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Loading ...Pride Bans Gay Soldiers
06.20.2008 5:00pm EDT
(Hamilton, Ontario) Gays and lesbians have been part of the Canadian military since 1992 when the armed forces lifted its ban on gays from serving.
But this year military gays were noticeably absent in Hamilton.
Hamilton Pride Festival banned the Canadian military over what it says are human rights violations in countries where the armed forces are serving – notably Afghanistan and Haiti.
The festival says it made the decision after receiving a complaint from a new Canadian who said she feared the military because of persecution by Canadian officers in her homeland.
The pride festival barred a contingent of gay soldiers from marching in the parade and has blocked the military from setting up a recruitment booth.
Emily Groom, the festival’s co-chair told the Canadian Press that the organization has the right not to affiliate itself with institutions that perhaps may raise human rights concerns.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense said that no Canadian officers have ever been charged with human rights abuses in any country where the military is serving.
That a Gay Pride organising committee would exclude GLBT Military Officers from marching in a Gay Pride parade because they are part of the Military–and based on the unfounded, unproven, and un-true (as per DND) “complaint” from a single new Canadian–is really, really rich! This is equivalent to banning all Gay police because one officer might have been involved in a brutality incident; or banning all Black people because three black teens beat the hell out of a white boy one night. This is outrageous. Every single GLBT organisation in Hamilton should have banded together in solidarity and boycotted the pride festivities entirely–or better yet, called for the resignation of the entire organising committee. What a disgrace. Talk about discrimination! Talk about gay “rights”! Shame!
As a Canadian , I disagree with the decision of Hamilton’s Pride organizers to exclude military representatives from participating in their parade. Fears expressed by “one new Canadian” are hardly grounds for such action. ‘New’ Canadians are often from countries which murder homosexuals routinely , and they must understand that they have no reason whatsoever to fear our military on home soil , or anywhere.Excluding them simply feeds into the unjustified fears.