“Unthinkable”

American religious conservatives have a problem.

Riding high on their partnerships with the Trump administration and the perception of being political kingmakers, they need to be sure that they will be able to sustain their momentum for years to come. And with the newly-stacked U.S. Supreme Court making the overturn of Roe v Wade a seeming inevitability (as well as putting the overturn of marriage equality within sight), they are now looking for what to do in a “post-Roe” world to retain their energy, power, and dizzying levels of funding. And in the discussions they have about that dilemma, their solution, often, is to work toward a world in which they have made abortion “unthinkable.”

“I’m not suggesting that the proposed laws are unimportant—on the contrary, pass more of them! I only wish to remind us that our goal is to make abortion unthinkable as well as illegal. And that means our work has only just begun…” –  John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, Breakpoint

When I speak about American conservatives, of course, I don’t mean to suggest that there is some central plan or hive mind. It doesn’t work that way. Even getting U.S. Evangelicals and Catholic fundamentalists onto the same page can be a challenge sometimes, and the religious nationalist industrial complex is made up of an infinite number of organizations all vying for dollars in the same fundraising pool. But there does seem to be a fairly cohesive and organic process in which talking points filter out and take shape – and “unthinkable” appears to be one such trend in linguistic spin.

The origin of this particular incarnation of the talking point (it has been mused about many times before, but not with this degree of viral spread and consistency) appears to have been January’s Evangelicals for Life conference, in which the senior vice president of Alliance Defending Freedom’s (ADF) U.S. legal division Kristen Waggoner encouraged attendees, using the phrase. Waggoner’s encouragement came about a week after Robin Marty’s Handbook for a Post-Roe America was published, and progressive news outlets were discussing how to respond to the possibility of a patchwork or even nationwide ban on abortion. The possibility that the left might evolve to cope with a changing legal landscape – as far as EFL attendees were concerned – needed to be thought out and prepared for.

So when Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Sam Oosterhoff tells an anti-abortion rally in Toronto that he pledges to make abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime,” it’s helpful to look at religious conservative media for clues as to what he might mean by that, and where his influences are coming from.

“New Hampshire Right to Life’s position is clear, she said. ‘We would want to put restrictions on abortions and make it unthinkable and illegal…’” – Concord Monitor

I could go at some length about how promoters of the sensationalistic and Planned Parenthood -defaming movie Unplanned seized on the phrase during their publicity tour, or how it’s turning up on Fox News, or how it came up during anti-abortion rhetoric pertaining to legislation in New York and Georgia as well as a legal ruling in Louisiana, or how it spread widely enough that even a perceived-left website like Vox gave it oxygen – but that only establishes that there is definitely a narrative. I’d much rather look at what religious conservatives are getting at, when they use the phrase.

“Every answer to why abortion is viewed as still ‘needed’ stems from a deeper-seeded issue which we could be fighting against… we need to combat the issues which give abortion supporters reasons to think it is the better ‘option.’ Abortion needs to stop being an excuse for not addressing the larger issues at hand…” – Paul Collier

If anti-abortion groups wanted to turn their attention toward addressing poverty, it would probably be a welcome development. Sadly, you won’t find a whisper of that, and doing so would probably frighten the megadonors with whom they collaborate to form the Republican / Conservative political base. But getting religious conservatives to speak candidly about specific objectives isn’t always easy. Afraid that too much transparency might allow opponents to organize effectively against them, they often restrict their public musings to dog whistle terms (of which “unthinkable” is arguably one), and stay effectively mum about which political candidates they’ve managed to get nominated as candidates in an election. But in venues seen as relatively safe and exclusive, or from pundits who are seen as less prominent, sometimes you’ll find some elaboration.

One such pundit is The Federalist’s Georgi Boorman, who actually proposed a 6-point plan. Chief among these is to “Improve Reproductive Education” – but you won’t find her making any mention of contraception (elsewhere, Boorman reveals herself to be not a fan of The Pill), condoms or family planning. There’s no direct mention of sex education in schools, either, even though it would clearly be the necessary vehicle for what she has in mind. The “reproductive education” that she speaks of is predominantly “to educate women on the dangers of” abortion (by which she means the usual far right claims about health dangers of the practice), a fetishization of the stages of fetal development, and more fearmongering about the current medical process (i.e. she cites “the horrid conditions of abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s facility” as a typical example… it’s far from it).

The remainder of Georgi Boorman’s suggestions include more criminalization (elsewhere, she openly supports the death sentence for women who abort) and the vague “celebrate life” mantra, as well as increasing support for adoption (“especially cross-racial,” she adds, stealthily riffing on anti-abortion groups’ efforts to portray the procedure as a kind of racist genocide perpetrated by leftists) and – of course – ramping up funding for anti-abortion fake pregnancy centres.

On these points, her proposals are within the purview of those of Abby Johnson, whose own proposals are steeped in proselytizing and expanding anti-abortion pregnancy counseling centers into additional areas that beatify motherhood, but do not provide any hints of information about contraception or family planning (other than, perhaps, the “rhythm method”). But Boorman also adds a notable comment about “support[ing] fatherhood”:

“… what if fathers were asked to step up as parents and providers, instead of being written off as unqualified sperm donors? What if our culture demanded it? … Millions of fathers have been robbed of this opportunity since Roe, and our welfare system has enabled this by disincentivizing marriage and fatherhood obligations. … Instead of affirming mothers’ unilateral decisions by default, we should encourage fathers’ involvement (including marriage)…”

When religious conservatives frame opposition to gay and trans human rights as “protecting marriage,” LGBTQ+ organizations and spokespeople often quip about the hypocrisy in their seeming lack of worry about divorce and cohabitation. But the fact of the matter is that anti- groups have never stopped tilting at those particular windmills, either. An outright ban on divorce is only touted by the most extreme among them, but “disincentivizing” and creating an institutional system that heavily favours marriage come up often, and the idea of restricting divorce or making it difficult retains some level of popularity.

Other religious conservatives are more ambitious. Around the same time that Kristen Waggoner was proposing that abortion be made unthinkable, the Heritage Foundation hosted Sue Ellen Browder, who claims that “the sexual revolution hijacked the women’s movement” to make abortion and contraception priorities. This, too, is not a new argument, but it is gaining new popularity with organizations seeking to keep the money rolling in after an overturn of Roe. And with anti-trans, anti-sex work and anti-porn feminists partnering with religious conservatives like never before, there appears to be a sense that they have an opportunity to co-opt womens’ rights, which can then be used as a shield against accusations of homophobia, Islamophobia and puritanism, while at the same time purging it of reproductive rights advocacy and sex positivity, maintaining a subordinated role for women in administrative areas, and asserting the doctrine of complementarianism (a teaching used both to mandate motherhood as a woman’s integral life goal, and to invalidate LGBTQ+ peoples’ rights to live their lives as they need to).

“The battle against feminism is better fought by women because the public has been convinced that men are not qualified to speak about issues that affect the fairer sex…” – John Horvat II

On this point, James V. Schall suggests that religious conservatives need to target the entirety of the sexual revolution: “The path, when spelled out, is a direct line from divorce, contraception, and abortion to single-sex ‘marriage,’ in-vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and designer babies and now to a refusal to continue to increase and multiply with transgenderism, population decline, and, ultimately euthanasia… If we were to eliminate abortion, we must freely stop committing the sins that initiate disordered conceptions… Without this conversion, we will continue on the same path on which we now are traveling…”The Federalist’s Cullen Herout (which, admit it, must be a pseudonym) agrees at least on the point about contraception, saying “… if the goal really is to make abortion unthinkable, that cannot and will not happen without a large-scale shift in our cultural attitude toward human sexuality and contraception…”

So the next time your local political representative muses about making abortion “unthinkable,” it’s only reasonable to press them to elaborate. Because there clearly is more to that statement – and while religious conservatives obviously don’t think in total homogeneity, there’s enough like-mindedness to view this sort of dog whistle with alarm.

Indiana put the lie to “religious freedom.” But Canadian Evangelicals hope you didn’t notice.

Everyone’s familiar with the old adage, “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”

Which is why the Evangelical leaders who held a press conference on Parliament Hill calling for greater religious freedom laws and schmoozing with Conservative politicians last month might do well to remember Indiana.

“Unfortunately, Christians in this country find themselves under attack.  This is a violation, and we are calling on the Canadian government to stop this type of violation across this country…” — Charles McVety

Because almost to the day that the collection of Canadian religious leaders held a press conference at Parliament Hill, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a piece of legislation that was exactly the kind of thing they meant.  And it went over like plutonium-based paint.

For anyone who missed the ruckus it caused, the State of Indiana proposed a “religious freedom” law that was very similar to those existing in other U.S. states and federally — except that by the omission of a small phrase, it essentially made it illegal for any government body to intervene in cases of discrimination, provided said discrimination was motivated by a person’s religious freedom of conscience.  Put simply, it would legally sanction religiously-motivated discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans* (LGBT) people (and for that matter, just about anyone else), while making it illegal for any government body to intervene.  And the State of Indiana did so because of an outcry from religious groups struggling against marriage equality (with no shortage of drama) claiming that legally protecting LGBT people from discrimination is tyranny:

“This is tyranny, and it has not come to the United States from an invading nation with tanks and rockets.  It has come wrapped in a hijacked-rainbow flag, under the banner of “diversity” and “nondiscrimination.”  At this point, only the most uninformed and deceived among us cannot see that the radical homosexual movement—a movement based purely on lies and sin—has at its heart the wicked goal of tyranny over Christian freedom, expression and conscience.  Don’t doubt it.  While this particular case does not necessarily involve a Christian employer, ultimately Christians and Christianity are the true targets of this hell-born movement.  But, these activists will gladly target anyone who resists their dark agenda, as this company, Tower Loan, is sadly discovering.

“The culture in our nation today is steeped in immorality and moral relativism to the point that far too many people have no perception of the grotesque reality of homosexual behavior and how the activists and their supporters in this sexual anarchy movement are using sodomy and “transgenderism” as a foundation to create new “rights” for those who engage in these base behaviors.  These new “civil rights” for sodomites are for the purpose of destroying the rights of the majority of the American people…”

The State of Arizona had attempted a similar thing last year, until people started realizing that it might allow medical professionals who were Jehovah’s Witnesses to deny patients blood transfusions, and other unpredictable consequences.  Moreover, the clear intention had been to disenfranchise and target a specific group of people, which proved not a very popular idea with the commercial sector.  Boycotts were threatened and travel to the state was likely to become embargoed in places, while the law’s proponents demonstrated just how aggressively they intended to use the law (while still denying that it constituted a form of special rights).  Arizona backed off, and the Governor refused to sign the bill.

In Indiana, though, Governor Pence did so happily, with a smile, a flourish, and a special fringe group photo-op.

