Editor:
Re: Pride’s goal not yet achieved,
July 26
The editorial on this subject in support of the LGBTQ2 community is a narrow view of what has happened over the last several years. You say that this particular community is persecuted and we’re making progress but we’re not there yet.
In fact, not only are they no longer significantly persecuted, they have achieved a level of immunity to criticism that most groups would envy. You say they are not asking for preferential treatment, they just want to be treated like everyone else. This is patently untrue.
Yes, there may be some isolated cases of abuse by people who themselves have no sense of equilibrium, but to criticize any of the actions of this group is, as the journalist Rex Murphy has written, “journalistic kryptonite.”
The litany of bogus human rights cases and lawsuits against anyone or any organization (usually, but not always, faith-based) is unending. Christian bakers who don’t want to bake cakes that say they support same sex marriage. Small business owners who refuse to do a Brazilian wax on male genitalia by someone who identifies as female.
A campaign against a church who refuses to rent out a hall to a gay group, when that group already knew in advance that their faith statement would never allow it and would offend their conscience. It costs untold amounts of private and taxpayer money and personal grief to defend oneself against these assaults. And they are mostly specious setups. And why do they do it? Because they can. Because no one wants the vitriol they will receive by raising any objection. And they know it. The most persecuted groups around the world today are, in fact, faith-based groups.
This is not a campaign for equality, it’s a vendetta to achieve dominance (the SOGI campaign in elementary schools is a government sponsored case in point).
You wrote: “Not everyone agrees with the symbolic gesture [of raising a pride flag at city hall] and not everyone has to.
That’s one of the tenets of living in a free and democratic society.” If that’s true then why the interminable tribunals and lawsuits and re-education programs that, intended or not, target groups who are not allowed to believe what they believe.
Before we are silenced in any criticism of a Pride flag, it is a good idea to remember what a flag represents. The Canadian flag flies higher than all other flags in Canada (with the current exception in White Rock) because it represents the sovereignty of Canada. So what does this unending push for the predominance of LGBTQ2 signs, flags, crosswalks etc. represent?
Phillip Kinnie, Surrey