NAL Pride Kathleen Wynne,
As Toronto Celebrates Pride Week, Ontario’s First Openly Gay Premier Celebrates Province As A ‘Place Of ‘Fairness And Opportunity’
(A Brief Note from NAL publisher Doug Draper – If someone were to say two decades ago that today Ontario would not only have a female premier, but the first openly gay premier in Canada, I may have said; ‘Maybe British Columbia or Quebece, but small c-conservative Ontario? I don’t think so. Well, here we are and NAL is posting the following message, circulated this last week of June 2013, for our readers thoughts and comments)
An Open Letter from Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne
When I ran for the leadership of this party, some people asked if Ontario was ready for an openly gay Premier. I said that the people of Ontario judge each other on their merits and their ideas, not according to race or religion or sexual identity.
And now, as communities across the province celebrate Pride, I know I was right.
For the past few months, I’ve travelled this great province and met all kinds of people. They want great jobs and vibrant communities. They care about their kids’ education and the needs of their aging parents. They’re interested in new ideas and strong leadership.
We are lucky to live in a province where diversity, acceptance and equality are defining principles. Where everyone is respected and has a chance to do their best.
So as we celebrate Pride, we celebrate Ontario as place of fairness and opportunity. And we dedicate ourselves to protecting those fundamental values for the sake of future generations.
Please share this message so the people of Ontario know that they are my source of pride.
Kathleen
Another NAL footnote – You can click on the following link for information on events for Pride Week in Toronto, including that city’s, super popular (for gays and straights alike) 33rd annual Pride Parade on Sunday, June 20 – http://www.toronto.com/search/?q=pride13 .
(Niagara At Large invites you to join in the conversation by sharing your views on the content of this post below. For reasons of transparency and promoting civil dialogue, NAL only posts comments from individuals who share their first and last name with their views.)
Niagara At Large 
At the expense of becoming a target to those who believe that freedom of speech is only allowed if you agree with everything….. please find the following comment.
NOT that I have been there, but I think everyone is aware of the blatant sexuality that is exhibited at this event. Everything from scantily clad /mostly nude transvestites to sexual acts conducted in public.
Now if any of us straight folk out there conducted ourselves in similar fashion with of course members of the opposite sex, I have reason to believe we would be thrown in jail. Well look at the G8/G20, where all you had to do was sing “Kumbaya” and you were locked up for 2 days (WAY TO GO MISC. POLICE SERVICES, VERY IMPRESSIVE)!
Add to that how certain politicians (except Rob Ford – not that I am a fan but you have to give him credit for taking a stand) cow-tail to special interests in a manner that contravenes what most of us view as behaviour that is inconsistent with well let’s call it certain sensibilities that the rest of us straight folk embrace.
We have had the likes of the late Jack Layton and Bumblin’ Bob Rae parading proudly with their prospective votes wearing their pink hats or pins or maybe pink thongs (now there’s a thought yikes!). Double standards not-withstanding! All the while lending credibility to this event and everything (including the sordid) that this event represents.
You don’t see this kind of behaviour in any of the other parades that are executed across this country. That says a lot I think…..
Now having said all of this, you have to know I am not a gay-basher and that I believe in the right to do whatever you want in the privacy of your own home. However, I that think this parade in its current form is a bit much, representative of blatant special interest pandering and something that belongs somewhere other than in the main streets of one of our largest cities. Maybe if it were a bit more civilized, the objective for this parade would not be lost in all that is let’s say….uncivilized.
I guess there are rules for some and very obviously rules for others.
What’s next? ….. Just askin……
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So our Premier is gay, big deal, I don’t care if she is a space alien, can she deliver the goods, This Province is up the creek without a paddle, and broke,we need somebody with hands on fortitude and stamina to keep the crooks out of the cash register and forge a new vision for our future.,
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From Greg Middleton’s letter:
“Now if any of us straight folk out there conducted ourselves in similar fashion with of course members of the opposite sex, I have reason to believe we would be thrown in jail.”