The backlash was instantaneous.  Several states and local governments banned the use of taxpayer money to fund city employees’ travel to the State.  Celebrities canceled shows and declared a boycott.  NASCAR, the NFL and other sporting figures put pressure on the State.  The Gap, Twitter, Apple, Angie’s List and several other companies spoke out with condemnation.  Ten religious groups decried the law, including the Disciples of Christ, which threatened to move its annual convention.  The Indianapolis Star published a front page with the top half black, and bearing the words, “Fix This Now.”  And the Indiana-based NCAA made it known that they were questioning whether to hold the long-awaited Final Four tournament in Indianapolis, if not make greater changes in the future.  Eventually, the State amended the law to remove the freedom to discriminate portion (although notably, Indiana still does not actually have state-wide LGBT human rights protections, so the issue is actually not over, even if the state government wants to sweep it under the rug).  Other states have had mixed reactions to the spectacle, however, and groups and individuals have taken a certain amount of inspiration from Indiana’s trial run:

“In an interview with WOOD-TV, Dieseltec owner Brian Klawiter said he is a Christian and that he doesn’t ask his customers if they are gay, but “If you want to come in here with your boyfriend and you want to openly display that, that’s just not going to be tolerated here. We don’t believe that here.”

“In the rant, posted on Tuesday, Klawiter lamented the discrimination white heterosexual Christians face everyday in the U.S. and said he is no longer going to take it…”

To be fair, the March 25th delegation of Evangelicals didn’t call upon Prime Minister Stephen Harper for an Indiana-style “religious freedom” law per-se.  By the time they got to the Hill, in fact, they’d figured out that all of their complaints were in jurisdictions outside federal control.  So they asked for a statement.

And they didn’t get it.  Instead, they came away with a lone MP who left the Conservative caucus and used the opportunity to give a weird rant in Parliament about scientists being “gagged over a false construct related to the theory of evolution.”  Not the wisest way to politically self-immolate, I suppose.

“There’s a whole generation of kids being taught that what they’re taught in Sunday School or in church is garbage, it’s wrong, it’s false, and it’s simply a form of bullying that’s no longer acceptable. It’s not scientifically tenable, it’s a disservice to science… it’s not freedom of religion if your views are put down by your peers.” — MP James Lunney

But it’s not the first time that ideological groups have called for religious-based special rights, and it’s certainly not going to be the last.  If anything, the effort seems poised to grow.  In the U.S., some states are pressing forward with new bills of the sort, while more than one Republican Presidential contender has vowed to make it a priority.  The view from the American side of the border, at least, is that LGBT acceptance and Christianity are simply incompatible:

“When two diametrically opposed and incompatible value systems (namely Christianity and hedonistic humanism) come together in the same place, there can be no peaceful coexistence.  One will necessarily dominate, while the other is necessarily subjugated.  We saw that quickly happen in Indiana last week.” — BarbWire commentator Bob Ellis

(It’s worth adding a reminder that I personally try not to use “Christian” to describe these folks, despite their rallying behind the term, because I consider it questionable whether they actually are… at least when it comes to “loving one another” by trying to disenfranchise, invalidate, and occasionally even still criminalize people whose existence they deny or object to… not to mention doing things like conflating entire groups with sexual predators as a political tactic.)

In Canada, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are tiptoeing around Indiana while strategizing further… and recognizing that their fight is a little harder in a nation that has already had marriage equality for several years and somehow managed to cope.

“… The most significant part of the HMP [“Homosexual Ministry of Propaganda”] victory is that the word “Equality”, a word twisted by the HMP to squash dissent, has once more been reinforced in the minds of the public to mean that a male + male or a female + female = marriage…” — Peter Baklinski at the Canadian website, LifeSiteNews.

The old “special rights” argument, now with actual special rights added.

The “religious freedom” tactic isn’t really all that new: only the phrasing used to convey it.  For many years, religious groups complained that extending human rights protections to LGBT people would confer “special rights” upon them.  Lest readers doubt that there was some deliberate co-ordination to all of this, Media Matters provides an in-depth look:

“Alliance Defending Freedom is a legal organization that works with 2,400 allied attorneys nationally on a $39 million (as of 2013) annual budget. ADF was founded in 1994 by several of the country’s largest national evangelical Christian ministries to “press the case for religious liberty issues in the nation’s courts” and “fend-off growing efforts by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which seek to immobilize Christians.” Today, it has become the country’s best-funded and most powerful right-wing Christian group working against what the organization calls the “myth of the so-called ‘separation of church and state.'” 

“… While the group prefers to talk about its “religious liberty” work when in the media spotlight, ADF also actively works internationally to promote and defend laws that criminalize gay sex. ADF’s formal support for anti-sodomy legislation dates to at least 2003, before the Supreme Court made its landmark decision in Lawrence v. Texas. ADF, which was at the time still known as the Alliance Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief in the case, defending state laws criminalizing gay sex. In its brief, ADF spent nearly 30 pages arguing that gay sex is unhealthy, harmful, and a public health risk…”

Of course, it then became awkward trying to explain the dangers that could ensue if the “special right” to be equal might trump the then- perfectly ordinary everyday right to deny someone employment, housing, medical care, enfranchisement, and/or goods and services.  Embarassed, anti-LGBT leaders began looking for new phrasing and the lowest-hanging fruit to justify their claims.  The shift to a “religious persecution” -based tactic started with adoption agencies that were “forced to close” because they refused to assist would-be parents in gay or lesbian relationships.  Except that they weren’t really forced to shut down:

“Catholic Charities in Illinois has served for more than 40 years as a major link in the state’s social service network for poor and neglected children. But now most of the Catholic Charities affiliates in Illinois are closing down rather than comply with a new requirement that says they can no longer receive state money if they turn away same-sex couples as potential foster care and adoptive parents…

That’s when the attention turned to wedding cakes and photographers.  To at least some of the public, it seems relatively trivial and nit-picky that LGBT people are expecting to be able to enjoy the same access to those services as anyone else.  Never mind that the same logic and law used to deny a wedding cake might also be used to deny housing, education, health care, security, or any other service where religious freedom of conscience might cause someone to take issue.

Canada illustrates this a bit more visibly, with religious conservatives fighting a conscience policy for medical professionals which would allow them to decline non-emergency as long as they still provide a referral to someone who will provide accurate information.  Shoulda’ went for the cakes.  Just saying.

I’ll admit that there’s a civil libertarian in me who wonders why someone would take it upon themselves to fret about anti-LGBT cake vendors, or even go looking for them for the sake of stirring up a controversy.  I just don’t see the point of wanting to give homophobes and transphobes a bunch of money.  But I get it: full enfranchisement hasn’t happened until a person can go about their business without having to worry about being blindsided by idiots trying to exclude them, just because of who they are.  And that’s why the trivial stuff matters.

But in the end, while the dust settles on Indiana’s religious freedom bill fiasco, and Canadian ideologues try to raise the issue to a national level, it’s important to look at the fallout.  Because as much as religious fundamentalists might try to pretend that they’re only interested in protecting their own freedoms and not harming others, the meltdowns that have occurred in the wake of the Indiana bill’s demise paint a different picture:

“It wasn’t broken and the alleged “fix” that the Indiana legislature, at your request, has proposed to the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), will destroy the law beyond all recognition. In fact, it will turn it into the “RFDA” – the “Religious Freedom Destruction Act.” No bill at all would have been better than this anti-Christian, sexual anarchist disaster.

“What was intended as a shield to every American’s First Amendment-guaranteed religious liberty, as proposed, will now become a sword used to destroy it. What was designed to defend people of faith against being discriminated against and bullied will, instead, codify anti-religious discrimination and bullying into law. It will unconstitutionally force people of faith, under penalty of law, to affirmatively violate their sincerely held religious conscience. It has been turned into a weapon that compels people of faith to disobey God or face government sanction.” — Matt Barber

Because the intent was clearly to discriminate.  And sometimes when anti-LGBT leaders think that only the faithful are listening, they’ll even candidly say so:

“Starting in the 1990s, the homosexual movement worked tirelessly, spending enormous funds, to get state and local governments to amend their anti-discrimination laws covering public accommodations, employment, housing, public education, etc., to include “sexual orientation.” In recent years there’s been a push to include “gender identity” (cross-dressing, transgenderism, transsexuality) also.

“There’s a big strategic reason for that. As Dr. Scott Lively has pointed out for years, these updated laws are the starting point for the whole, brutal legal jihad against Christians and others holding traditional values. Every outrage we’re now seeing — including the LGBT activism in the schools, targeting of businesses, men using women’s restrooms, sado-masochist/”swinger” conventions in hotels, etc. — emanates from these laws.

“But pro-family people have only recently started to wake up on this. They instinctively realize that citizens should be able to discriminate and refuse to promote or celebrate perversion and “gay”  marriage. But these anti-discrimination laws now make it a crime to do so…”

The fight for special rights to discriminate will continue — it’ll just change along the way.  It will persist because the will to discriminate persists:

“What should Christians and other believers do in the face of this heightening repression? They must go on the offensive—charitably but vigorously—and fight the battle on several levels… The lame discrimination complaints by homosexualist organizations against believers in human rights commissions and the pressuring of corporations to dump executives and employees who dissent at all from the homosexualist agenda should should be met consistently with lawsuits for abuse of process and defamation. That would put financial pressure on the well-heeled homosexualist organizations…” — Crisis Magazine & LifeSiteNews commentary.

So the strategizing continues.  In one American twist, anti-discrimination intervention is being said to be a violation of the separation of church and state.  In another, an organization that considers boycotts and letter-writing campaigns organized by LGBT groups to be “economic terrorism” is exercising its own boycotts and letter-writing campaigns against alleged “anti-Christian discrimination” — discrimination which apparently includes producing a TV show about the life of Dan Savage.  The hypocrisy is rampant, with the same groups that complain of being silenced having no qualms about censoring LGBT speakers or hounding them to leave their jobs with non-profit organizations.  In a moment of coinciding interest opportunism, American lobbyists and legislators are even hoping that religious freedom bills can be combined with the ruling in Hobby Lobby to grant companies the same sort of special rights:

“Georgia State Senator McKoon hopes that, if his bill passes next year, courts will find it covers companies as well as flesh-and-blood human beings, even if it doesn’t say so explicitly in the text. “I believe,” he says, “that the bill would be read as the federal bill was interpreted by the Hobby Lobby decision…”

It’s not going to drop off the Canadian radar anytime soon either, because the Supreme Court of Canada just ruled that reciting a denominational prayer at town council meetings infringes on the freedom of conscience and religion. The state, it determined, should neither favour nor hinder any particular belief, nor impose one on others.  Which, when viewed through the far-right lens means that the rival religion of secularism / atheism is persecuting Christians:

“In a sense, by prohibiting respectful, non-proselytizing, non-coercive prayer, the court is showing a clear preference to non-religious believers over religious believers, and gives an untenable status to secularism and atheism, which are themselves beliefs. So there is no balance and no reconciliation among various beliefs in this ruling but shows a preference for one belief – secularism – over all other beliefs,” Elia told LifeSiteNews.

