Tag Archives: Canada

So, I’m a big Second Amendment fan but I think most politicians are cowards when it comes to defending why we have a Second Amendment. — Charlie Kirk

The murder weapon used in the killing of Charlie Kirk was a Mauser bolt-action rifle in 30-06 with a scope, a make and model of hunting rifle commonly used in North America. I have several left-hand bolt-action rifles topped with scopes in my collection in various calibres. I use them for hunting small game, varmints and big game. I occasionally visit the rifle range to ensure the rifles are sighted in before hunting. I am a good shot. When you choose to kill a game animal, you want to place the bullet in its vital area to ensure a quick, humane death. The suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk, I will not mention his name, allegedly shot Mr. Kirk in the neck from a distance of two hundred yards. I have no idea of the suspect’s history with guns or whether he was a good shot. Regardless, he succeeded in mortally wounding Charlie Kirk with either a well-placed or a lucky shot. Of course, that is reprehensible. When a hunting rifle is used in a homicide, inevitably, some people blame the rifle, guns and gun owners in general. There is an expectation that I should rethink being a gun owner and hunter because someone used a hunting gun to commit murder.

Continue reading →

I also survived circumcision, a barbaric practice designed to remind you as early as possible that your genitals are not your own. — George Carlin

Leave a reply

I learned what male genital cutting was in high school in health class. The teacher handed out mimeographed copies of pages from a textbook that had crude illustrations. He did this by mistake and hurriedly told us to ignore them, but the cat was out of the bag. Once I knew what it was, I began to think about it. I finally understood why other boys I knew over the years, particularly when I lived in England in the late 1960s with my family, looked different. A couple of years later, while one of my aunts visited, a news story came on the television about male genital cutting. She spoke up about how it could not be done to her firstborn son at birth because of complications following his birth, and that they never saw the need for it later. She had a second son years later, and he was left intact. I remember how pained my father looked when she related that to us. My mother was absent from the conversation, leaving the impression that she was behind it for my brother and me. As I grew older, I came to deeply resent what was done to me.

Continue reading →

It is a great plague to be too handsome a man. — Plautus

Leave a reply

When I first viewed the photo, the portrait of the two young men struck me. Initially, I could not quite place why, but then it dawned on me. In the summer of 1980, I was a reservist in the Canadian Army. I served in the 30th Field Artillery Regiment based in Ottawa. It was the summer following my graduation from high school and before my enrollment at Queen’s University in Kingston. I went to Canadian Forces Base Petawawa to work as a driver in a transportation company through July and August. I worked with young men from other regiments who were posted there, too–we were in our late teens and early twenties.

Continue reading →

I am the Love that Dare not Speak its Name. ― Alfred B. Douglas

Leave a reply

This self-portrait, taken in Havelock, New Brunswick, shows the simplicity of the intimacy shared by Leonard Olive Keith (1891-1950) and Joseph Austin “Cub” Coates (1899-1965), who lived and loved in the first half of the 20th century. They were two men in love in Canada when male homosexuality was a crime in Canadian law, and public prejudice against male homosexuality was openly expressed. It was as simple as it is in the present. Some men are romantically and sexually attracted to men. It is a natural expression of human sexual attraction and behaviour. To those who knew and loved them, they were Len and Cub, a homosexual couple. To those who reviled male homosexuals, they were beneath contempt. They were what we call normal gays in the 21st century. Len was a harness racing driver who opened a garage after serving as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I. Cub was a mechanic who served as an engineer in the Canadian Army in World War I and volunteered for service in the Canadian Army in World War II. They were ordinary men who had a sense of duty, served their King and country as volunteers in the Great War, and found love and companionship in each other’s company. Despite their discretion, suspicion over their relationship in Havelock drove them apart in the 1920s. Len moved to the United States, where he lived out his days. Cub married in 1940. That fate was not unusual for gay men in Canada in the 20th century.

Continue reading →

A sound discretion is not so much indicated by never making a mistake as by never repeating it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Leave a reply

Life for gay youth in the Heartstopper universe is generally reasonable. The protagonists, Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring—Nick is bisexual, and Charlie is gay—find each other and become boyfriends despite elements of antigay prejudice that linger. They initially feel the need for discretion in their relationship. Naturally, they yearn for privacy also. The scene where Nick’s mum walked in on them as they got close and personal in Nick’s room illustrated the point. It made me think of what life was like for me as a young gay man in the 1980s. I was a student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in the first half of the 1980s. It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and gay men were the most affected. There was a moral panic; people did not know for sure how HIV was transmitted and feared exposure to the virus. It was seen as a gay plague, something that gay men brought on themselves for their unprincipled ways. Trust me, it was not a good time to be a gay man. Discretion was necessary because the consequences would be dire if you were outed.