Well actually Mr. Middleton, we straight folk do conduct ourselves in similar fashion in parades. Do you express comparable concerns about the nearly nude participants in the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, Caribana in Toronto or Carnival in Rio de Janeiro? I’m certainly not assuming that all of the participants are straight, but I’m sure a great number are.
You must be basing your opinion of the parade on photographs and videos that focus mainly on the scantily clad. It’s “good television,” or so they tell us. If you attended the parade, you would see that a huge cross-section of support organizations, including churches and parent groups, are represented. I know this because I have marched with PFLAG Niagara (Parents, Families and Friends and Lesbians and Gays) almost every year since 2005. Most of us in PFLAG chapters dress in sensible footwear, broad-brimmed hats, and comfortable clothing that protects us from the sun. Nothing sexually explicit there, I can assure you. If there are pink thongs being worn by supporters of our group, they are well hidden.
There are many who share your concern about the behaviour in the parade, Mr. Middleton, including some of my friends in the LGBTQ community who believe the parade is not representative of their lives.
But we should never lose sight of the big picture, and that is that many people in the LGBTQ community face persecution, discrimination and marginalization on a daily basis. In some countries they face imprisonment and death. Only this week did our southern neighbour make a leap forward in gay rights with the two SCOTUS decisions.
The parade is a reminder of these injustices. A few years ago, participants wearing black armbands or black tape over their mouths (not a thong in sight) carried the names of countries on placards where being gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans represents a great deal of risk to themselves or to their families. The usually exuberant onlookers became still as this group, sadly much too large, silently walked by.
I’m not sure, Mr. Middleton, if there are rules for some and not for others, but I can say with complete confidence that there are rights for some and not for others.
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The big picture wouldn’t be lost if members of your community didn’t behave the way they did whether it was selective media reporting or not. The fact is that it happen(s)/(ed), there is proof of it and there is no denying it.
With respect to Mardi Gras it has been long regarded as a quasi-gay event hence…. New Orleans! the whole town is a freak show, no?
With respect Carnival…. what do you expect from a 3rd world country.
With respect to Caribana….. I won’t go there both personally and verbally! I will say this.. I have never heard of oral sex being performed on floats in that parade. You know what though. You are probably right nothing would happen because we have another demographic/politically correct/sensibility/special interest challenge here as well which brings me back to my original point.
My comment re: “straight folks conducting” stands because if your a straight person and you decide to hop on a float in a public parade and start whipping it out, the police are dropping the donuts (maybe finishing them first depending on how fast it is going) and putting you in cuffs. Am I wrong?
So maybe, just maybe your group, community whatever you want to call yourselves puts a little distance between yourselves and the kind of behaviour in question perhaps there wouldn’t be as much of a stigma attached to your lifestyle. I have to wonder how far that would go in terms of relationships between the sexes. I’ve lost count how many we have now.
Just sayin…..
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Hear, hear, Joan Wiley. I too have participated years ago in marching with Pflgs, churches, Social Justice groups in this parade. I know from my years ago working in Boston [in a very liberal state] that many of the people I worked with (in the computer field too!) were gay and highly discriminated against. My supervisors, my CEO, and as I later discovered, many of my close colleagues. That was before Stonewall. That was then, and this is now, Mr. Middleton. As a society we have come a long way, but we have ways to go…. I can attest that the Pflags, the Churches, the support groups are often, to quote a journalist “wearing their Tilley hats and baggy shorts” (i.e., of a certain age) the most popular people in the Pride parade. The welcome we receive is absolutely heartwarming, affirming.
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Tomorrow looks like a lovely day for a parade. Please don’t rain on it. Mr. Middleton.
‘Our community’ is a community across all nations – churchgoers and secular humanists, parents of children, sons and daughters of men and women, aged folk in all cultures, oppressed for decades, if not more. We are not homogenous — all colours, creeds, ethnicity, ages, all political ‘persuasions.’ Our neighbours are post office workers, IT specialists, journalists, police personnel, librarians, and on and on. You name it. We know it. We believe in the rights of all human beings to be treated with respect, by our neighbours, our country[men], our families, and all humankind.
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