A joke is a very serious thing. — Winston Churchill

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Recently, I learned that a popular radio show in Toronto, the Dean Blundell Show was cancelled. Allegedly because of jokes aired about the trial of a man accused of sexual assaults on three men he met in a gay bathhouse. Dean Blundell is a shock jock. A shock jock is “a type of radio broadcaster or disc jockey who entertains listeners or attracts attention using humour and melodramatic exaggeration that a notable portion of the listening audience may find offensive.” (Wikipedia) The Dean Blundell Show was apparently very popular; it was on the air for the past thirteen years. Many listeners are dismayed at its cancellation. Ultimately, the decision to cancel the show rested with the owners of the radio station. In announcing their decision, this was the reason given: “The station will return to a more music-based format showcasing the best in modern rock. As a result, The Dean Blundell Show has been cancelled, effective January 6, 2014,” said Dave Farough, the General Manager of Corus Radio Toronto, which oversees the Blundell program. (as cited in CBC News Toronto) Continue reading →

“If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.” ― Benjamin Franklin

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The 2014 Rose Bowl Parade included a float “Love Is the Best Protection,” sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The reasoning behind the inclusion of the float, according to Ged Kenslea, Foundation President, is, “by showing the dream of lesbians and gay men fulfilled, the float is perfect with this year’s Rose Parade theme of ‘Dreams Come True.’” (as cited in Breitbart) The decision to include the float drew a mixed response. One impassioned response comes from a woman who was deeply offended. Angela Wingenroth offered the following comment:

“We don’t care what the states say about it — God is clear that this isn’t right and I will NOT have this SHOVED DOWN MY CHILDREN’S THROATS!! The intolerance is theirs. They will not accept peoples’ objections to their lifestyle — you HAVE to accept that it’s not just ok, but GOOD or you’re a bigot! If they want to get ‘married,’ that’s their choice, but my kids don’t need to see it.” (as cited in American Power)

I expect this is what she was told to think by her pastor and various anti-gay commentators about the fact that gay people are being granted full civil rights in US society. Still, I wonder who, if anyone, called this woman a bigot for feeling this way. Continue reading →

“You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.” ― John Morley, On Compromise

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There has been a great deal of heated discussion recently concerning an organization called GLAAD. GLAAD was founded in New York City in 1985 “… to protest against what it saw as the New York Post’s defamatory and sensationalized AIDS coverage, GLAAD put pressure on media organizations to end what it saw as homophobic reporting.” (Wikipedia) In 2012 GLAAD founded the Commentator Accountability Project (CAP). GLAAD maintains the purpose of CAP is to give a public airing of what various anti-gay commentators are saying and have said when they are not speaking through the mainstream media. Critics in the United States, generally those anti-gay commentators singled out in CAP and their supporters, accuse GLAAD of trying to impose censorship, that is, to stifle 1st Amendment guarantees of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. As a gay man, the anti-gay commentary GLAAD brings to light concerns me. I agree it needs to be challenged. However, censorship is an issue that resonates with me also, as I am a librarian and as such have a mandate to uphold intellectual freedom and freedom of expression. Continue reading →

Apologies for the White Privilege. I can’t help it. ― T.J. Bowes

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It is Christmas morning and I am just in from a morning dog run with my friend and hunting buddy, Jason Quinn, his dog Nos and my dog Hera. As I was driving home, I started thinking about a concept I see used quite liberally in discussions over the blogosphere, namely, white privilege. The term, white privilege, is defined as follows:

the set of societal privileges that white people benefit from beyond those commonly experienced by people of color in the same social, political, or economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). The term denotes both obvious and less obvious unspoken advantages that white individuals may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice […] It can be compared and/or combined with the concept of male privilege. (Wikipedia)

As a white man from a family with solid working class roots, I can honestly say I never stopped to think about the fact that I have a white skin or that in having a white skin somehow endows with me with privileges that are denied those with a different skin colour. Continue reading →

Political correctness does not legislate tolerance; it only organizes hatred. — Jacques Barzun

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Claude Hamilton Gresham, Jr. (June 21, 1922 – February 18, 2008), better known as Grits Gresham, was an avid sportsman and naturalist and a first-rate outdoor writer and broadcaster. I have many of his books in my library collection and his videos on duck and goose hunting. I have a great many books on hunting in my library collection from many different authors. Still, in my opinion, his book on waterfowl hunting, The Complete Wildfowler, is the finest ever written on the subject. He was from rural South Carolina and highly educated with a bachelor of science and master of science degrees, with a specialty in forestry and wildlife management, from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He made his home in Louisiana and is remembered by Robert J. Barham, the Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and a former Republican member of the Louisiana State Senate who recalled, “as a child, I got to meet him and be around him. He was just so easy to be around. Grits was nothing like the television celebrities of today. People were drawn to him. He made them feel at ease … he made me feel at ease, and I was just a child. … There will never be another like him.” (as cited in Wikipedia) Continue reading →

Bridegroom A Love Story, Unequaled

A person’s sexuality is so much more than one word “gay.” No one refers to anyone as just “hetero” because that doesn’t say anything. Sexual identity is broader than a label. — Gus Van Sant

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Recently the question came to mind as to why so many religious folk and social conservatives hold such a prurient fixation on what they imagine goes on in other people’s bedrooms. Sex is a part of every conjugal relationship: gay and straight. Sex is natural, a part of living and to enjoy. Sodomy laws, as they were called, were repealed in Canada in 1969. Then Minister of Justice Pierre Elliott Trudeau famously declaring in 1967, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” (CBC Digital Archives) Sodomy laws were repealed across the United States as of 2003 when U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, ruled that the state could not single out gay people for harassment and discriminatory treatment simply “because of ‘moral disapproval’ of homosexuality. He wrote of ‘respect’ for same-sex couples and warned that ‘the state cannot demean their existence,’ describing same-sex relationships as a ‘personal bond’ involving much more than just sex. Kennedy also wrote that reducing same-sex couples to ‘sex partners,’ as anti-gay organizations often do, is offensive in the same way that describing a husband and wife as nothing more than sex partners would be offensive.” (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) Continue reading →

“Capitalism itself is not to be condemned. And surely it is not vicious of its very nature, but it has been vitiated.” — Pope Pius XI (1857-1939)

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God. — Richard Rohr.

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Some years ago while I ordered lunch at a restaurant in the food court at the University Centre, at the university where I work, I asked the young man serving me if he and his family celebrated the Day of the Dead. I had gotten to know him a little in snippets of conversation we had during times he served me, and I learned he was from Mexico. He replied that they did not as this was a Catholic custom, adding, in referring to himself and his family, “we’re Christian.” I was startled by the remark, though it was not the first time I was confronted with this point of view. The first time I remember being confronted by someone with this attitude toward Roman Catholicism was when I was in my first year at university. I was introduced to people from different Christian denominations on campus and at a meet and greet I was speaking to a man who asked to which church I was a member. When I told him I was a Roman Catholic, he retorted “I used to be Catholic, but now I am a Christian.” Later during my years at university, I was given a book by an acquaintance who was forever trying to get me to join his Church, the title escapes me, but it was the account of a Pentecostal Christian and the subtitle was a young Catholic encounters Christ. Continue reading →