FREAK(S) OF THE WEEK: The Conservative Party of Canada

This week, there was so much freakiness attached to one issue that the FredBlog had no choice but to shine its freaklight on not just one person, but the entire Conservative Party of Canada for getting a little too excited about a photo of drag queens.

By now, you know the story – if not, see the posting from July 8 below. As you will see, there are just way too many freaks involved to point to just one. So this week’s freaks include:

·      Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He’s the one who disciplined Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy for granting less than $400,000 of government money to Pride Toronto. Ablonczy was doing nothing more than her job; in fact, she deserves credit for doing her job without regard to partisanship or ideology. Shame on Harper for kowtowing to Canada’s radical anti-gay right and punishing her.

·      Saskatchewan MP Brad Trost. He’s the one whose head spun around regarding Albonczy getting her picture taken with drag queens. As he told the far right-wing website LifeSiteNews.com, “The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it’s safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs.” Actually, Brad, it IS government policy to support tourist events like Pride, even if it makes you and your minions uncomfortable.

·      M.B. Callaghan of Toronto. There was much public reaction to the Pride funding fiasco, and most of the letters to the editor in the Toronto Star slammed the Conservatives for their crass political pandering. Still, too many people’s sentiments matched Callaghan’s, whose nonsensical letter stated, “It makes perfect sense to discipline Diane Ablonczy for authorizing federal money for a Gay Pride Parade. Surely, if gays had to pay for it themselves, they’d give it up. But if they parade it, it could look like fun to schoolchildren. Imagine – streets full of children behind a gay piper. How could Toronto go Conservative after that?”

·      Divers/Cité executive director Suzanne Girard. Amazingly, the head of the organization behind Montreal’s largest LGBT festival actually DEFENDED the Conservatives on this front. As the Canadian Press reported it, Girard simply “blamed right-wing fringe elements for unfairly trying to embarrass the Conservatives and cause problems for events like hers” (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090708/national/tories_gay_festivals). That may be, but if Harper is willing to give in to these “fringe elements,” then Harper’s actions are indefensible.

·      Minister of Transport John Baird. Some Conservatives have had the fortitude and common sense to criticize Harper for punishing Ablonczy. But closet-case Baird is not one of them. Even former MP Monte Solberg – who is himself on the far right – wrote on his blog: “The truth is that, for better or worse, the Conservative government has provided grants for this kind of thing in the past. … [Ablonczy] deserves better than to be ratted out by a colleague on an issue that is a complete loser for the party.” As the Toronto Star editorialized, “Shame on other senior Conservatives for not adding their voices to [Solberg’s].” So, shame on John Baird, who has no problem being out in Toronto’s Gay Village – the site of the now-controversial Pride parade – but yet stays silent while on Parliament Hill.

FREAKINESS = SARAH PALIN

What would the week be without some form of freakiness from our favorite soon-to-be-former-Alaska-governor, Sarah Palin.

To begin with, she made fashion news for her press conference in hip waders. (Did the Republican Party pay for THOSE too?)

She also continued to explain how quitting her job doesn’t make her a quitter. Because, y’know, in her world, “quitting” means “leading.”

But the best Palin freakiness was her attempt to be all, like, intellectual and such as. You see, she’s been tweeting a lot lately – guess she has more time to devote to Twitter since giving up her day job. One day last week, she gave specific advice to children:

·      “So AK Kids: take time to take your parents fishing: ‘You learn more about a person in an hour than in a year of conversation’ – Plato”

Wow, how impressive, right? She’s quoting Plato. One problem though – Plato never said this!

In fact, it’s credited to author Richard Lindgard in an etiquette guide from 1670! That’s a helluva lot later than Plato’s time. (Or maybe to Palin, everything before Ronald Reagan is just one big blur.)

Worse yet, the actual quote does not reference fishing, but GAMBLING! “If you would read a man’s disposition, see his game,” the quote reads. “You will then learn more of him in one hour, than in seven years conversation.”

So Sarah, better to quit the literary quoting and just stick to your day job. Oh wait, too late.

Hard-right anti-gay Conservatives 1, Moderates 0

When it comes to Canadian Conservatives reaching out to the gay community, it’s one step forward then two steps back.

Even I was surprised this week after I read that the ruling Conservatives had given almost $400,000 to Toronto’s Pride Week as a way of bolstering Toronto and its Pride celebration as tourist destinations. I was even more surprised when I learned that Tourism Minister Diane Ablonczy – a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Calgary cabal – traveled to Toronto to deliver the check personally.

Pride Toronto, the event’s governing organization, happily accepted the check – in part as a way of showing that Pride is not partisan.

So this was a good news story all around. Right?

Well, it WAS until the right-wing extremists in the Conservative Party went berserk about the government giving money to a gay event.

But what was Ablonczy’s worst offense, according to some? Horror of horrors, she had her picture taken with drag queens!

The result? Ablonczy has been disciplined. Prime Minister Harper stripped her of her power to announce tourism investments (even though she’s the minister of tourism), and she’s been muzzled from talking to the media.

Brad Trost, a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, was reportedly the first to have his head spin over the site of Ablonczy and drag queens. He told the far right-wing website LifeSiteNews.com, “The pro-life and the pro-family community should know and understand that the tourism funding money that went to the gay pride parade in Toronto was not government policy, was not supported by – I think it’s safe to say by a large majority – of the MPs.”

In response to inquiries from the Toronto Star, a government spokesperson said, “I know that certainly there’s going to be folks who have their concerns and they’ve raised those concerns with us. … We’re listening.”

An unnamed source in the party told the Star: “The TV shots of [Ablonczy] with transvestites inflamed some people.”

Wait a minute. All this “inflamed some people”? And the Conservatives say, “We’re listening”? Real nice for a party that has been trying to hoodwink moderates into thinking it’s not the scary right-wing party it used to be when it was called the Reform Party.

Kudos to Ablonczy for putting partisanship and wedge politics aside in order to honor what she reportedly called Pride Toronto’s “polished and professional” application. Besides, government investment in Pride celebrations is nothing new – in Toronto, both the city and the province support the event, one of the city’s biggest tourism income generators.

In the end, what this Conservative kerfuffle means is simple. Like the Republican Party in the U.S., the Conservative Party of Canada – despite moderates in its ranks – is still beholden to right-wing extremists whose exclusionary ideas and wedge-issue politics are far outside the mainstream.