Darren Lund on TV last night
Last night I caught a story on CTV about the Calgary Gay Pride Parade that included an interview with parade marshall Darren Lund.
Most interesting to see how young, how curly-headed, how almost cherubic he looks. He was beaming with pride, like a proud father of the parade, which according to the story, saw a much bigger turn-out than expected, given stereotypes about Albertan conservatives.
Interesting as well, that the reporter included a line and a clip from Lund, establishing that he is not gay himself. Why is there always that insistence? I mean, so what? Who cares, really, whether Lund is gay or not? Why does he have to trumpet the fact that he is not and insist it gets into the story? Is this some kind of paternalism and cultural appropriation at work? Does he, as a white, heterosexual male, think that gays and lesbians are not capable of running their own parade and standing up for their own rights? I wonder how the freedom-of-speech respecting gay activists who have been at the forefront of the battle for gay rights feel about someone like Lund muscling in on their movement and tainting it with a whiff of totalitarianism and old-fashioned paternalism.
Lund is the same person who filed a complaint against youth pastor Stephen Boissoin for a letter to the editor that expressed outrage against gay activists, not gay people as a whole, if I recall the letter correctly.
It is interesting to me how one cannot criticize any one part of any community--whether it is gay activists or Islamic extremists--without running the risk of a human rights complaint that accuses you of targeting the whole community. And we have people who are not part of those communities leaping up to make the accusations, like Lund and like Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall or like a certain serial complainer who is known in the blogosphere as Lucy, who does the same thing for the Jewish community even though he is not Jewish.
I can't think of better representatives of the nanny and the pappy state than Barbara Hall and Darren Lund. The Toronto Star is their political organ. No wonder people connected with this paper promote the silencing of political opponents.
Well....Christians can play identity politics, too. If Canada is going to see the shutting down of freedom of speech when it comes to the criticism of vulnerable groups, then Christians will not stand by to let themselves be the only group that is open to defamation and misrepresentation.
Darren Lund's systematic attacks on Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham's charity, might open him up to human rights complaints. He might argue, well, what I'm saying about Franklin Graham is true. But truth is no defence, Mr. Lund. You have held Christians up to contempt and hatred by demeaning this son of famous evangelist Billy Graham. To borrow from another religious tradition, I could say Karma was at work if that would happen. What goes around comes around. Poetic justice.
I personally think it'll be a sad day when this comes to pass. Not because I like seeing Christians routinely defamed and misrepresented in the public square and people like Lund actively promoting Christophobia. But I would hope instead that we could return to respecting our cherished freedoms of speech and of religion and conscience, instead of the wholesale trampling on these rights that the actions of human rights commissions lately have represented.
In fact, if political leaders like Premier Stelmach and Prime Minister Stephen Harper lack the fortitude to do a frontal assault on illiberal human rights commissions, they can shift them from within by appointing, say, evangelical Christians as commissioners. Heh heh heh. Boy oh boy would we suddenly see the Toronto Star changing its tune.
Most interesting to see how young, how curly-headed, how almost cherubic he looks. He was beaming with pride, like a proud father of the parade, which according to the story, saw a much bigger turn-out than expected, given stereotypes about Albertan conservatives.
Interesting as well, that the reporter included a line and a clip from Lund, establishing that he is not gay himself. Why is there always that insistence? I mean, so what? Who cares, really, whether Lund is gay or not? Why does he have to trumpet the fact that he is not and insist it gets into the story? Is this some kind of paternalism and cultural appropriation at work? Does he, as a white, heterosexual male, think that gays and lesbians are not capable of running their own parade and standing up for their own rights? I wonder how the freedom-of-speech respecting gay activists who have been at the forefront of the battle for gay rights feel about someone like Lund muscling in on their movement and tainting it with a whiff of totalitarianism and old-fashioned paternalism.
Lund is the same person who filed a complaint against youth pastor Stephen Boissoin for a letter to the editor that expressed outrage against gay activists, not gay people as a whole, if I recall the letter correctly.
It is interesting to me how one cannot criticize any one part of any community--whether it is gay activists or Islamic extremists--without running the risk of a human rights complaint that accuses you of targeting the whole community. And we have people who are not part of those communities leaping up to make the accusations, like Lund and like Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall or like a certain serial complainer who is known in the blogosphere as Lucy, who does the same thing for the Jewish community even though he is not Jewish.
I can't think of better representatives of the nanny and the pappy state than Barbara Hall and Darren Lund. The Toronto Star is their political organ. No wonder people connected with this paper promote the silencing of political opponents.
Well....Christians can play identity politics, too. If Canada is going to see the shutting down of freedom of speech when it comes to the criticism of vulnerable groups, then Christians will not stand by to let themselves be the only group that is open to defamation and misrepresentation.
Darren Lund's systematic attacks on Samaritan's Purse, Franklin Graham's charity, might open him up to human rights complaints. He might argue, well, what I'm saying about Franklin Graham is true. But truth is no defence, Mr. Lund. You have held Christians up to contempt and hatred by demeaning this son of famous evangelist Billy Graham. To borrow from another religious tradition, I could say Karma was at work if that would happen. What goes around comes around. Poetic justice.
I personally think it'll be a sad day when this comes to pass. Not because I like seeing Christians routinely defamed and misrepresented in the public square and people like Lund actively promoting Christophobia. But I would hope instead that we could return to respecting our cherished freedoms of speech and of religion and conscience, instead of the wholesale trampling on these rights that the actions of human rights commissions lately have represented.
In fact, if political leaders like Premier Stelmach and Prime Minister Stephen Harper lack the fortitude to do a frontal assault on illiberal human rights commissions, they can shift them from within by appointing, say, evangelical Christians as commissioners. Heh heh heh. Boy oh boy would we suddenly see the Toronto Star changing its tune.
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