“This is not an example of a true, authentic and robust pluralism,” Elia stressed. “In true pluralism, religious believers and non-believers can share the public square, but this decision means the public square can no longer be shared…” — LifeSiteNews.

So it becomes worth scrutinizing the recent events the Canadian delegation to Parliament pointed to as examples of attacks on religious freedoms in Canada:

• The decisions of a number of provincial bar associations not to accredit any potential law school graduate of Trinity Western University;
• The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s Professional Obligations and Human Rights policy, which ensures access to medical care for people seeking abortions, contraception or other accepted legal medical procedures; and
• A recent Statement of Support for Diversity and Inclusion signed by 72 major companies across Canada.

Because when we do so, we see that:

• The decision not to accredit Trinity Western University law school graduates was made because of TWU’s ban on sexual behaviour outside heterosexual marriage, which amounts to a creative way to shut out LGBT people;
• The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s policy in fact allows medical professionals to opt out of procedures and services that violate their religious beliefs, but they must still provide a referral to someone who will give accurate information about treatment or procedure options (which gets portrayed in far right media as forcing doctors to perform abortions); and
• Seriously, this is a statement that says “We value the range of perspectives, ideas and experiences that diversity provides, whether grounded in gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, cultural background, religion or age,” and says that the signatory businesses will “encourage greater diversity and inclusion.”

Underneath it all, the special right being sought is the right to create deliberate barriers for people whose sexuality they object to.  Even diversity policies are considered offensive:

“Gwen Landolt, a lawyer and national vice-president of Real Women of Canada, called BMO’s policy the “height of discrimination and intolerance.”

“Their position is shocking and appalling. They have applied political correctness to the absolute borderline of insanity,” she told LifeSiteNews…”

But don’t expect an equanimous approach to how “religious freedom” is interpreted.  At best, it is a selective thing:

Lunney’s defence of religious freedom does not extend to supporting the right of Muslim women to wear the niqab when being sworn in as citizens, however.

After initially avoiding the question, he eventually confirmed that he shares the views of his former party and the prime minister that those seeking to become Canadian citizens should show their faces.

“I’m not going to get tangled up in that argument,” he said.

In the end, of course, the “religious freedom” battle cry may end up amounting to nothing in the warmer social climate of Canada.  Hopefully, the general public will see it for what it is, without the benefit of a Mike Pence -like Premier to push the issue.

“Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall says the opening prayer at the province’s legislature will remain despite a recent Supreme Court ruling…”

But then again, who knows?

Sodom: Review of a Russian Anti-Gay Documentary

On Tuesday, October 28th, Peter LaBarbera re-entered Canada for an immigration hearing, then to speak at an anti-LGBT conference, and finally on Thursday to face charges for mischief (which stem from an arrest while distributing anti-LGBT leaflets at the University of Regina).

LaBarbera (nicknamed “Porno Pete” by bloggers because of his penchant for filming pride parades and gay BDSM events in the name of “research”) has returned to Canada at the invitation of Bill “Anal Warts” Whatcott (so nicknamed because of his fondness for distributing graphic depictions of anal cancers and other deliberate shock leaflets).LaBarbera was briefly detained, searched and questioned by Canada Border Services — or as American social conservatives call it, persecuted by “homofascists.” In the process, though, border services did seize a DVD copy of the Russian anti-LGBT documentary, Sodom.  As the film is available to view in English on YouTube, LaBarbera and Whatcott proceeded to show it at their conference, anyway.

Personally, I’m not a fan of censorship. I realize there has to be a limit to propriety, and not just when someone advocates for mass-murder.  The Protocols of the Elders of Zion didn’t actually call for Jews to be put to death, for example, but it created such an inflammatory environment that violence became inevitable.

But given that LGBT people are just as at risk of being silenced in the name of propriety (maybe even for giving people snarky nicknames), I’m still not keen on censorship. Part of the whole reason for LaBarbera’s visit is to strategize about how to bring about a Russian-style “gay propaganda” ban in Canada, after all.

So, I still prefer to let people speak freely, and once they’ve had enough rope, show people what they’ve done with it.  And in that vein, I bring you:

Sodom: The Review

And yes, it will be triggery.

Sodom first aired on Russia’s government-funded Rossiya-1 station in September.  It presents itself as a sensational expose* of the sinister gay rights plot to forcibly transform society into one that accepts any and all evil, while eradicating truth, freedom, religion and decency.

You might think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. Sodom was originally filmed and written for a Russian audience that had already been scared into an anti-LGBT frenzy resulting in incidents of violence noted worldwide.  This furor was accomplished by speakers like Scott Lively (who appears many times in the film), who conflated LGBT people with pedophiles, and claimed that the Nazi party started out as a gay plot.  Lively’s activism resulted in a ban on “gay propaganda,” which is essentially anything that can be seen as LGBT-positive (or perhaps even acknowledge their existence in a non-condemning way), in any environment where children might hear or see it.  In this context, Sodom is able to fearmonger unchallenged, and get away with all sorts of wild claims.  In Russia, the film received high ratings and was critically acclaimed.

But it’s a bit different for a Canadian audience: people who have coped with LGB(t) human rights for over a decade and lived with same-sex marriage since 2006 without descending into a stylish shock-troop cavalcade.  Canadians largely (with exceptions) didn’t mind having to coexist with LGBT people or do business with them in the past few years… although that’s starting to change now that Americans are framing it as a violation of principle that’s going to send them (and all society) to eternal damnation.

But belief is a powerful persuader, which can goad the faithful into ignoring all evidence and reason, in favour of conjectures, no matter how grand.  Although I refuse to dignify far right homophobia and transphobia as being a “Christian” perspective (because certainly not all Christians espouse it), it should be recognized that leaders like LaBarbera and Whatcott still manage to frame it as such, and that can have a strong influence on people who view it as their duty to believe.  Those people don’t have to question God if they don’t want to… but they should most certainly question the people who claim to be speaking for him.

I don’t speak Russian, so I can’t say how much of the English translation of Sodom was polished up for a Western audience.  I am under the impression that very little was changed, if anything.  Which is surprising, because if any film needed to sweep its extremes under the translation rug, it was this one.

Sodom’s producer, Arkady Mamontov, previously gained notice for implying that LGBT rights caused the Chelyabinsk meteorite explosion.  He hasn’t stopped seeing queer-caused calamities since then.  In Sodom, Mamontov makes several weird or inflammatory claims:

• LGBT people are repeatedly conflated with pedophiles within the film, and homosexuality is claimed to be inextricably interwoven with child molestation.  There is a suggestive undercurrent of this throughout the film, nudge-nudge-wink-wink, but at times, the narrator is also far more explicit.
• “Sodomites pay attention to mysticism and different symbols,” we are told.  With jump-cuts of historical artworks and occasional allusions to rites, the film tries to artfully connect LGBT people to devil worship without actually saying it out loud.  Because that is apparently seen by the filmmakers as the limit of believability.
• LGBT people are said to have conspired to rewrite the Bible, in order to make scripture accommodate them (rather than simply critically re-examining the clobber passages).  In the western world, apparently everyone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans* (LGBT) owns a copy of the Queen James Bible.

Language is crucial in Sodom.  It’s quite clear that the film translators much prefer the term “sodomites” to describe LGBT people.  It ties into the title of the film, and is keyed to keep the focus on sex acts in the hope that doing so will make viewers uncomfortable or outraged.  Likewise, trans* people are referred to as “transvestites,” lesbians referred to as belonging “to a new sex tribe,” and when all else fails, “perverts” will suffice. The idea of “mama and mama” is made to seem puzzling, bizarre, disgusting and scandalous.

In the early scenes of the film, Scott Lively explains that Russia is at the first stage of gay activism: “Well, let me explain how this works.  There is a five-stage process of cultural conquest.  Five steps. It begins with a request for tolerance.  Once the gays have achieved tolerance — and tolerance is just the right to be left alone — then it’s a demand for acceptance, and acceptance means equal status.  Then comes celebration — that everyone must accept homosexuality and promote it as a good, valuable thing.  Then comes forced participation: everyone must participate in gay culture.  And then comes punishment of everyone who disagrees.”  LGBT people must not be even tolerated, he argues, because that’s the first step that leads to everything else.

“The average American is not in favor of homosexuality,” Lively claims.  “But they are afraid to speak publicly about it, because the gays have so much power and they can do harm to those people.  Most people are vulnerable to some sort of intimidation, especially if they are in any position of influence, or in the media spotlight.”  Lively welcomes the initial nod of an agreeing taxi driver as evidence… though the driver later seems to change his mind and want to be left out of the discussion (“no, no”) but is creatively edited to appear as though he’s simply gesticulating.  Moments later, in front of the office building occupied by the LGBT establishment organization, Human Rights Campaign, Lively says “they are trying to declare that homosexuality is a human right. And they’re devoting massive amounts of money to promoting this agenda around the world, instead of addressing genuine human rights.”  The HRC is apparently such a monolithic fundraiser that poor, underfunded churches can’t keep up the opposition.

Next, the film makes a stop at London’s Tavistock Institute of Human Intelligence, which during World War II was exploring “new methods of psychological war, not only against fascist Germany, but also the Soviet Union.”  Tavistock is said to have conspired with the CIA to create the MKULTRA project, for the purpose of manipulating people.  While Canadians may see this as an aside, to a Russian audience, the suggestion is planted that England is still engaging in psychological warfare against them today.  Naturally, the producers find someone “who knows a lot about this” apparently super-secretive institution, Daniel Estulin, who claims that the Tavistock Institute “is the place which created and later imposed on the consciousness of European youth such cultural accents as ‘free love,’ orgy, and civil marriage.”

MKULTRA did indeed experiment with hypnosis, behaviour modification, physical and sexual abuse, LSD, and sensory deprivation.  There have also long been claims that Tavistock contributed to the program.  But in Estulin’s estimation, MKULTRA was really a “fifty- or hundred-year plan” to normalize homosexuality and sexual liberation, “literally to change the paradigm of modern society.”  The film also alleges that “the psychological components of the Ukrainian Revolution — chants, behaviour models, slogans — were also created here.” Estulin cautions that the endgame is “genetic manipulation to eliminate memory,” and warns that after lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans* people are accorded equality, “… then you can have transhuman.  You can have post-human.  You can have man-machines, such as the Terminator.  You can have cyborgs.  You can have beings that are not totally human as a result of synthetic biology, because today you can literally create a human being in a laboratory.” And frighteningly enough, I guess, they might all want human rights.

