Who's Confused?

Anybody ever read the National Post? No, why would you? The Post is the other, other Conservative Canadian newspaper, the 'respectable' paper, to the Suns' gossip rag status. As a matter of fact, when Conrad Black started the Post in 1998, he bought the Financial Post, an already established business paper from Sun Media, retaining that name as the business section of his new paper, one dedicated to 'uniting the right'. Baaaaaarf.

Anyways, the other day the Post ran this doozy of an ad:

Uh-huh. I know. Here's a perfect example of something that hurts absolutely everyone. In one fell swoop, the Institute for Canadian Values (who we'll get to know in just a moment) has not only simultaneously insulted, marginalized and othered every LGBTQ person in the country, but also stated that they are in favor of maintaining the status quo of harmful gender roles assigned by the Patriarchy to girls and boys. These people think that being gay, or trans, or even confused is a condition, a disease, a wrong choice. They also seem to believe that women and men have only the most rigid and different roles each, and never shall girls playeth the sports or boys baketh the cookies, lest anarchy. Unfortunately, these roles always lead to subservience and abuse of women by men. This advertisement insults every single Canadian person, if not every single human being on the planet. It's reminiscent of the "Don't Say Gay" bill down in Tennessee. These are the type of people that believe that there is a homosexual agenda (and probably a feminist one, too), that those creepy gays are out there, just waiting to infect and corrupt your impressionable children. Which is utter rubbish, of course. Most kids know on some level what they're all about when they're very young, it's just that society makes it so hard on them. Want to see an actual example of the brainwashing and corrupting of impressionable youth? Attend a Sunday school class.

Now, where did this shit ad come from? The Institute for Canadian Values, of course. Never heard of it? Neither had I, until last night. So, what's this institute all about? Well, in a statement from their own website:

The Institute for Canadian Values is a national think-tank dedicated to advancing knowledge of public policy issues from Judeo-Christian intellectual and moral perspectives, as well as awareness of how such perspectives contribute to a modern, free, and democratic society.

Need a translation? I'd be happy to. This basically says that the Institute is a bunch of well-off, white, heterosexual, monotheistic worshiping folks, and they'd like Canada to be just like them, thank you very much. And, if that's not feasible, well then, at least Canada can cater to them, and fuck the rest of the heathen populace. Along with trying to protect your children from learning about homosexuality and transgenderism, the Institute also has a host of other causes, such as ending polygamy, which I agree with, but I don't believe for one second that they give two shits about the safety of women and children as they say they do. I tried to check out some of their other campaigns that I actually agree with, such as the one to end human trafficking, but all that led to was an unassigned domain. Perhaps the Institute shouldn't provide links if they don't actually go anywhere?  The Institute is affiliated with several other dangerous Christian-right organizations, such as the Campaign Life Coalition (pro-life), the Institute of  Marriage and Family Canada (anti-gay, pro-"normal", nuclear family), Real Women of Canada (women belong in the home) and notably, the Canada Family Action Coalition. Why is this group notable? Well because their president had a hand in the creation and defending of this advertisement and the campaign behind it. And their president is?

If you haven't heard the name Dr. Charles McVety you probably should. The link I've provided is to his Wikipedia page, which is rife with disturbing factoids. He is the leader of the movement to repeal Canada's same-sex marriage laws. The CBC calls him "one of the most powerful leaders of the Christian Right in Canada". You can read on to find out about McVetys' close, personal ties to our Supreme Overlord, Herr Harper. That's right. He's the head of the powerful Christian right that sways most, if not all of our Prime Ministers' decisions.

I hope that longtime readers of mine are noticing the patterns. It's always the same players, isn't it? An anti-gay, anti-trans, pro-gender stereotype advertisement gets printed in a right-wing Canadian newspaper, a paper that boasts such columnists as Rex Murphy(!) and Ezra Levant, a paper, with former ties to Sun Media, who launched a right-wing, pro-Conservative news network that was partially funded and green-lighted by our Conservative government, led by Stephen Harper, who has his strings pulled by the evangelical Christian-right, led by Charles McVety, just as Stockwell Day and Preston Mannings' strings were pulled before Harper. We all watch with wide eyes and fear the ultra right wing Tea Party in the United States, but it's time to realize that we have a Tea Party here in Canada, too.... and they have a majority fucking government. As long as the Conservatives stay in power, the Christian-right will rule this country. They'll keep taking rights and freedoms away from already oppressed groups and the money will keep going to big corporations. The people will suffer more and more. Women will suffer. Children will suffer. Gays and lesbians and transgender people will suffer. First Nations and Aboriginal people will suffer. Muslims will suffer. Basically everyone who isn't an evangelical white, hetero, Christian male will suffer. It's already started. And if Harper is allowed to pass his homeland security laws, even peaceful protestors will be rounded up and arrested as "possible terrorist threats". They're already building the jails. They know that the population won't stand for his totalitarian rule for much longer.

Banning children from Human Rights Education, especially LGBTQ studies only serves to foster the hatred and negative stereotypes that can be eliminated only by exactly this type of education. Other parts of the world have come so far as accepting, tolerant societies and yet we continue to slide backwards, faster every day. If your ideal Canada isn't a place where our LGBTQ neighbors have to hide who they are, and women have roles outside housewife and baby-factory, it's time to get organized. 

UPDATE:

Seems like Tim Hudak and the Ontario Conservatives read the National Post. They've come out with a very similar ad campaign to slam the Liberals with, saying that a 'Liberal education curriculum will corrupt the moral fiber of our children and make them gay or whatever..... blah fart blah'... anyways, see if you can't see the similarities between the two ads, and read why Hudak is defending his ad campaign here.    

Image originally found here.