Telling the Truth is Anti-Gay

So Russ Kuykendall was going to run for the Wild Rose Party in Alberta, Canada in the Calgary-Varsity riding for the provincial election. About 8 years ago he wrote an article stating he was unhappy about a gay pride brunch being held in a Catholic church, almost certainly against the will of the church.

 

In his blog, he wrote: "The message that appears to be sent to Catholic Christians who don't accept this 'lifestyle' as acceptable is that 'equality' means that gay activists can take their agenda not just to your front door, but inside the door to places that are consecrated to the Catholic faith."

 

There is nothing offensive in this comment unless the truth is offensive. A gay pride group forcibly held a meeting on the premises of a group that is morally opposed to the actions the gay pride group condones, forcing the church to act against its will and to violate its moral convictions. Kuykendall is just pointing out his opposition to this. But because he is unhappy about it, it’s of course “anti-gay”. Ah yes, the popular catch-all phrase which allows people to bypass that pesky thing called the truth and silence anyone who opposes them!

 

So anyway, because of his non-hateful comments, Kuykendall is banned from running for the Wild Rose Party. I don’t have any issue with this in principle. A party should be able to accept or reject any members it wants. The problem is people’s knee-jerk reaction to things like this to call them “anti-gay”. It’s like if someone published a flyer saying gay men are attracted to other men, that would be considered hate speech even though it’s factually true.

 

Another similar issue is calling something which could be used to discriminate against any group of people “anti-gay” as if they were the only group that mattered.

 

Instead of backing down from things like this, people need to stand up for themselves. If someone is opposed to a gay group holding a meeting in a church of all places, they shouldn’t be forced to retract that comment or make an apology. You can apologize when something is false.