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Loading ...Gay Tory quits Cdn campaign amid controversy
09.22.2008 4:54pm EDT
(Ottawa) The Conservative candidate running against Liberal Bob Rae in downtown Toronto has abruptly dropped out of the race as his online musings about gays, women, and guns became public.
The openly gay Chris Reid, who was running in Toronto Center, resigned because he couldn’t commit to serving four years in government, said Tory spokeswoman Deirdra McCracken.But the Liberals claim Reid quit because of controversial comments in his blog, where he allegedly promoted carrying concealed weapons for personal protection.
“It’s the only proven way to reduce violent crime and murder,” the blogger wrote.
“If women and gays really wanted to stop being victims of hate crimes, they’d be in support of this, but judging from discussions, they’d rather be helpless and rely on government.”
Reid alleged penned a mini right-wing manifesto in an Internet posting dated May 30, under the banner, Political Thoughts From a Gay Conservative.
The blog touched on bread and butter conservative issues, such as taxation and Senate reform, but then he veered into more controversial policies.
Among other things, it called for the elimination of the CBC, amending the federal Broadcast Act “to eliminate left-wing bias” and ending ‘’state-funded multiculturalism.”
The Tories distanced themselves from Reid’s online writing and pointed out that he is no longer a candidate.
A Conservative spokesman noted that the Liberals, Greens, and NDP have all lost candidates to controversy during this campaign.
“I don’t think this is an affliction that is at all unique to any one political party,” said spokesman Kory Teneycke.
He also described Reid as a no-hope candidate in the first place.
“It’s safe to say Toronto-Centre is not a target seat for the Conservative party,” Teneycke said.
“It’s a very challenging riding for us. Those challenging ridings sometimes are challenging also in terms of the candidates you attract.”
At the same moment Teneyche was trying to stamp out this latest fire, the Conservatives named David Gentili on their website as the party’s new candidate in Toronto-Centre.
For his part, Bob Rae said he agreed the Conservatives have faced challenges in recruiting “quality” candidates.
“The real story here is the kind of people Mr. Harper has chosen to be his candidates,” Rae said in an interview from Vancouver.
He said the Conservatives must be held to account for the “fiction” that Reid stepped down because he wasn’t prepared for the time commitment of being a federal politician.
“It’s just about the most patently ludicrous explanation for firing a candidate I’ve ever heard,” said former Liberal leadership contender.
Within hours of the Reid controversy erupting, the Tories launched a counterattack, demanding Stephane Dion to account for comments from Liberal candidate Rebecca Finch in Dufferin-Caledon.
A release from the party attributed several inflammatory comments to Finch on the website metaball, suggesting that she has compared Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
She is alleged to have said that Canada’s “new” government - as the Conservatives referred to themselves early in their mandate - “eats babies” and “injects them with drugs in exchange for votes.”
If women and gays need guns for protection, how about uppities… thats what LCR Sammon says OBAMA is an uppity.
Weill we know where that is going? So now we do have the U-word, too.
Being against multiculturalism and pluralism seems to have become the meme of choice for LGBT conservatives. Or to put it in more succinct terms, they’re trying to use racism as a wedge issue.
We apparently have to vote for the right-wing because only enlightened and civilized “white” people are gay tolerant. The only thing standing between the queer community and those scary African, Asian, and Middle Eastern immigrants are…the Tories? The Christian Democrats? The Republicans?
Notwithstanding the fact that the majority of violent anti-gay hate crimes are committed by white males, this is utter rubbish. These are the same conservatives who’ve spent the last four decades opposing gay rights on the grounds that decadent, immoral homosexuals were a “threat” to the very Western values that they’re trying to sell as “more tolerant” today. It is a completely absurd and intellectually disingenuous argument.
I think he’s right. Gays & Women have to learn to stand up for ourselves. I abhorr the victim mentality.
I am a coastal liberal, and I strongly believe in the right to bear arms and believe in concealed weapons. A person is much less likely to attack you if they fear you may be armed. The police don’t do anything, usually, and they only come after the fact. It’s up to the populace to protect itself.
Matt that may be true in the USA but here in Canada we call that type of thinking crazy.
Just read the article - the TORIES dropped this guy!
This story illustrates how extreme political dogmatism has become in Canada.
What, pray tell, is wrong with self-defense? If a woman, LGBT person or someone else who is physically vulnerable or especially subject to hate attacks faces an imminent threat in a parking lot at noon or a street corner at night and no police officer is in sight, why shouldn’t they have the means to protect their lives and bodies?
In reply to John, the problem with multiculturalism is not immigrants committing hate crimes–as he notes, these are mainly done by whites. The problem is that multiculturalism attacks the very idea of having a unifying national culture into which people can integrate, whether Canada-born or immigrants. The result is isolation, alienation, lack of trust–and, ironically, more racism.
Skin color does not make people Canadian. Sharing a common culture does.
Not talking about a subject helps nobody.