The filmmakers also pay a trip to The Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, where the segment opens with the clinic doctor bragging that they’ve become world-famous for being able to choose a boy or a girl.  Here, they examine LGBT parenting by taking viewers through the clinical process of in-vitro fertilization, complete with ominous music, in a way that is meant to create a chill over the cold sterility of the process.  They make repetitive claims that gays always want boys and lesbians always want girls (and of course, there could be no alternate explanation for that, nudge-nudge-wink-wink): “Green is genetic disorders, like Down’s Syndrome, or they have a genetic problem. Okay? But most of them have boys and girls.  The male gays want boys, and the female gays want girls,” the clinician generalizes with a large grin that is lingered on, suggestively.

There is ample film time spent on Pride parades, as the film editors cut in every example of nudity or garish costumes that they can find, interspersed with footage of kids and teens in attendance.  BDSM folks turn up frequently, and some of the footage looks like it actually comes from the Folsom Street Fair, in a way that makes one wonder if Porno Peter LaBarbera was behind the camera (alas, I can’t find the film credits, or I’d check).  “Aren’t you afraid your child would want to become like them?” The narrator asks one parade onlooker, being careful to stay within the perception of choice and whim, and avoid any thought that sexuality could be something intrinsic and individually-rooted.  “Naw,” is the reply, “we actually want to encourage him to see everything, everything in the world…”

“Sodomites unconsciously understand that what they are doing is wrong,” the narrator assures us, as the camera searches the crowd for any expressions that could seem sad, scared, or otherwise negative.  “However, on the surface, everyone makes an effort to express joy,” he adds, coming up short of appropriate footage and needing an explanation.  Then, they do their level best to depict children of LGBT people as unhappy, ashamed or even terrorized… rather than simply intimidated by being in a large crowd with so much activity taking place.  “The child’s soul feels that everything around them contradicts nature’s law.”

Surrogacy is the next focus of attention.  Remember that Russia is currently debating banning out-of-country adoptions and / or adoptions by LGBT parents.  “Where there is no woman,” the narrator asserts, “there is no continuation of life.  But sodomites try to bypass the laws of nature.  Large sums of money are spent on exactly this: mother-mother, father father.”  At this point in the film, IVF and surrogacy are both portrayed as human trafficking.  “The sodomites have paid for and received living goods for their money.”  The film returns to the assertion that gay parents want only boys, and lesbians want only girls: “for what?  Perverted acts?”  Naturally, a pair of men in New Zealand that subjected their adopted child to heinous abuse and were convicted of molestation are now given ample screen time, and portrayed as evidence that this is the norm.  They allege by extension that all children of LGBT parents are brainwashed into covering up abuse and “to think that this sort of behaviour was acceptable.”  The surrogate mother in this case had been Russian: the intended lesson is clearly that western LGBT people are taking advantage of Russian mothers to provide exploitable children through adoption.  IVF is even framed as a genocide in which one child is created but many others are destroyed.  “It’s an unnatural process.”

Sodom also takes aim at a lawsuit against a florist, Baronelle Stutzman, who refused to sell flowers to an LGBT couple.  Because of the gay mens’ intolerance and ignorance, we are told, Stutzman is likely to lose her house and her business.  Viewers are manipulated into tears and rage at the thought that the special right to have equal access to goods and services has trumped the perfectly ordinary, everyday, sensible right to deny someone else exactly those things.  “But why are the rights of all the other people violated in the light of the first?” the narrator later asks.

There is an undercurrent of discussion about neocolonialism that infuses the film — or more honestly, one that hijacks the discussion of neocolonialism.  There are plenty of examples of anti-LGBT conferences and meetings with religious and political leaders by people like Scott Lively, and it is actually American groups’ homophobia that has been trying to change Asian, European and African nations through fearmongering and lobbying.  But the film reverses this so that the American government is portrayed as deliberately promoting homosexuality around the planet, “as plague, as cancer.”  Yet corporate globalization, militaristic interference, and widespread espionage are not identified as colonial problems… only homosexuality.  One Moldovan political leader relates how his attempts to ban a pride parade resulted in a stern talking-to from an American-connected diplomat.  How fascist.

Later in the film, prison rape takes centre stage, with abuses in Gldanskaya (a Georgian prison) that are claimed to have been directed by an American puppet dictator and inspired by Abu Ghraib.  The abuses are portrayed as a deliberate attempt to spread homosexuality through non-consensual torture.  “There was one goal: to break, diminish and humiliate.”  They later add, “the same thing awaits people who aren’t accordant with the regime in Ukraine.  The pro-American regime will use the same methods in jails and prisons.  There are currently thousands imprisoned from Kiev to Odessa, and only God knows what is being done to them.”

As the film winds to its conclusion, it presents Russia’s law banning “gay propaganda” as the solution, warning that any insufficiently condemning representation of LGBT people is dangerous.  Father Mikhail, prior of the Saint Georgiy temple in Tblisi explains: “Everything begins with a harmless character in a movie or a sitcom.  This man is obviously homosexual, but he is funny, witty, and then it stops.  He disappears.  Then another film, then a few more.  It’s like a poison in small doses.  It won’t do anything to you right away.  But with time it gets bigger and stronger, and the tolerance of the system weakens, accepting it more and more each time.”  It underscores Father Mikhail’s point with visions of HIV and gay BDSM.  “Russia occupies one of the leading positions” in restoring order, the narrator says.  “The law banning gay propaganda, a return to traditional values, and the strengthening of the faith of the nation… all this postpones the end of times.”

What separates Sodom from something like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (aside from the choice of minority group that is targeted) in a place like Canada is the context.  Here, everyone has a friend, or a family member, or a co-worker who is gay or lesbian, or bisexual, or trans*.  There is a familiarity that is comfortable.  There are certainly people who are closed-minded to LGBT rights, or are susceptible to a feeling of culture shock at social change, or don’t know (or don’t care to know) any of the issues LGBT people face… but for the most part, Canadians recognize people as people, and don’t feel all that threatened when those people fail to adhere to rigid cultural hegemonic expectations.

The situation is far different in Russia.  Fewer people know LGBT persons, and with the “gay propaganda” law and potential for violence driving them further into the closet, the next generation is far less likely to have any familiarity with them.  In this environment, Sodom is a tinderbox, ready to ignite.  In this context, Sodom cannot help but trigger violence and rage.  There isn’t even the usual lip service to loving the sinner but hating the sin.

LaBarbera and Scott Lively have formed the Coalition for Family Values specifically for the purpose of bringing Russia-inspired laws banning gay “propaganda” to western nations:

“The Coalition for Family Values will be encouraging our current and future affiliates throughout the world to lobby their own governments to follow the Russian example. While the LGBT agenda has seemed like an unstoppable political juggernaut in North America and Europe, the vast majority of the people of the world do not accept the notion that sexual deviance should be normalized. It is time that these voices are heard on the world stage before the so-called elites of the Western powers impose their inverted morality on everyone through the manipulation of international law, which they clearly intend to do…”

And that starts with eliminating LGBT-positive portrayals and human rights protections.  But they’ll have the public believe that they are the true victims of a colonial and fascist agenda.

So now you know.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca and The Bilerico Project)

Could Canada’s Anti-Sex Work Bill C-36 Also Stifle LGBT Speech?

Slightly over a week ago, Canada introduced legislation to replace the anti-prostitution laws that had been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Conservative government has been trying to race Bill C-36 through both the House and the Senate simultaneously, at breakneck speed.  But the text of the bill has raised questions about its constitutionality.  Sex workers, mainstream media and even many Nordic model proponents and abolitionists agree that it places sex workers in even greater danger than the previous laws did.

But is there also a poison pill within the legislation that could be used to stifle LGBT and sex-positive speech?

Firstly, here is what the dubiously-named “Bill C-36, the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act” does:

• It re-criminalizes communicating for the purpose of commercial sex.  While there is said to be an exemption for the sex worker themselves, that exemption only applies if the communication is not in a public place and/or not “where persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present” (a minor doesn’t actually have to be present), and not in the presence of another sex worker under the age of 18 (one controversy has arisen because underage sex workers can be charged if they work together for safety).  The law had been struck down previously because it put sex workers in unsafe situations by limiting their ability to screen clients, and negotiate what they were willing and unwilling to do.
• It re-criminalizes the “common bawdy-house,” defined as a place “for the practice of acts of indecency, a place that is kept or occupied or resorted to by one or more persons.” This criminalizes massage parlours and strip clubs, if commercial sex occurs on their premises, and also prevents sex workers from having their own (or collective) space away from home to meet with clients.  The bawdy-house law had been previously struck down because it prevented sex workers from working collectively indoors.
• It re-criminalizes “living off the avails…” (as “receiving a material benefit that derives” from the sale of sex). It does provide an exemption (subject to interpretation) for some roommates, spouses and children who live with sex workers, provided that nothing can be construed as an exploitative situation and no drugs are provided to the sex worker.  This also criminalizes escort agencies, and it is unclear how liable referrers, drivers, bodyguards, associates and other business partners could be.  This had also been previously struck down because it prevented sex workers from working together or making business arrangements that improve their safety and circumstances.
• It now officially criminalizes the purchase of sex.  This is new (previously, it had been legal but associated activities were illegal), and it’s because of this that people are claiming the law is based on the Nordic model of prostitution laws, which aim to end demand while supposedly not targeting sex workers themselves — but Canada’s law goes very clearly beyond that point in several ways.  While many are claiming that this law will inevitably be struck down as unconstitutional, the Harper government’s gambit strategy is to criminalize sex work, so that it is no longer legally relevant whether the laws make it unsafe.
• Something else that is entirely new is that the law criminalizes advertising “sexual services.”  Newspapers and websites are legally liable if commercial sex advertisements are found within their publications, and consequences can include fines or imprisonment — again with an exemption for the sex workers themselves, provided it is not in a public place and/or “where persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present….” Weirdly, it appears that the Internet may be defined as a place where persons under the age of 18 can be reasonably expected to be present, for the purposes of this bill.

“Sexual services” is not defined, and I have asked elsewhere if this term could eventually be stretched in such a way that it ultimately bans porn.  The bill contains extensive search and seizure powers that at the very least provides all the legal teeth that such a ban would need.  Others have also asked if the vague nature of this term could be used to target sexual health services, sex-positive counseling, sex toys and more.

If the phrase “where persons under the age of 18 can reasonably be expected to be present” is reminiscent of Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” law, that may be by design — Canada’s criminalization of sex work owes more to Russia’s anti-prostitution laws than to the Nordic model.

(If anyone is interested in background of these specifics, I have posts at Rabble.ca about what the bill explicitly does, and how the bill makes a seriously flawed and damaging conflation between sex work and human trafficking.)

