was at odds with the Constitution. It was not a matter of "judicial activism" at all, rather a recognition that the jurisprudence around S15 of the Charter had already established that S15 was not an "exclusive" list; further other jurisdictions in Canada had already extended legal protections against discrimination to GLBT people.

Further, the Vriend case is quite clearly a matter of government legislation that discriminated against homosexuals. The entire Vriend case centers around the fact that the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission refused to hear the Vriend complaint on the basis that it revolved around the fact that Delwin Vriend was fired for being gay.

Let's be absolutely clear here - the Vriend decision was in fact very much about a provable case of discrimination of precisely the kind that Gwen Landolt is claiming the Charter was intended to protect people from.

Of course, Gwen's happy little fantasy world holds that we all have to bow down on Sundays and worship:

The chipping away of religious freedom began almost immediately after S.15 of the Charter came into effect in 1985 in the R v Big M Drug Mart Ltd. [1985][vii]. In that case, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that the Lord’s Day Act, which required the closing of businesses on Sunday, infringed on religious freedom because religious freedom meant not only freedom of worship, practice, and teaching, but also included freedom from coercion, e.g., that the government could not coerce individuals to affirm specific religious belief, such as, in this case, coercing non-believers to observe the Christian Sabbath. That is, the Court held that non-religious individuals have a right to be free from religious observance.

She is correct in one point here - freedom of religion also implies freedom from religion. Of course, what shreds of rationality are gradually torn away as she progresses down her fantasy path about just how evil it is that legislation that implies a particular religious tradition becomes problematic when you grant freedom of religion to those who aren't followers of Christian tradition:

This interpretation departed considerably from the long established interpretation of freedom of religion, which, heretofore, had meant that one was free to practice one’s religion without interference from the state. In short, the court emphasized the individual conscience and the rights of non-Christians at the expense of the religious rights of communities of believers. It is obvious that Sunday shop closing legislation simply respected the Sabbath observed by the majority of people in society, and protected both shop owners and retail workers from being compelled to work on their day of rest.

The problem with Landolt's argument is that her reasoning is deeply flawed. What Landolt has missed is that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies equally to all Canadians, regardless of their faith; and further fundamental individual freedoms such as freedom of religion mean that a law whose fundamental premise is based on a particular religious tradition (and the "Lord's Day Act" was clearly such a law) is on very weak ground. Further, the Charter and the Constitution quite clearly do not recognize any single faith tradition as being primary in Canada.

We then find Landolt repeating the usual whines about cases like Brockie and others which I have already addressed in some detail. Amusingly, I'd like to know what's so offensive about printing letterhead for a gay organization that it caused Mr. Brockie to find his "religious sensibilities" offended. Of course, I wonder what would happen if the tables were turned, and a printer refused to print something with overtly christian symbols plastered all over it?

Oh yes, she tries valiantly to rescue the Boissoin case from the toilet:

Stephen Boissoin, a Baptist Minister in Alberta, published a letter opposing homosexuality in a local newspaper, The Red Deer Advocate. This letter was an expression of Mr. Boissoin’s deeply held beliefs on the issue, and ran under the subheading “Homosexual Agenda Wicked”.

Boissoin's letter was no "religious" letter. Give me a break. That letter was filled with enough distortions, outright lies and falsehoods to make any self respecting Christian blush with embarrassment with the myriad ways it breaches fundamental tenets of the ethics of that faith.

As if Boissoin's letter would have provoked any kind of rational discussion, Landolt points to this tidbit on the matter from a Gay publication:

Significantly, according to the homosexual newspaper, Xtra West (December 6, 2007), the complaint against Pastor Boissoin was opposed by the homosexual lobby group, EGALE, which issued a press release on the case stating “that debate was the best method for dealing with homophobia (sic)” and that “sunshine is the best disinfectant.”

Debate is fine. Boissoin was not opening the door to any kind of debate. Period. His language alone made it clear that he wasn't seeking debate, but was making a call to arms against GLBT people. Landolt conveniently ignores the fact that while the furor was boiling around Red Deer in the weeks after Boissoin's letter was published, a gay youth was severely beaten. While the connection is difficult to prove, the temporal coincidence cannot be ignored.

What Landolt and others need to recognize is that matters of faith are just fine - nobody has a problem with the fact that some faiths consider GLBT people "sinful". That doesn't give anybody the right to marginalize, discriminate against, or abuse someone else simply because "their faith tells them that the Other is an evil sinner". Period. It's amusing how "religious freedom" seems to imply for these people that includes discriminating against GLBT people in both law and life.

Like Ezra's tirades against Human Rights tribunals, Landolt's claims are rooted in a sense of entitlement. Her rights supercede the rights of others. Landolt is perfectly free to believe what she wishes. She is not, however, free to simply impose her religious beliefs on every body else. When she, and others like Charles McVety get it through their heads that individual freedoms are just that - individual - then they might just start to realize that they are free to their beliefs, but that freedom does not extend to imposing their beliefs and values upon others.