Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Harper Cons and the Bigot Trap


It was an extraordinary sight. John Baird sitting next to Julian Fantino at a committee meeting this morning, blasting the hideous anti-gay statements of a Canadian religious organization. 

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird took aim Tuesday at "offensive" and "mean-spirited" statements on the website of an organization that gets federal funding to do aid work in Uganda.

A page from the group's website that has been removed, but is still available as a cached version, calls homosexuality and transvestism perversions and lists them along with pedophilia and bestiality.

A day after Fantino defended his decision to fund that organization's activities in one of the most anti-gay countries on earth. And fast tracked its approval.  

In an email to CBCNews.ca late Monday, CIDA said it has completed a review of Crossroads Christian Communications' funding and said it does comply with its contribution agreement, so the money would continue to flow. On Sunday, Fantino had tweeted that the funding would be reviewed.

Approved it just like that. *Snap* Even though Crossroads has been criticized before for broadcasting the worst kind of hateful anti-gay content. 

In the context of the various discussions, comments were made about homosexuals, such as that they force their “hidden agenda” on societal institutions, “try to indoctrinate children” in a manner “almost like Nazi brainwashing”, they “rape straight boys”, that acceptance of homosexuals can be “destructive” towards society. One caller even mentioned an alleged case of a “bisexual cross-dresser” who had brutally murdered a man and had sex with the body. The caller suggested that the entire homosexual community is prone to this type of behaviour that specifically targets straight people in a violent manner.

And even though it was American evangelical groups similar to Crossroads that triggered the anti-gay pogrom in Uganda, with the same kind of blood libel.






For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. 

The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

So what did John Baird say when the NDP's Hélène Laverdière asked him in Question Period, whether funding an anti-gay group in Uganda was the message Canada wanted to send the world? 

Absolutely NOTHING.

Fantino answered the question rather than Baird, repeating the only statements he's provided since questions first surfaced. "I can assure the member opposite that CIDA programs are delivered without discrimination or bias and that is the case here …. To assert otherwise is absolutely untrue," he said.

Baird just sat there strangely silent all through Question Period, looking very, very, unhappy. As grim as I have ever seen him...















Like a man in shock, or one forced to put his party before his own humanity. And betray his own kind. 

As if he had just been read the riot act by Great Faith Leader and his sweaty theocons in the PMO. And told that to attack one religious group would be to attack them ALL.

And that they can't do that because it would infuriate their rabid religious base, who now that Harper is cutting subsidies to political parties, they need more than EVER.

So will he please STFU and be a good gay stooge, or they'll muzzle him like all the others !!#@!! 

Which leaves poor Baird in an unfortunate position. After having done the right thing, for the first time in his life.

And leaves the Cons caught in a trap of their own making. Offend religious groups and lose  those old grubby voters and their juicy Jesus dollars. Or offend and scare others with their no longer hidden theocratic agenda, and lose all those young and urban voters.

Caught like rats in a bigot trap that if we are lucky might eventually help fracture their party. Like the gay marriage issue just split the Conservatives in Britain. 

And in the meantime allows progressives to portray the Cons as something that just crawled out of a sewer, or Pope Benny's rear end, or a church in Uganda.

Or Lord Harper's Theatre of Sacred Cruelty and Genocide...
















Where a bloodthirsty Jesus compares gay love to bestiality. Women are mugged or jailed for having an abortion. The poor and the old sing for their supper. And the truth is what His Satanic Oil Pig Majesty says it is. Or what the Lord or the polls tell him it is in his moments of madness. 

Hmmm.... I think we can work with that one eh? 

Save us from the religious fanatics who would wallow in the blood of the innocent.

Save the poor LGBT people of Uganda.

Deliver us from the evil and the madness of Stephen Harper.

Destroy those genocide monsters...

h/t BigCityLib 

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8 comments:

double nickel said...

The cognitive dissonance is strong here.

thwap said...

Let's restore some level of sanity to these issues. These harpercons are a thorough disgrace.

bcwaterboy said...

This is a truly sickening display from Fantino and the now muzzled Baird. Instead of letting the money flow, some tough questions need to be asked of this cult concerning their connections with the "experts" from the US that all but sealed the fate of innocent LGBT people in Uganda. We are now complicit with this atrocity and Fantino and the entire con caucus now have the blood of our brothers and sisters on their hands. Shameful bunch.

Hugh said...

Good grief:

"The Harper government is examining ways to turn Canada into a major arms producer in a bid to leverage hundreds of billions of dollars in planned defence spending into Canadian jobs and prosperity."

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Military+production+could+boost+economy+report/7957479/story.html

Simon said...

hi double nickel...yes dissonance is the right word. And of course shameless would also be appropriate. But as I pointed out in the post, the Cons are more dependent on the contributions of their base than the ever have been, so we can expect more of the same...

Simon said...

hi thwap...yes some sanity would be nice, and they are a disgrace. But I'm afraid it too late to change course. I always said that whether Stephen Harper is crazy or not, and I think he is, he would lead us to a very bad place. And I think I can say with some assurance that the next two years are going to be the longest of my life...

Simon said...

hi bcwaterboy...yes it is a sickening display. Can you believe how quickly CIDA finsished its "investigation." Or how they muzzled Baird. I have to admit, and don't you dare use this against me, but for a while (30 seconds) I actually felt sorry for him. For speaking out as a gay man and obviously being put in his place by the theocons in the PMO. But for them I have only contempt. It was bad enough when they carried out their secret little conspiracy in Canada, but enabling genocide really is the limit. And so help me they are going to pay for it...

Simon said...

hi Hugh...good grief is the word. I knew they were selling assault rifles to the human rights abusers in Colombia, but this is taking things to a whole new level. And since I can't see ourselves selling military equipment to the Americans or the Europeans, goodness knows who we will be arming. I liked my country better when we exported peacemakers, and I simply can't wait to give the Cons the boot...