The Poison Pill

The new criminalization of “sexual service” advertising, however, is especially concerning.  Given the way that print and online publications are to be held liable for commercial sex advertising, there are serious implications for Canadians’ freedom of speech.  Beyond the obvious loss of advertising revenues that an LGBT publication might endure, there could also be wider-spread censorship if that legal liability also extends to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), for any such advertisements that could be found on their networks.

The question is not as absurd as it sounds.  It was only last July that Conservative MP Joy Smith loudly cheered Britain’s new law which required ISPs to institute a content filtering system requiring Britons to opt in if they want to be able to access anything deemed to be obscene or pornographic.  At the time, she had promised to flag this for the party to make a top priority, she said she was absolutely certain that the Prime Minister would be interested in taking action, and then nothing else has ever been said publicly about it.  Meanwhile, Joy Smith has been the Harper Conservatives’ most vocal proponent of Bill C-36, and given many comments by her Conservative Party colleagues, it would seem that she also had a hand in drafting the bill and / or lobbying for it among Members of Parliament.  And the only groups that have been very happy with Bill C-36 have been a number of religious groups, who seem to be the only consultants that were listened to.

Filters have caused minor controversies in Canada before, such as when Tim Hortons had to apologize for blocking DailyXtra from WiFi users.  However, they’ve not improved very much, over time, and have never been applied in a global fashion.

If ISPs are legally liable for (or could be threatened with legal liability for) advertisements of sexual services found on their networks under the terms of C-36, then out of necessity and self-preservation, ISPs would need to institute a content filtering system, nationwide.  Unlike Britain’s, there may not be an opt-in alternative.  This would be doubly reinforced if pornography were deemed a “sexual service” (i.e. by acting as an intermediary) at some point.

Where this becomes especially a concern for free speech is that content filters are incredibly arbitrary, and any filter system designed to effectively intercept commercial sex advertising would inevitably be overly broad.

The result of the filters implemented in Britain has been a deliberately quiet reduction in access to a great many things:

“The filters block a wide variety of content, from hardcore porn to extremist political sites… those “porn blockers” have already proven to be ineffective, blocking plenty of harmless sites and failing to tell the difference between sex education forums and porn. In one case, a domestic abuse helpline was blocked as inappropriate material, while many actual porn sites are still accessible through the filters.”

Back in January, The Guardian‘s Laurie Penny asserted that blocking more than porn was both the intent and the inevitable consequence of the government’s content filtering initiative.  Casualties of the filter system had included “helplines like Childline and the NSPCC, domestic violence and suicide prevention services.”  The New Statesman reported in December that one ISP advertised that its filters would block gay and lesbian content:

“BT have since reworded this description to remove the ‘gay and lesbian’ reference, but given that their filtering is provided by an unnamed “third party supplier” it seems highly unlikely that the filter itself has changed overnight – merely the description.”

What is and isn’t allowed still can’t be determined except through trial and error.  The Cameron government had to draw up a whitelist to force-allow sites that have been noticed to have inadvertently run afoul of the censor.  But the scope of the filters has grown since its initial introduction to also include discussions deemed politically radical — an addition stated to be because of the possibility of the propagation of terrorism.

While a C-36 inspired filter system would operate differently because of what it’s intended to block — advertisements of sexual services, rather than pornography — that doesn’t mean that the filters would be any less clumsy.  While search terms like “escort” would be natural flags for a filter system, ISPs that are worried about legal repercussions would necessarily include a wider array of tags, to try to prevent anyone from getting around the filters.   Given the subjective nature of the term “sexual services,” something that’s open to wide interpretation, this could result in the “just in case” mentality, where businesses and individuals apply the rule in an overly broad way, to avoid any possible complaints or legal liabilities. And then there’s the problem of filtering images, which don’t of themselves have keywords other than the descriptions assigned to them.

Given the avid support that MP Joy Smith has shown to both C-36 and content filtering — as well as the Bill’s obvious pandering to far right groups that have called for a Canadian equivalent to a Russian-style “homosexual propaganda” law — it’s a reasonable question to ask.

Canadians concerned about this possibility can contact their MP (who can be determined through a search on the parl.gc.ca main page), and civilly but clearly ask for assurance that the ban on sexual service advertising in C-36 could not be used in this manner.  They’re also encouraged to find out more about what the bill does, and voice their opposition or their concerns about how this affects sex workers.  They should CC their message to Minister of Justice Peter MacKay, and if their Member of Parliament is a Conservative, they might also want to copy an interested member of the opposition, such as Françoise Boivin (NDP), Sean Casey (Lib.) or Elizabeth May (Greens).  This must be done quickly, however.

Bill C-36 will be voted on at Second Reading on Monday June 16th, after Question Period at 3:00pm.  From there, it could proceed to Third (and final) Reading, or to a committee stage for amendments (although it appears the Conservatives prefer to pass it as soon as possible).

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project)

No Rainbow for Queer People: A Right-Wing Support for Russia Roundup

While much of the attention surrounding Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” law has been about whether there should be a boycott of the Sochi Olympics, the saga has continued to ripple outward in several directions, including statements being made in support of the law by Canadian and American far-right spokespeople.  Here is a round-up of several developments outside the Olympics debate, and some thoughts about what these statements of support are actually saying.

(And before proceeding, I do want to make an important point clear.  While many anti-gay / anti-trans groups phrase their revulsion for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans — a.k.a. LGBT — people as being a Christian position, it’s worth noting that not all Christians subscribe to it, and many argue that the framing of this struggle as one of “gay rights versus religious freedoms” is un-Christian, and abuses faith to justify bigotry.  An online project has been started for affirming people of faith to let their views be known, and is worth checking out.  For this reason, I refer to these groups as being far right groups, as opposed to being Christian groups)

1. R.E.A.L. Women of Canada and the Collective Letter of Support

Since making national headlines by speaking out against Foreign Affairs minister John Baird’s support for LGBT people in Russia, Uganda and other hotbeds of violence, R.E.A.L. Women of Canada (RWoC) has joined over 100 international anti-LGBT groups to sign a statement expressing support for Russia’s “Homosexual Propaganda” law.

The letter characterizes Russia’s Federal Law 135-FZ passed on June 29th as “[protecting] innocence and moral formation of children by prohibiting propaganda of “non-traditional sexual relationships” among them.” What the law effectively does, though, is to ban any public affirmation or support toward LGBT people, including public Pride events, LGBT community support services and more.

The organizations claim that they are defending families in the name of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Art. 16 (3)).  R.E.A.L. Women of Canada has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The organizations go on to make it clear that they refuse to acknowledge the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people, which they consider “fabricated”:

“With its new law Russia is protecting genuine and universally recognized human rights against artificial and fabricated “values” aggressively imposed in many modern societies. We also note that the concepts of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” are not outlined in the existing binding international treaties and agreements…”

R.E.A.L. Women of Canada faced a backlash over dismissing violence in Uganda during their previous statement of support.  After receiving criticism from even traditional right-wing supporters, RWoC went to great lengths to state that they oppose violence against LGBT people.  They then blamed the CBC for RWoC leader Gwen Landolt’s dismissive comments.

Yet, not once in this new letter of support for Russia do the organizations condemn the violence and the volatile situation that has arisen in the wake of the law.  That decision wasn’t entirely RWoC’s, of course, but they certainly had a choice about whether to raise the issue with other signatories, and / or whether to sign on to a statement in which this wasn’t addressed at all.

2. C-FAM Claims “Human Rights Groups” Support Russia’s Law

The letter that RWoC added their organization’s support to was also signed by Mission: America, GrasstopsUSA, the World Congress of Families, a few Islamic groups, and many Eurasian organizations, some of whom are lobbying for similar laws in their countries, or have such laws in development.

C-FAM and Population Research International (PRI), who are regular contributors at the Canadian website LifeSiteNews, also signed on.  Both C-FAM and PRI are offshoots of Human Life International (HLI), an organization that was indicated as being one of the major groups stirring up anti-LGBT sentiment in Africa.  HLI itself is not listed as a signatory. C-FAM wrote about the letter of support for Russia as though it were a news item, under the headline of “Human rights groups support Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law,” and without disclosing to readers that they’re one of the groups on board:

“A statement from civil society affirms the recently enacted Russian law, which imposes fines on individuals and groups that promote homosexuality among minors, as important steps towards fulfilling international obligations towards the family and minors…”

I previously challenged LifeSiteNews both publicly and privately to clarify its partnership with HLI, and its stance on the latter group’s alleged fomenting of anti-LGBT hatred in Uganda.  While there has been no response to that challenge, there appears to be a marked shift of public advocacy from HLI to its subsidiaries (C-FAM and PRI), possibly because of the report that identified their activities in Africa.

3. Scott Lively Even Wants to Take Away Your Rainbow

Scott Lively, the Massachusetts author, lawyer and activist who gladly takes credit for being the self-described “human rights consultant” who lobbied Russia, Uganda and others to ramp up their anti-LGBT laws, also wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin, in which he repeatedly compared LGBT people to Nazis (which isn’t new to him), and urged Putin to stand firm against international pressure to undo the law:

“The battle to protect your society from homosexualization has only just begun, and you may be surprised to discover in the coming months and years just how aggressively many world leaders will work to try to intimidate and coerce you to capitulate to homosexualist demands…”

In 2006 and 2007, Lively toured Russia and some Baltic states, lobbying for several laws, of which the propaganda law was only one part:

During that tour, which began in the Russian Far East city of Blagoveschensk and ended in St. Petersburg, I lectured in a variety of venues including numerous universities, churches and conference halls, and met with numerous government leaders at various levels of influence.  The entire tour spanned approximately 50 cities in seven countries: Russia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and Belarus (we also passed through Kazakhstan but didn‘t speak there).

With Lively’s encouragement, the first “homosexual propaganda” ban was enacted by the City of St. Petersburg, Russia, and several other cities, states and countries that Lively lobbied are in some stage of considering or enacting a ban, including Ukraine, Moldova and Lithuania.  Lately, he’s been pushing for the opportunity to lobby the conservative governments in Australia and Britain.

And his latest strategy suggestion to Russia?  Sabotage any attempt by athletes to make a small visible gesture of support for LGBT people, by taking away the rainbow:

This article is a call to Christians and Jews (and Moslems — who also revere the book of Genesis ) to take back the rainbow from the “gays.”  I am urging pro-family leaders and advocates everywhere to start using the rainbow again, especially in ways that clearly link the symbol to Biblical opposition to the “gay” agenda, or which remind the world of its true meaning.  One way to do this is to create our own rainbow flags and banners bearing the slogan “The Rainbow Belongs to God: Genesis 6-9, 19” or a similar message.

