Stephen Harper and the Hidden Story of the Anti-Gay Judge

For weeks I've been trying to warn everyone I know that Stephen Harper is now so desperate that he is planning to make bigotry his secret weapon in his election campaign.

His sinister silence after the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report spoke volumes. Even as a torrent of hatred poured out of the comment pages all over the country.

His decision to introduce an anti-niqab bill on the last day of Parliament made it clear that he intends to use it as a wedge issue. Dangle it like a piece of meat in front of his rabid base, and whip them into a foaming frenzy of anti Muslim hatred.

And now he's going after another marginalized group: LGBT Canadians.



A critic of gay marriage has been promoted to Ontario’s highest court – the third such judge chosen by the Conservative government since December for the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The Conservative government chose Justice Bradley Miller, a former University of Western Ontario law professor, for the Ontario Court of Appeal after he spent just six months on the province’s Superior Court.

Which couldn't be more disturbing, because it shows that Harper is appointing religious fanatics into top legal positions in an attempt to undermine our judiciary, the last bastion of our Canadian values.

And couldn't be more disgusting for trying to bully a minority which is still victimized, in more violent ways than other minorities. 



And for choosing a judge who clearly doesn't consider gay Canadians to be worthy of equal rights. And has been associated with at least one of the most vile anti-gay groups in North America.

For let's start with this tract, that the Globe article referred to but didn't show you. Which Miller wrote for The Witherspoon Institute. 

The formal effect of the judicial decisions (and subsequent legislation) establishing same-sex civil marriage in Canada was simply that persons of the same-sex could now have the government recognize their relationships as marriages. But the legal and cultural effect was much broader. 

What transpired was the adoption of a new orthodoxy: that same-sex relationships are, in every way, the equivalent of traditional marriage, and that same-sex marriage must therefore be treated identically to traditional marriage in law and public life.

Where not only does he exaggerate the impact same-sex marriage has had in Canada. But goes on to insult gay people by lumping gay marriage in with polygamy.

Fails to understand that same-sex marriage is not a religious ritual it's a measure of human equality.

Before claiming most outrageously that gay people are oppressing Christians. When in fact, the situation is exactly the opposite...



Christians, and other religious crazies, are the ones who never cease tormenting LGBT people, driving many to despair, and many young ones to commit suicide.

And anyone who doesn't understand that is either a bigot or a cruel bastard. Or both. 

And all we're left with at the end of this sordid appointment is just another Anthony Scalia...



The reactionary anti-gay judge on the U.S. Supreme Court. A wing nut if ever there was one.

But wait it gets worse. For what is The Witherspoon Institute? 

And the answer is it's a socially conservative organization that is listed on Right Wing Watch, is feverishly anti-gay, and anti-choice. Hangs out with some of the worst anti-gay bigots in America.

And is probably best known for having funded a study commonly known as the Regnerus report.

The New Family Structures Study is a large-scale, U.S. population-based study on the outcomes of young adults raised in various family structures, commissioned in 2010 by a social-conservative think tank called the Witherspoon Institute. The study’s intended goal – detailed in grant proposals, internal emails, and fundraising letters – was to debunk the widely accepted claim, bolstered by multiple sociology studies, that children do fine when raised by same-sex parents. 

The study has been criticized for its flawed methodology (it essentially compared apples and oranges, drawing up results suggesting that children of gay and lesbian parents do poorly); its suspect peer-review and publication process; and the involvement of the study’s ideologically motivated funders – an involvement that was initially concealed.

Which although it was thoroughly debunked, is still being used against LGBT people all over the world in places like Russia...



To brutally oppress their human rights.

And to make matters worse, Bradley Miller's essays are also used for the same purpose, by anti-gay groups all over the world from Taiwan to Texas...



So he's an anti-gay icon. 

Who can't seem to understand that human rights must come before religious rights or we'll end up living in a theocracy.

But that's who Stephen Harper just appointed to Ontario's highest court. 

To pleasure his rabid base, and stick it to Kathleen Wynne, the province's Premier and the lesbian.

Not just by appointing one anti-gay judge after the other to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

But also by secretly supporting and helping to organize these protests against her Liberal government's new sex-ed curriculum.



Which couldn't be more disgusting and homophobic.

But that Harper is also hoping to use as a wedge issue against Justin Trudeau's liberals in the election campaign.

But then why should anyone be surprised?

When as I have pointed out many times before, Stephen Harper is, has, and always will be a diseased bigot himself...



And the only burning question is why have so many Canadians let him get away with it for so long?

Finally, I want you to imagine how LGBT Canadians feel after being confronted with yet more evidence of that anti-gay bigotry.

Or just read what this Globe commenter had to say about that:

For decades I was told I was ill and/or criminal, I was disallowed life and work choices, under surveillance, beaten by police for opposing this oppression. Many were jailed, outed by the authorities of the day, losing their families, friends, jobs, homes, shunned by their faith. 

Thousands committed suicide as a result of court and state sponsored abuse and oppression. After more than half a century of this abuse and a long and hard struggle, the courts and the state, with no apologies, declares that I'm now to be considered an equal citizen with all of the rights of other Canadians. 

Now, we're told that our sitting Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is appointing judges who believe and publicly state that I, as a gay man, am not equal. To those who belong to other minority groups, be afraid, be very afraid.

And heed his warning.

Stephen Harper is planning to use bigotry as a weapon in the election campaign.

He is crazy and dangerous.

And if he is not stopped he will turn that campaign into a living nightmare.

And he really will set this country on fire...



That's not a Canadian leader. That's an American disease.

And the sooner we defeat it and cure it the better...

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