Continue reading →

There’s this illusion that homosexuals have sex and heterosexuals fall in love. That’s completely untrue. Everybody wants to be loved. — Boy George

1 Reply

I recall when I was in university in 1982. I enrolled in a film studies class, and one of the films we watched was Pagan Rhapsody. There is a scene in the film where two men play a sex scene. Though the scene was as vanilla as possible–there was kissing and a little friendly groping (nothing graphic)–the student audience’s vocal expressions of disgust were notable. In 2024, male homosexuality was generally accepted as a natural expression of human intimacy and treated with sensitivity in film and television. Netflix series such as Young Royals and Heartstopper feature a gay romance and intimacy between high school boys in a way that leaves something to the viewers’ imagination. Both series are immensely popular with younger viewers. Things have changed since the screening of Pagan Rhapsody in 1982. Still, when it comes to public perceptions of intimacy between gay men, there are a lot of people who have an unsavoury fixation on what they imagine goes on when two men are intimate. I get expressions of disgust in the comments on blog posts I write on gay rights advocacy, where people say things like, “There’s nothing more disgusting than two men fucking each other in the ass,” and “Cocksucking is not a men’s issue.” I mean, that is beyond the pale.

Continue reading →

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana

Leave a reply

I am watching a Spanish Netflix series called Merli: Sapere Aude, and it is excellent. It is a dramedy, and the plot revolves around the protagonist, a young man named Pol Rubio, played by a fine young Spanish actor named Carlos Cuevas. Pol is a young man in his first year of studies in philosophy at a university in Barcelona. He has a bisexual orientation, and though he favours men, he does have dalliances with women occasionally. Pol is an anti-hero; while he generally strives to do good, he betrays a friend and his father when it serves his interests. He learns in the first episode of season two that he is HIV+. Pol is devastated by the news, despite the doctor’s assurance that the virus can be managed with treatment. He starts the regimen of taking the medication and tries to carry on. In a subsequent episode, Pol converses with a former co-worker who likely exposed him to the virus. His friend lost his job when the employer learned he was HIV+. The friend reminds Pol that people will feel sorry for you when you get cancer, but when you get HIV, you are viewed as a “dirty faggot.” Pol also converses with his employer, a mature gay man living with HIV. The employer lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s and saw many gay men succumb to the disease. He recounted an incident where a friend was beaten to death for being queer. I bristled when I heard “queer” used to refer to a gay man, but I realized in the context of the anecdote that it was the attackers who called him a queer as they beat him to death. Queer is a slur, the last thing many gay men heard as they were beaten to death by gangs of thugs.

Continue reading →

Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected. – Christine Jorgensen

Leave a reply

For years, I have tried to comprehend the feminist claim that gender identity and expression are a men’s rights issue. Finally, I got a little clarity listening to a radical feminist, a former member of the British Labour Party, discuss the issue of trans-identified men’s participation in women’s sports. She said something to the effect that “women’s sports matter more than men’s feelings.” I get it. Radical feminists made trans-identified men’s participation in women’s sports the focal point of their opposition to gender ideology. In doing so, they overlook the fact that it was pro-feminist governments, the Obama Administration in the United States, and the Liberal Government in Canada led by Justin Trudeau, that made gender identity and expression prohibited grounds of discrimination. It was based on Titles VII and IX in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the United States–provisions in the legislation that addressed women’s equality. In Canada, Trudeau openly and proudly proclaimed that he was a feminist and wanted everyone to convert. The Trudeau government amended the Canadian Human Rights Act with the passage of Bill C-16 to include gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds of discrimination. Continue reading →

People idealize or reminisce about their 20s, but nobody tells you beforehand that it’s hard and unglamorous and very often unpleasant. — Zosia Mamet

Leave a reply

I like reminiscing, looking back on my life, and thinking of the people I knew as a boy and from my younger days in adolescence and manhood. Sadly, some of them have departed. Still, I think about those still alive and hope they are happy. I served as a reservist in the Canadian Army from 1978 to 1982, when I was in high school and university. I joined the 30th Field Artillery Regiment based in Ottawa. I trained in a group of private recruits under the supervision of a Bombardier who was a Carleton student. We had our differences and misunderstandings during my basic training. I spent almost every night and weekend on the defaulter’s parade. I served three years in the 30th Field and one year as an attached posting to the Princess of Wales Own Regiment (an infantry regiment) in Kingston, where I attended university. I transferred to the PWOR in 1982 and was promptly mustered out when the unit was downsized. I had a brief, undistinguished stint of military service in the Canadian Army, but I am proud that I served my Queen and country.

Continue reading →

Double standards do not diminish the reality of the truth. — T. Allen

Leave a reply

The Ottawa Public Library is on board with International Pride Month in 2024, which is fine. Public libraries have a mandate to promote literacy, and librarians have a mandate to uphold intellectual freedom, freedom of expression, and freedom to read. Among the activities at the Ottawa Public Library is facilitating a Q&A and book signing for a transgender author named Kai Cheng Thom. The description of the event promises attendees, “This highly engaged, practically focused presentation will leave you with: 1) A simple but powerful psychological framework for understanding love and resilience as a practice, 2) 3 simple tools that you can use to resolve conflict and engage in meaningful conversations with people who may hold bigoted or prejudiced beliefs, 3) A visualization practice for self-care and personal development.” (Ottawa Public Library)

Continue reading →