Pride movement has run its course
Episode Stats
Words per minute
206.29892
Harmful content
Hate speech
4
sentences flagged
Summary
It's Pride Month in Canada, which means it's time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. But what does that mean for the rest of us, and why is it important to celebrate Pride Month? And what does it have to do with politics?
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Let's talk about Pride Month. Yes, it's June and it is Pride Month.
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Okay, it doesn't bother me. It really doesn't. I don't care.
00:00:07.400
And that's the thing. So, I mean, it got me thinking on some things, though.
00:00:10.500
And it's something that recently happened with me.
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I realized that Liberal Cabinet Minister Seamus O'Regan is gay.
00:00:18.280
Okay, I know it's not a profound revelation. It's been common knowledge for quite some time.
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But despite myself being a rather avid political watcher, I actually didn't know O'Regan's sexual orientation.
00:00:31.080
I doubtless must have run across references to it over the years, but it never really stuck in my memory.
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The only reason I suddenly noticed O'Regan's orientation was that he gave a rant in Parliament a few weeks ago
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about how people like him had rights suppressed in his lifetime.
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And I was wondering to myself, what the hell is this privileged white-pred man from Newfoundland going on about it?
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And there wasn't much Irish oppression. And I had to think about it and look into it.
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And then I realized, oh, he's not straight. Okay.
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Well, I'm utterly indifferent to O'Regan's sexual orientation, just as I am with everybody else.
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And it's a great development, though, because things haven't always been this way.
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If you might remember some of the older political watchers, former NDP MP Sven Robinson,
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he was the first openly gay member to serve in Parliament when he came out in 1988.
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Now, for most of his term, whenever Robinson was mentioned in a news or commentary,
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his status as a gay MP was almost always mentioned.
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Not necessarily in a derogatory way, but it was considered an oddity.
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His sexual orientation ended up defining who he was in the public eye for most of his time in office,
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At least until he was convicted of stealing a ring and was thereafter remembered as a petty thief.
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Canada's evolved a lot in the last few decades, and mostly for the better.
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Most of us don't reference a gay MP or a same-sex marriage anymore.
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It's not a gay couple. It's just a couple.
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It took decades of effort from activists within and outside the LGBTQ community.
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The Pride movement was an integral part of what fostered the changes in societal attitudes towards LGBTQ people.
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I was dragged down to a Pride parade by a girlfriend in the late 1990s,
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and the reason I was dragged wasn't quite because I was terrified of gay people,
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but yeah, I was still awkward and squeamish on the issue,
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as most of the people who grew up in the 1970s were.
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When I went to school, I would have been sent to detention for swearing in class,
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but wouldn't have gotten much more than a finger-wagging if I'd have called a fellow student a fag.
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The word was in popular use back then, even on TV and in movies, believe it or not.
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Spending a day around people from the LGBTQ community was good for me.
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The term Pride is appropriate for the movement, too.
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I mean, LGBTQ, boy, those letters get to me, though.
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We're constantly told they should be ashamed of who they are,
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and that they should keep their sexuality hidden and suppressed.
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I can understand why they want to celebrate who they are loudly and without shame at events.
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And LGBTQ people enjoy all the same rights as straight people do.
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And more importantly, most people, anyways, most, have learned to set aside prejudices
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Sure, there's still some acts of intolerance and some hateful people out there,
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This has left radical activists with a quandary.
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they're now continuing to push the line farther down the field.
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They thrive on protest, and they're running out of things to protest for.
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That's why they're insisting on getting more militant at Pride events,
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and ironically, exclusionary, as they're starting to pick and choose who's even allowed to attend them.
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People don't want to take their kids to a parade where a nude man is going to simulate sexual acts
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as activists keep working to push the shock envelope.
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As the movement embraces more radical stances, they've begun eating their own.
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Edmonton canceled a Pride parade a couple years ago because Black Lives Matter activists got upset.
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And Philadelphia had their Pride parade disrupted by the ridiculous Queers for Palestine movement.
1.00
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This week, Winnipeg's Pride parade was reportedly temporarily blocked by Queers for Palestine activists.
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And this was apparently in the traditions, as though there was,
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Are we really expected to embrace and respect groups this nutty?
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It isn't enough to be tolerant or accepting anymore.
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Activists now are demanding open displays of support for their cause.
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Businesses are shamed if they don't have enough rainbow flag stickers on display,
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and public figures are called out if they dare miss even one of the many, many Pride events
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It really is reminiscent of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer wanted to take part in an AIDS march
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I don't know if you guys remember watching that.
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He was eventually chased by an angry mob for literally not wearing his allegiance to a cause on his jacket.
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The Pride movement went from being a brave minority, and they were,
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to becoming accepted by the majority, to now starting to get dominated by a fringe minority.
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There's always room for a society to evolve further,
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and further there's always going to be pockets of intolerance to battle.
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If the hill now, though, for Pride activists to die on has become the perceived right
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for elementary school children to change their gender pronouns,
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I think we can safely conclude the Pride movement has run its course.
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Maybe it's time to set that aside and move ahead.