Free Speech My Ass!

Last Updated on: 17th September 2013, 08:57 pm

Ok, time to go off on a little bit of a rant here because something I read just a few minutes ago pissed me off quite a bit and if you’ve got any sort of sense, it should piss you off too when I tell you what happened.

This week the city that I live in here in Canada held what was supposed to be a debate on same sex marriages. Remember the word debate, it becomes important.

The gathering, which took place at one of the local senior’s centres featured a couple of guest speakers. There was a guy from the Catholic Civil Rights League [which is somewhat of a contradiction in itself when you really stop and think about it], and a woman from a pro life and pro traditional family organization, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Among the 200 people or so who turned out to watch and participate in this event was a gay man named Kevin who seemingly figured that the word debate meant the same thing that I thought it did. Problem is that when he tried to participate in the “free speech” that was supposed to be a theme for the night’s proceedings his microphone was cut off and 2 police officers escorted him out of the building.

I shouldn’t even have to tell you what’s wrong with this picture or why it makes me so upset. And before you get any ideas, no, I’m not gay but I don’t hold a grudge against anybody who chooses to live that way. It’s obvious that this debate was a sham from the get go, designed only to allow religious pundits and conservative activist groups to further their own agendas. That in itself I have less of a problem with than the fact that it was city police, who are supposed to represent the public, that were responsible for removing this man from the building. These people are being paid with public funds and are responsible for upholding the laws of the people who provide that money. Am I to seriously assume that just because the guy happens to be gay that he is therefore not part of the public? That’s a completely ridiculous logical leap to have to make and I refuse to do so. Before he was removed from the building Kevin managed to make the point that he felt like a second class citizen and no more clearly was that point driven home to him than by public officials. Thanks guys.

The least that the organizers of this event could have done was hire private security to deal with the removal of “trouble makers.” It wouldn’t have made removing the guy any more acceptable but at least it wouldn’t be something that will now hang over the head of the city that I have to call home. And taking the word debate out of the whole thing would have helped too, since at least then people who dared oppose the popular view of the evening would have known that they weren’t welcomed there.

Got thoughts?

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