Does support for Decarie uphold concept of freedom?
By Letter to the Editor on January 31, 2020.
It was reported last week (Jan. 24) in the Globe and Mail that our MP, Rachael Harder, noting that the Tories are “a party that believes in freedom,” maintains that prospective Conservative leadership candidate Richard Decarie should be allowed to run, thus leaving it up to party members to decide accordingly.
His assertion that the abbreviation LGBTQ is a “Liberal term” and that being gay “is a choice” is not cause for his removal from the race, at least according to Harder and like-minded Conservative MPs. This opinion is in contrast to several other members of the Conservative party and most of the opposition.
I am not suggesting for one minute that Decarie is but if he were an anti-Semite viewing the Holocaust as an elaborate hoax, would our MP and the others have stepped up and supported his quest for leadership – in the interest of maintaining their party’s concept of “freedom”?
John P. Nightingale
Lethbridge
7-6
And then there are folks strongly affiliated within the Conservative Party of Canada such as Kory Teneycke, “former Director of Communications in the Prime Minister’s Office under Stephen Harper, and more recently, campaign manager for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party during the 2018 Ontario election.” When being interviewed on CBC’s Power & Politics recently, he actually stated, clearly, that Decarie stating that being gay is a “choice’ was crossing the line into bigotry. He also stated, clearly, that Decarie should, not, be allowed to run.
So the Conservative Party of Canada is troubled by this divide within the party. It is part and parcel of what got them defeated in the October election. There is the thing though with retaining, and not alienating, the christian right wing social conservative votes who do agree with Decarie. So “leaving it to party members to decide accordingly,” could be described as ‘the easy way out.’
It remains as to whether those who are screening the Conservative leadership candidates will allow Decarie to run and risk the ongoing, probable harmful, display of this sentiment, with regard to votes across, and in other parts, of the country.
excellent letter, jpn, and you pose a valid comparison. mind you, what the lgbtq community lacks is the power of the likes of b’nai brith to shut down any conversation that can be spun as critical of jewish people, zionism/israel. i prefer open dialogue – without hate – so as to bring light to where lies and ignorance fester. if a party feels its members, let alone most prominent members, should include the ignorant, the hater, the unenlightened, well that is part of freedom – so long as the rights of no one are abridged. the curious thing is: in a free society, one should have the right to do with their body as they wish, so long as the rights of another are not impeded upon. so my question, then, is the con party of canada opposed to true freedom, or just to freedom that it does not prefer? why does it matter – why is it even a point of a stupid debate – as to whether lgbtq is a choice or is a consequence of creation?
And mild-mannered Erin O’Toole’s campaign manager is Jeff Ballingall (aptly named) who started all the influential “proud boy” facebook pages (also Post Millennial.)
Regardless of which strategy they arrive at in order to keep sucking and blowing as if we don’t know who they are and what they’re doing, more people now truly despise them.
I read an article this morning describing one of their most successful strategies for voter suppression being to defile the opponent so much that people just turn away and don’t even bother voting. Unique to them with what is now their trademark nastiness.