4. LifeSiteNews’ Sensational Scoop

LifeSiteNews is also attempting to make issue of the concerns that LGBT-positive athletes have, and discussions about the possibility of showing some gesture of support for lesbian, gay, bisexual or trans people in Russia during the Olympic Games.  To this end, LSN is fixating on an audio recording made by MassResistance in which Patrick Burke acknowledged that some athletes do intend to show some gesture of support, and are still considering how.  LSN frames the discussion as being about smuggling LGBT pride symbols and propaganda:

“Here at a journalism conference someone gives a presentation on how they’re planning on disrupting the Olympics, and it’s not news,” Brian Camenker, director of MassResistance, told LifeSiteNews.com. “CBS News was there, CNN was there, Fox News, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Time-Warner, National Public Radio – all of these people were there, and it’s not news.”

“It’s an international incident, and no one seemed to think” it is newsworthy, he said in disbelief. “There’s been a lag time for somebody to say something on this, and nobody seemed interested in reporting this.”

“You’re the first people who have called on this,” Camenker told LifeSiteNews.

If LSN’s and MassResistance’s efforts result in athletes or teams being refused admittance to Russia for the Games, of course, it appears to be of no consequence to them, just as long as support for LGBT people is silenced.

5. What Other Far-Right Spokespeople Are Saying

These have hardly been the only far-right ideologues to voice support for Russia’s bill.  Some other examples:

Bob Vander Plaats, head of the group The Family Leader:

Vander Plaats praised Putin for taking a stand and saying “don’t bring this homosexual propaganda into my country for the Olympics; we believe in one man, one woman marriage; there is no homosexual marriage in Russia.”

Linda Harvey of Mission America (another of the signatories of the aforementioned letter):

In our country the sexual anarchists are whaling [sic] because Russian children and teens will not be allowed to hear homosexual propaganda. Children won’t be told, falsely, that some are born to be homosexual. They won’t be encouraged to declare themselves homosexual at age twelve or thirteen and label themselves for the rest of their school years. Russian children won’t be taught that they are victims of the mainstream, straight world, that they should develop deep resentments and hostiles and shouldn’t trust anything tradition-minded people say or do. The risks of same-sex relationships won’t be carefully hidden from them, as they are here, and they just might have healthier, more stable lives as a result.

They won’t be told that biblical moral standards are hateful and harmful; that abstinence until marriage is impossible and recommending it is discrimination; nor that sex as a young teen is perfectly normal, constructive and manageable with latex. They won’t learn that two men or two women should be seen as a married couple and that no one should ever blink an eye at the terms ‘her wife’ or ‘his husband.’ They won’t be taught that Jesus now suddenly accepts homosexuality and always did and that modern, enlightened theologians have discovered pro-homosexual meanings in Scripture that no one else did over several thousand years and that all those verses that call homosexuality sin really mean something else. In other words, the kids in Russia may get to live lives as kids and not be weighed down with adult agendas laced with adult deception.

Now I would never give a stamp of approval on all that might be going on in Russia but this is one area where it seems I agree with them. They have apparently observed the harm being done to kids in the West as a result of homosexual exploitation and are pursuing a much wiser course before global gay activism gets a foothold there. If there is room in our prayers for the people of Russia friends, and I’m sure there is, let’s pray that children there continue to be allowed protection in this way and in every other way God would want as well.

Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association:

They understand that homosexual behavior is a moral evil among teenagers.  Now, they need to get to the point where they realize that it’s a moral evil for anybody, but at least they’re ahead of us on recognizing that it’s a moral evil to propagandize this lifestyle among teenagers…

… in my mind, we ought to be celebrating this, and I don’t know what the timidity is, why there is such a hesitancy in the pro-family community to support this law… but this is public policy that we’ve been advocating and here is a nation in the world that is actually putting it into practice.

Peter LaBarbera, of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality:

Folks, I’m afraid that the lessons that the United States of America has to teach the world on homosexuality these days are mostly negative: Avoid our mistakes. Don’t become like us. Don’t foster the promotion of radical sexual and gender agendas to your young people. Don’t allow your government schools to become ‘pro-homosexuality zones’ for impressionable students. Don’t treat unhealthly sexual perversions and gender confusion as a “civil right” or “human right,” etc.

Ron Gray, of the Canadian podcast, Roadkill Radio, and former leader of the Christian Heritage Party:

You know, that makes good sense.  People who take children to watch a gay Pride parade, for example, or in any way push such propaganda on innocent children are inmy mind actually guilty of child abuse.  And that goes for teachers, politicians and media types who tell children the lie that homosexuality is praiseworthy.  Look, lying to our kids in any form is shameful and wrong.  

Homosexual behaviour is, in fact, dangerous.  And that doesn’t mean that homosexual people should be persecuted or maligned.  They’re unfortunate, and they should be helped to overcome their dangerous addiction to unnatural behaviour.  But we shouldn’t tell children that homosexuality is commendable or admirable.  It’s not.  It’s dangerous.  It’s a vector for diseases that have become epidemic among homosexuals and among other sexually promiscuous people…

We’ll discuss Ron Gray’s emphasis on conflating homosexuality with disease and harm, in a moment.

The Ripple Effect

The “Homosexual Propaganda” law has been at the centre of controversy since it was passed, and has sparked an enormous wave of violence against LGBT persons.

It’s an issue that seems to take a new twist every day, and in several directions — with the question of Russia’s hosting the Olympic games only being one.  The Russian lawmaker who proposed the bill has been having authorities investigate her critics. A prominent LGBT activist unfortunately also caused controversy when he apparently made abhorrent anti-Semitic comments on Facebook and Twitter.  A number of Russian citizens have sought refugee status in order to avoid returning to the country, and the Deputy General Director of the Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (RTR) has declared that the hearts of LGBT people “should be buried in the ground or burned as unsuitable for the continuation of life.”

The controversy has even spilled over into western nations, such as with a UK Department for Education policy ban on affirming LGBT students, which drew comparisons to the Russia’s law.

Several videos of beatings of gay and trans people have surfaced since the law was enacted.  One group oddly co-opted the naming and language of the “Occupy” movement, has conflated those targeted by the law with pedophiles, and advocates for violence:

Martsinkevich, who sports a mohawk and often appears bare-chested in his videos, founded Occupy Pedophilia and encouraged his followers to pour urine over their victims’ heads to “cure” them of homosexuality.

Never Mind the Violence.  Or the Hypocrisy.

The support for Russia has revealed several hypocrisies among the ideological far right.

Several of the organizations that have signed the letter have previously complained that having to respect LGBT human rights violates their freedom of speech and conscience.  Yet they have clearly supported restricting LGBT-positive speech to the point of banning it from public view and discourse entirely.

Many have also complained that their nations have not done enough to safeguard the human rights and safety of Christians around the world.  But when it comes to LGBT people, their concern is that attempting to do so would violate nations’ sovereignty.

Why Anti-LGBT Laws are Proving Popular Overseas

The comment on sovereignty is key to understanding why bans laws like Russia’s are proving popular.

Discussions about colonialism and sovereignty are the means by which American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have successfully swayed discussion in many African, Asian, South American and European nations.  Given that some of those countries suffered under colonial rule and others fought pressures by western corporate and political interests, it is an accusation that resonates with many nations, who still resist western influence and wish to assert their own power.

By phrasing homosexuality and transsexuality to sound like western inventions and a plot, attitudes like Lively’s have found fertile ground.

What Anti_LGBT Groups Are Actually Saying In Supporting Them

If it’s not already obvious, it’s important to recognize that “protecting” children from anything that might affirm and validate LGBT people is simply seen as a stepping stone to “protecting” anyone from that message.  If not, re-read the quotes above.

The far right has realized that in the modern world, people have largely started to realize that people don’t simply choose to become gay on a lark (or transition between sexes on a whim), and that the old mythic characterizations of LGBT people have failed as more friends, relatives, co-workers, celebrities and more have come out of the closet.  The first strategy for the far right, now, is to shame, intimidate and silence the next generation back into hiding, and then try to extend that to the rest of society.

This is why education is such a major fight.  I previously noted (parts 1, 2, 3) how the far right conflates anything that supports and affirms LGBT students with indoctrinating propaganda.  Much of this argument requires the public to believe that schools are encouraging kids to try same-sex encounters, when what they’re really concerned about is anything that contradicts the far right message that homosexuality, transsexuality and such are abominations and unacceptable.  It’s what resides between the lines of what many of the aforementioned folks say on the subject, such as this comment from Linda Harvey of Mission America:

Why are we in such a place friends where children learn that homosexual behavior is noble, that amputating healthy body parts [Harvey’s way of referring to sex reassignment surgery] is admirable but the mention of Jesus Christ during a graduation ceremony is controversial? I’ll tell you how: it’s because not enough of us are calling this lunacy what it is. We need to have a clear idea about what is evil and speak up about it in order to preserve the good. These actions are pure evil and should be declared child abuse. This all starts with the lie that homosexuality can ever be a good thing or that changing one’s gender can ever be in the child’s long-term best interest when it’s easy to demonstrate that it’s not.

It also requires the public to believe that simply being gay or trans is harmful, and not in the public good… because that is the far right’s second strategy, and it’s easier for them to simply state it over and over as though it were factual, in hopes that the public will follow that lead, rather than to have to quantify it with anything more substantial than pointing to HIV and some faulty or cherry-picked studies that fall apart with a few questions.

Allegations of Harm

R.E.A.L. Women of Canada has not satisfied itself with merely signing a letter to support the Russian law.  The group has also posted a brief by an anti-LGBT legal organization which regularly embroils itself in attempts to fight or overturn LGBT human rights advances, Alliance Defending Freedom.

In the brief, ADF claims that Russia’s “propaganda” law is not discrimination, does not ban organizing, does not silence LGBT persons or groups, and does not result in detentions of LGBT people… even though these things have already been evidenced in the way that Russia has applied the law. ADF’s lead author, Roger Kiska, can’t be said to be without bias either, since he has previously signed onto similar letters, including this protest of American support of a Pride Parade in the Czech Republic.  ADF does curiously and correctly note that another law passed in Russia calls for sentences of up to three years for “offending religious feelings,” and has not garnered the same response from international media — but ADF attributes this to hypocrisy rather than a failure of reporting and public response.

ADF’s brief, says RWoC, is evidence that the “propaganda” law is not discrimination, and is merely protecting children.  To accept this argument, you have to accept their premise that if children hear anything positive or accepting of LGBT people, or are in their proximity, then that is inherently harmful to them.

In 2011, B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman’s polygamy ruling stated that rights and freedoms — including religious freedom — could be limited, provided harm could be demonstrated:

“In my view, the salutary effects of the prohibition far outweigh the deleterious. The law seeks to advance the institution of monogamous marriage, a fundamental value in Western society from the earliest of times. It seeks to protect against the many harms which are reasonably apprehended to arise out of the practice of polygamy.”

