Gay? Right(s)!

Look at me going, two posts in two days.

I'm not sure if everyone has picked this up yet or not, but I live in Canada. And even though her news reporting has little to do with the country I live in I have been watching a fair bit of Rachel Maddow clips on Youtube lately. I guess it's the combination of her delivery and the fact that the USA seems to be totally insane that has me glued to my computer screen. I find her funny, articulate and interested in the same things I am. Thankfully she is a self proclaimed lesbian, (for the love of fuck I hope I didn't make that up) and perhaps because of that she covers a lot of LGBT rights, well I guess mostly LG rights, but I'm not sure how much Trans rights pop up in the US separately from LG rights.

Through her show however, I have seen a lot of the anti-gay garbage that others get on with. As I've said, I live in Canada but as I watch these people go on with their anti-gay rhetoric I can't help but wonder how much longer until government officials in Canada start working anti-gay policies in their agenda. It worries me because I feel like I am watching Canada step backwards in human rights and I'm not utterly convinced that our neighbours to the south aren't influencing some of the..... less cognizant members of Canadian government.

Now I'm not a political science major so I'm not going to try and explain all the details but for my American readers out there, laws in Canada get passed more-or-less like they do in the states. Very basically, a bunch of people have to vote on a bill, it can be amended before passing, etc etc. (holy watered down version...) though our passed federal laws seem to have more direct impact on the entire country then they do in the US, but maybe not... like I said I'm no expert.

Anyway, there has been a bill (law) recently try to get passed here in Canada that was meant to give transgender people more rights, it was going to be a good thing for us, non-discrimination laws and the like. It didn't pass however. It had the full support of one side of our government but a member of the other side added an amendment that basically said that trans-men and women need to use the public bathroom of their assigned sex at birth. Getting the bill labeled "the bathroom bill" and forced supports of the bill to vote against it because they didn't want this in what was going to be a ground breaking bill. I believe something similar has passed, or perhaps is trying to be passed in a few states in the US, or something similar to it. I know this only because I have been considering going to our local mall (yes, yes, I live in a small city) and go hang out in the men's washroom in protest and before I had the chance I was getting plenty of articles of trans men and women doing this exact thing in the US over a similar law.

And just like that, something clicked and my world started to get smaller. Canada has always been looked at as being heavily influenced by America. I have spoken with a few patriots here that would argue differently but the truth is our cultures are very similar and most of our media comes from the US. Most of our TV channels here are US based and therefore carry US news, I have no numbers but I would have to say the vast majority of TV shows in general are US based. And when you influence a people, you influence their government.

For example, apparently the Canadian government has found it prudent to give tax breaks plus direct funding to an anti-gay group here in Canada called "Crossroads Christian Communications Inc." Thankfully Canada does have fairly solid discrimination laws and after it was found out that Canada was supporting this group the government had to investigate. But therein lies a problem. Yes they stopped funding for the investigation (I cannot find any updates) but the problem is they would have never stopped if the public didn't stumble upon what was happening. Just to be clear, this group had on their website statements like homosexuality and transvestism are sins equivalent to pedophilia and bestiality and are sinners that need to repent. They were taken down when they realized the public's eyes were starting to focus on them. Their views weren't a secret beforehand and the government still thought it a good idea to fund them.

Thanks to shows like Rachel Maddow and you know, being alive, I have heard every possible explanation of why someone is anti-gay. Everything from homosexuals being pedophiles to ruining the fabric of our society to abominations that are against gods will. These people face pro-gay rights with the certainty and smugness of moral superiority. They are firmly in the position that they are correct and you are somehow blind to the truth and you need to change to fit their description of the world.

That is really all it comes down to, they want to shape the world to fit what they are comfortable enough with to let go of their security blankets. When I started this post I had planned on inserting a couple of statistics I could find, like how the divorce rate is a full percentage lower for homosexuals then for heterosexuals, or how that there is zero evidence that suggests that pedophilia and homosexuality are linked at all. I heard the opposite spewed from bigot mouths on many occasions and I thought it would be useful to have those stats here as "proof". The problem is, these people are immune to logic. No one has ever convinced one of these sort of people by trying to talk sensibly to them. So unfortunately there seems to be little left to say to them. They have removed themselves from the conversation by essentially putting thing fingers in their ears and screaming "la la la" over and over.

Do you know what is a powerful deterrent though? Something everyone in the LGBT community is all too familiar with? Public ridicule. Now I know, it feels like we would be sinking to their level by doing this, and I would caution against it but I think it is time. It is time we stop fulfilling the victim role exactly how they want us to, constantly defensive and emotional, because it is so personal to us. We need to climb on top of our moral high ground and start glaring back. Their arguments center around violence, trying to change people, trying to impose your will on someone is violence. Our argument centers on peace, allow us to live our lives without persecution. Instead of getting defensive or hurt when someone says these anti-gay things to you, instead of that, laugh at them. Laugh at them like they are trying to have a serious discussion about Elvis still being alive and well and having margaritas with Jimmy Hoffa in Argentina.

We give them ammunition when we play their silly game. The constant back and forth they want to get everything tied up and clouded in until no one is sure what we're talking about any more. Think about it, when someone approaches you with anti-gay speech you feel compelled to give in to their trolling and get into the fight they just picked. Now if someone were to seriously say, "You know, people who drive red sports cars have huge penis's" you'd look at them with an ill-concealed look of "wtf?" on your face. That's exactly how we should treat these anti-gay children. Give them no ground for purchase, blow them off like the obscurity in history they are destined to be.