Some far right critics have already seized upon this as being contrary to Canada’s rulings legalizing same-sex marriage, and an indication that it could be re-criminalized if enough “harms” could be raised to justify doing so.  In applauding Russia’s “propaganda” law, RWoC is expecting Canadians to accept the premise of harm caused by children merely hearing or seeing anything that affirms LGBT people, but without having to quantify that harm.

Russia Isn’t Sitting Still, Either

Russia is now proposing a law to remove children from the homes of LGBT families, in order to protect them.  The bill’s author, Alexei Zhuravlev, said that the ban on homosexual “propaganda” should not simply be applied in public spaces, “but also in the family.”  He was later asked if a child should be taken from a single mother if she were discovered to be lesbian:

‘Of course she should definitely be deprived of her rights to the child,’ he said.

‘Homosexuals must not raise children. They corrupt them. They do them much more harm than if the child were in an orphanage. I am deeply convinced of this.’

One would expect organizations that claim to be standing up for families and the best interests of children to oppose this new proposal, regardless of what they thought about the parents in question.

But then, you never know.

REAL Women of Canada, and the naked far-right truth.

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
²⁰ Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
— Matthew 7:15 – 20

Gwen Landolt, of R.E.A.L. Women of Canada (RWoC), has drawn fire for a press release she sent out last week, in which she condemned Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s support for the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people in highly oppressive nations like Uganda and Russia.  Landolt takes issue with government agencies advocating for their safety both publicly and behind the scenes.

What her action has really done, though, was to expose the naked truth about the attitudes held by some of the leaders and spokespeople of some of Canada’s far-right organizations, and the depths of their intolerance.

What remains to be seen is whether Canadians will sit up and take notice of what has in fact been a growing trend.

The press release criticizes Baird for “[abusing] his position as a cabinet minister to impose his own special interests in the foreign countries of Uganda, Kenya and Russia,” saying:

“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…

“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…”

“Pro-Life” Apparently has an Exception

What Landolt is deliberately omitting is the fact that the attention being paid to Uganda specifically has to do with its Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which had at its genesis included a death penalty for homosexuality.  While this death penalty may or may not still be in the bill (which is awaiting reintroduction and being kept somewhat secret, at the moment), homosexuality is already criminalized in Uganda with sentences of up to 14 years in prison, and the bill would add several alarming new dimensions, including:

• A definition of “homosexuality” which is so vague that almost anyone could be convicted of it;
• A definition of “aggravated homosexuality” which is overly-broad, and includes “serial” offences.  If the death sentence remains in the bill, then aggravated homosexuality is the charge to which it would apply;
• A weird “intent to commit” clause that could open any physical contact to interpretation;
• A financial incentive for people to accuse others of trying to seduce them;
• The targeting of friends, family and landowners for aiding / abetting LGBT people, for failing to report LGBT people, and for renting a room to LGBT people;
• The criminalization of advocacy for or even defending an LGBT person, with a sentence of 5 – 7 years (criminalization of LGBT advocacy has also been an objective in recent bills proposed in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others); and
• The criminalization of anyone who fails to report in under 24 hours anyone who is gay, who witnessed a same-sex wedding (it’s unclear if said wedding had to occur in Uganda), who rents a room to a gay person, and more, with a sentence of up to 3 years.

Landolt’s characterization of Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” bill is no better.  She repeats the Russian claim that the bill is to protect minors, even though the law applies to virtually any positive portrayal of LGBT people, and in any public or Internet space.  Emboldened by the passage of the legislation and the sentiment surrounding it, violence and predation has surged dramatically.

More importantly, Gwen Landolt demonstrated that she is aware of the facts she is omitting… and doesn’t care.  In an interview with CBC, she made a weird argument that a human rights issue isn’t a human rights issue if the nation in which it is occurring doesn’t consider it to be a human rights issue.  And then, she went further:

When asked about reports that Uganda has considered the death penalty as punishment for having homosexual relations, Landolt said, “It may be unwise by Western standards, but who are we to interfere in a sovereign country?”

A Far Right Group Implodes

This was too much for even Canada’s ideological right, drawing criticism from Barbara Kay, of the National Post, who said that Landolt “set at an unbridgeable distance well-wishers and occasional collaborators,” herself included:

Does  she realize the implications of what she has said? And from whose moral-relativist playbook she has drawn this leaf?

… If Ms. Landolt believes it is justifiable to ignore the persecution of people whose beliefs or behaviours she is unsympathetic to, as long as it is happening elsewhere, she has lost the moral authority to criticize persecution in other countries of those whose beliefs and behaviours she *is* sympathetic to.

Kay closed by speculating that R.E.A.L. Women of Canada “may just have imploded,” while other conservative writers are dismissively writing off RWoC with characterizations like “a housewives’ advocacy group that’s view of women was frozen in time around 1958.”

R.E.A.L. Women of Canada presents itself as “one of Canada’s leading women’s organizations,” but has for decades has been directly opposed to feminism and womens’ issues that they find theologically offensive, such as abortion, contraception, sex work, affirmative action and even unions (which have driven several of the gains that women have made in the workplace).  RWoC also has a reputation for trying to stymie international initiatives to better the lives of women, if those initiatives include reproductive rights (i.e. contraception), LGBT rights, feminist objectives and more.  They have acted as legal interveners on nearly every major social issue that has come before Canadian high courts, including a 1993 attempt to prohibit abortion, the 1999 ruling that gave same-sex couples the same legal and economic rights as opposite-sex couples, the legal battle over whether spanking was child abuse, a court decision on whether safe injection sites could be legalized, a few different cases where they attempted to establish legal personhood for the foetus, and the Supreme Court’s hearing on the sex work.  Gwen Landolt is famous for apologizing to the world on Canada’s behalf when Canada legalized same-sex marriage, and earlier this year, R.E.A.L. Women of Canada claimed that extending human rights protections to trans people was a plot to normalize pedophilia.

It remains to be seen if the group’s special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations will be affected by Landolt’s antics.

Fringe ≠ Alone

Gwen Landolt’s devil-may-care attitude is far from unique among the Canadian far right.  (And it is at this point that I need to clarify why I use the phrase “far right” so much, and “Christian” not at all.  Although many of the ideological far right phrase their perspective as being Christian, it is not truly representative of Christian faiths, at least a few of whom are LGBT-affirming.  I believe it’s important to make that distinction for many reasons, including the fact that this clarification dispels the belief that there is an inherent and irreconcilable conflict between LGBT human rights and religious freedom).

Indeed, it takes little time to find other far-right figures sharing similar perspectives.

RWoC’s frequent collaborator, LifeSiteNews (the media arm of Campaign Life Coalition), has lauded Nigeria for its anti-LGBT legislative proposals, and also applauded Uganda’s refusal to bow to pressure to drop the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, in 2009.  They later softened the stance on Uganda’s bill, but continue to collaborate with an organization singled out as one of three key groups fomenting anti-gay hatred in Africa.  LSN and C-FAM have also portrayed Russia’s anti-gay law as one of protecting children from the promotion of “deviant sexual behaviors,” saying that the suggestion that the law is a form of discrimination “appears to be more hyperbole than anything else.” LSN even recently attacked American televangelist Pat Robertson for not being extreme enough.  Naturally, the website has also posted a more-or-less one-sided article echoing Gwen Landolt’s sentiments, and posting the Prime Minister’s office information so that readers can flood him with same.

Although less known, Ron Gray, RoadKill Radio host and former leader of the Christian Heritage Party, also touted Russia’s anti-gay law as something that Canada should strive for, adding (barely a minute into the video):

“People who take children to watch a gay pride parade, for example, or in any way put such propaganda on innocent children are in my mind actually guilty of child abuse.  And that goes for teachers, politicians, and media types who tell children the lie that homosexuality is praiseworthy…”

RKR has also campaigned against LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying education, networked with Scott Lively (an architect of both Uganda’s and Russia’s infamous laws), and has also been guilty of obscuring facts about Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

When Was the Last Time an American Conservative Wanted to Emulate Russia?

Gwen Landolt’s comments also come at a time when American far right groups are trumpeting Russia’s law in similar fashion, and encouraging developing something similar on this continent, such as this declaration from a National Organization for Marriage spokesman:

With the battle for the family waging across this nation, instead of condemning a sovereign nation for its laws we need to be changing ours. The family unit is under attack and we must stand against those who want to redefine and destroy it. The family is the foundation of a society and the glue that holds it together. I applaud the Russians for taking a stand for children!

The day may be coming soon in which Canadians will need to decide whether these things are truly representative of the Christian perspective, or whether “Christian” is being exploited as an excuse to hate.

While it is tempting to dismiss Gwen Landolt and R.E.A.L. Women of Canada as being “fringe,” it’s important to realize that their ambivalence toward the lives and well-being of LGBT people is not occurring in a vacuum.  It’s also important to know that given the group’s seeming ability to regularly circumvent Parliamentary process so that they can be added on to committee and Senatorial meetings (as happened on at least two occasions with the recent trans human rights bill C-279), it has not been without its influence.  Indeed, the press release was just starting to appear on news sites’ front pages, when senior Foreign Affairs officials already met with RWoC representatives to hear their grievances.  “Fringe” isn’t supposed to have government departments on speed dial.

They Hypocrisy of Crying Colonialism

And what’s more, Canada’s ideological far right seems to be unable to recognize that these attitudes are indeed hateful, and out-of-step with Canadians.  Instead, Landolt says:

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.

Incidentally, Landolt’s discussion of sovereignty and accusation of colonialism is curious, in that this tactic is the means by which American Evangelicals and Fundamentalists have successfully swayed discussion in many African nations.  Given that many countries on that continent suffered under colonial rule and are still relatively recent to sovereign status, it is an accusation that resonates with many African peoples, who still desire to resist western influence and remain self-determining.

Ironically, the tactic is being used to deflect attention from the fact that those same Evangelicals and Fundamentalists are attempting to export their homophobia to Africa, a continent where anti-gay sentiment and rhetoric was not previously of any significance.

And if RWoC is aware of and careful to use similar talking points, then it’s safe to say that their — and Landolt’s — attitudes have not developed in a vacuum.

What LifeSiteNews’ attack on Pat Robertson says about religious freedom.

Last week, there was some curious notice given to American televangelist Pat Robertson, after he expressed support for transitioning trans people, and their access to sex reassignment surgery.  Less noticed was the backlash from other far-right groups over the same comments.  But it’s worth revisiting, because of what that backlash says about the far right’s battle cry over religious freedom.

It’s very common for far-right ideologues (who I try to distinguish from “Christians,” because they don’t speak for all Christians) to hide behind religious freedom, and cry censorship when they are called out for transphobic and homophobic comments.  It has created a public perception of there being a false dichotomy between LGBT human rights and religious belief / practice.  It also creates a weird conflation between holding people accountable, and “persecution.”

Personally, I’d rather that folks speak freely.  It’s much easier to challenge the content of what is being said, and demonstrate the authentically bigoted attitudes underlying far-right agendas.  We’ll probably never change the minds of the Fred Phelpses of the world, but their words and actions say a lot to society at large.

That’s probably why I keep coming back to LifeSiteNews.

LSN is a Canadian faux-news website under the aegis of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), which is pretty unabashed about wanting to end or restrict abortion (with no exceptions), contraception, hormone therapy, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), feminism, organ donation, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, LGBT relationships of any type, LGBT parenting, cohabitation and divorce, and far more.  LSN has cheered on Russia’s highly punitive and violent legislation against LGBT people (Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be a champion of religious freedom to LSN, of late), and continues to support organizations that foment anti-gay hatred in Africa, despite having been called out for doing so.  LSN has been known to deliberately omit important information, like when the website cheered on new anti-gay legislative proposals in Nigeria, while “forgetting” (despite reminders) that 14 Nigerian states already have the death penalty for LGBT people.  Other coverage will sometimes conflate homosexuality and pedophilia, or make a total ban on LGBT expression and advocacy sound like it’s protecting children from pornography.  But overall, LSN’s agendas are usually fairly nakedly obvious with just a little bit of examination.  So it often provides vivid examples to clearly demonstrate what the ideological far right wants to do.

CLC has also regularly used the LSN blog to attack Catholic organizations that don’t follow exactly the kind of path that CLC believes is proper and Catholic.  LSN has attempted to punitively police the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, and was sued when they went after a Quebec priest who LSN portrayed as a “former homosexual prostitute” and a “so-called priest who supports abortion.” Recently, American and international Catholic hospitals, agencies and charities who provide (or support organizations that provide) access to birth control have come under fire.

LSN has even “clarified” the new Pope.  (But to be fair, LSN was not the only ideologue to do so).

Now, LSN is encouraging readers to swamp the Christian Broadcasting Network main switchboard with complaints about Pat Robertson, partly for saying that contraception is an acceptable way to provide assistance to impoverished people in Third World nations (specifically, Robertson showed some racism by referring to “Appalachian ragamuffins”), and partly for expressing support (for at least the third time) for sex reassignment surgery and the trans people who seek it.

LSN’s attempt to police Pat Robertson and American Evangelicals on these issues puts the lie to cries of religious persecution, censorship and infringement on religious freedom.  As the website and its contributing allies continue to play banhammer on Catholics For Choice, the National Catholic Reporter, Catholic Relief Services, affirming churches, priests and congregations, and more, it shows no qualms about attempting to censure or silence the religious freedoms of other Catholics and of Protestants as well:

In addition to complaining that CRS was involved in distributing abortifacients and contraceptives, the clergy expressed dismay that the majority of CRS’ employees in the country are not Catholic and that it does its work apart from the local church.

“Maybe CRS’s participation in artificial-contraception-promotion programs is the reason that CRS mainly hires Protestants, who have no objection to family planning,” suggested Fr. Liva, SMM, Pastor at St. Thérèse Parish in Tamatave. “If CRS hired Catholics, some of those Catholics might object more strongly to CRS’s participation in that kind of thing.”

Back in January, LSN’s Managing Director Steve Jalsevac declared that affirmation of LGBT people in Catholic congregations, teachers’ unions, hospitals, universities and schools was something that needed to be dealt with “urgently and forcefully:”

When the various Christian churches, not just the Catholics, are largely cleansed of this rejection of authentic Christian morality, then a power of faith will be unleashed that nothing can stop.

In fact, with this attack on Robertson and other insinuations about Evangelicals, LSN now appears to be trying to police who can and can’t be considered Christian.  This is also apparent in the website’s latest posturing over poll results which show that a majority of Catholics and a significant number of born-again Evangelicals still support the availability of abortion in at least some cases (let alone contraception), as well as calls to excommunicate legislators who support abortion access and LGBT human & marriage rights.

Granted, there has long been a hypocrisy in the religious freedom argument, with Evangelicals like Bryan Fischer and Pat Buchanan arguing against allowing religious observances of people of other faiths, like Muslims. But at this point, it should be obvious to all that for the people now attempting to define and drive what qualifies as “Christian,” the only religious freedom that matters is their own.

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project)

Harper’s Theological Crossroads.

Right from when it was first proposed during the May 2011 federal election, the Office of Religious Freedom (ORF?) was met with the accusation that it was an attempt to pander to its base, concerns that it would overstep the boundary of what Canada should be doing in foreign nations, and skepticism that it could be instituted in any kind of way that would be fair and balanced for all religions.  As it turns out, it’s becoming not very popular among Evangelicals, either.

One of the clearest examples of late is RoadKill Radio’s interview with Jim Hnatiuk, who is the leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada.  Hnatiuk, of course, has a vested interest in dissuading far-right conservative voters from supporting Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party, but what’s noteworthy is the particular aplomb with which RKR commentators lead the discussion, and continue what appears to be an ongoing conversation among dominionist-leaning (those who seek to legislate their morality) Evangelicals.  (Incidentally, the RKR commentators also indicate their support for Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill in that same webcast)

The growing discontent with the Office of Religious Freedom parallels an increased dissatisfaction with the Harper government on other fronts.  Anti-abortion Members of Parliament have been breaking ranks and speaking in defiance after the Prime Minster’s Office quashed a motion that sought to reopen the abortion debate in the guise of condemning sex-selective abortion.  The Supreme Court’s decision partially upholding hate speech legislation against Bill Whatcott has rankled many and been characterized as curtailing religious freedom, as well.  In the case of the Office of Religious Freedom, RKR’s Ron Gray dismisses it as pandering and “window dressing to attract Canadians, people of faith.”  Hnatiuk seems to object to the image of religious diversity projected during the launch, before characterizing the Office as a deflection from these and similar events (at 8:46 in the video):

When I saw the office being established… and I looked on the website of some of the presentations that were taking place around its establishment with all of these minority faiths standing behind the Prime Minister and I said “Oh my goodness, they’re actually believing that they’re going to benefit from this and that this is all about them and not about more votes and not about the attacks on the Christian freedom that we have in Canada….”

The Harper Conservatives have been coming to an ideological crossroads for some time, now, one that many predicted when the party achieved its majority government, but realized that it could lose power just as quickly if it appeared too radically conservative on social issues.  Theocons became energized at the thought of being now able to legislate according to ideology, only to face the realization that the Conservatives are more concerned with maintaining power.

Only weeks before the ORF, Whatcott and sex-selective motion controversies, the Harper government came under fire for a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) donation of $560,000 for Crossroads Christian Outreach in Uganda, given that the organization had an anti-gay position statement on its website, and was doing work in a nation where anti-gay positions have fomented a volatile culture of violence and hatred toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people.  In classic Conservative fashion, Julian Fantino ordered a review, and then reported it completed, later that evening:

“… Minister Fantino’s office contacted LifeSiteNews Monday night to say that the review was complete and Crossroads’ funding would remain in place.”

MPs have demanded a full audit of CIDA, but that is unlikely, now that the entity is being folded into the department of Foreign Affairs.  It remains to be seen what will be made of the report coming down shortly which notes how funding to theological groups have risen significantly, while funding to non-theological groups has stagnated:

Some examples: Africa Community Technical Services received $ 655,000 from CIDA in 2010, almost three times more than in 2005. On its website, the NGO says it carries out its duties “under the authority of the scriptures” and “seeks to glorify our Lord Jesus.”

Cause Canada says: “We pray that our identification with Jesus, our concern for justice and our practical demonstration of God’s love […] attract people to Christ,” on its website. This Alberta NGO received $ 483,000 from CIDA in 2010, an increase of 32% compared to 2005.

This rise in money to religious groups also comes at the expense of womens’ programs, which have been shut out in many cases:

Then there’s the $495,600 CIDA grant to Wycliffe Bible Translators of Calgary, which works so that aboriginal people in far-flung corners of the world can read the scriptures in their native languages.“It’s okay to translate the Bible,” says Nicole Demers “But there are aboriginal women here who are dying.”

In fact, adds Demers, groups seeking CIDA funding are being told to leave the phrase “gender equity” out of their grant applications.

And it’s becoming clear that the controversies are only going to get rockier for the Conservatives as people become more aware of them and as the Canadian social landscape becomes even more polarized.

So it’s significant that Harper’s flagship promise to theological conservatives is floundering.  Because as Jim Hnatiuk points out, these were the expectations of something like an Office of Religious Freedom (at 6:14 in the video):

Predominantly, worldwide, we see the whole issue of the Islamic worldview being predominantly the ones that are persecuting Christians — and others, and other faiths as well, but you know, by and large, it’s Christians out there.  So if that is, if they’re going to be setting up an Office of Religious Freedom that can, they have to be saying, you know, in one sense, we’re going to really speak out against these… this, uh Islamic uh what do they call it a [could not make this word out]…  

So if our government is saying that they’re going to be, I guess my point is, fight against, fight for religious freedom, they’re gonna be, they’re saying we’re going to start fighting against these Islamic regimes…

Best laid plans, and all…

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

Learn about gay and trans kids? No. Have them protest abortion? Okay.

A group of parents in B.C. are adamantly opposed to the Burnaby school district enacting an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying policy.  Catholic school districts in Ontario want to ban rainbows and Gay-Straight Alliances.  Charles Adler is worried that a calendar that is a teachers’ reference (and notes the Transgender Day of Remembrance) might cause kids to become “transgender hookers,” and Charles McVety is warning that teaching students that trans youth exist will confuse them about their gender.  After the National Post apologized for McVety’s ad, the Toronto Sun ran it to make a point about free speech, and it’s now running in video form on SunTV.  McVety’s contention that LGBT-inclusive and -positive sex education “is truly sexually violating little boys and girls” is now being repeated (with nicer wording) as the conclusion of National Post columnists.  Teach kids to coexist with gay and trans kids?  You can’t do that.

Teach them to march in anti-abortion protests?  Sure, why not?

According to the Winnipeg Free Press, students are being given full credits for doing so, and principal David Hood is considering making it an official school activity.

What to Expect from a Harper Government (In The Bedrooms of the Nation III)

Previously:

I: A Brief Canadian History of Political Forces

II: The Opponents of Social Progress: Roadmap to the Far Right

As Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party seek a majority mandate, there is no shortage of speculation on either side of the map as to what a non-progressive Conservative majority would look like in Canada.  By some accounts, we’d see a new capitalist utopia of crime fighting and McJob creation.  By others, we’d see a social agenda unleashed which, now completely unbridled, would rewrite Canada into a Christian Nationalist dictatorship.

But we’ve seen already how Harper is completely cognizant of Canada’s inclination for social progress, and having to tightrope in order to maintain the far-right extreme and the centrist support he needs to maintain power.  Stephen Harper is gaming, and he is not going to seek only a 4-year majority.  He is in it for the long haul, and that means tightroping for as long as he can.