By Josh Dehaas, June 12, 2023
Growing up gay in northern Ontario in the early 2000s was uncomfortable. I wasn’t ‘out’ in high school. I’d seen what happened to the kid with glitter in his locker. I didn’t want to be him.
Back then, bullying kids who were openly gay or suspected of not being straight was common. Sexual orientation and gender identity were rarely discussed at school. The one time the subject came up in class was when a well-meaning teacher announced that roughly one in 10 people were gay or lesbian, so there were at least two in the room. I felt my face turn red.
Things changed rapidly. By 2005, 51 per cent of Canadians agreed that same-sex marriage ought to be legal and 60 per cent saw homosexuality as morally acceptable. Parliament responded with the Civil Marriage Act. Seeing gay marriages seemed to put many more people’s fears to rest. By the time I was in grad school in 2009, support for same-sex marriage had risen to 61 per cent. I no longer felt any need to hide.
Thanks to that rapid change, I didn’t experience any discernable discrimination for being a gay man working in journalism or while training to be a lawyer. In fact, the only overt discrimination I can recall experiencing was when I was once told I couldn’t have a promotion because that job “needs to go to a woman.”
I’m pleased that in 2023 LGBT people can be themselves in public, and that there is zero tolerance for bullying in schools and workplaces. That said, I’m starting to worry that some LGBT people are becoming the new bullies.
Rather than demand that we be free from discrimination, many LGBT activists now demand that people profess allegiance to a highly contested set of ideas about gender and sexuality by wearing the rainbow on their uniforms, hoisting the Pride Progress flag, or sending their children to schools where they’re required to sit through performances by drag queens. The message has shifted from “love is love and everyone is equal” to “you will endorse the most radical viewpoints on sexuality and gender or else.”
This change was captured recently in a viral recording of an Edmonton teacher berating Muslim students for skipping Pride celebrations at school. “We believe in freedom, we believe that people can marry whomever they want,” she said. “That is in the law, and if you don’t think that should be the law, you can’t be Canadian, you don’t belong here.”
People who hold different viewpoints not only belong in Canada, they’re protected by our constitution. In Canada, while people have a right to be treated equally under the law, they also have the right to freedom of religion and conscience, and freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression. These rights are infringed when people are forced to profess or actively support ideas that they don’t believe.
For many, a recent sign that the goalposts had shifted was when National Hockey League goalie James Reimer refused to wear the rainbow symbol because it conflicted with his Christian beliefs. Rather than using this as an opportunity to engage in dialogue to try to understand and possibly change his views, the self-appointed spokespeople for the LGBT community labelled Reimer a bigot and said he should comply or lose his job.
There is no reason to believe Reimer is hateful. He said he wouldn’t wear the rainbow because he doesn’t support an “activity or lifestyle” but that he strongly believes that every person has value and that LGBT people should be welcome in hockey. Reimer did not say that LGBT people should have fewer legal rights or be excluded. Rather, he seemed to be saying that he doesn’t want to endorse gay sex or gay marriage. For many Canadians, these are incorrect or hurtful viewpoints, but the only way to change others’ minds about them is through good-faith dialogue.
Another sign that the goalposts had shifted was when the York Catholic District School Board decided not to raise the Pride Progress flag outside its headquarters. Politicians like New Democratic MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam responded by demanding that flying the flag be mandated at every school. Doug Eyolfson, a former Liberal MP from Manitoba, expressed a common sentiment in a tweet that tied the flag to LGBT suicide rates. “To resist a simple gesture like a Pride flag is hate,” Eyolfson wrote. “It is not ‘a difference of opinion’. It is not ‘religious principle’. It is hate, and it kills young people.”
Refusing to raise the rainbow flag or the Pride Progress flag is not inherently hateful, and it’s hard to believe kids would kill themselves because they don’t see a flag in front of their schools. What’s clear is that raising the flag is not a “simple gesture” for many people from religious backgrounds. To them, it amounts to actively participating in celebrating something that is inconsistent with sincerely held beliefs.
The politicians raising Pride Progress flags at schools, hospitals and police stations claim they are being “inclusive,” but it’s clear that they are making many Canadians feel excluded. When the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board announced Pride celebrations — a week after telling staff that students may not opt out of “2SLGBTQ+ learnings” — more than 40 per cent of kids at nine schools and more than 60 per cent of kids at two others stayed home.
In a way, I can relate. There are aspects of the LGBT culture that make me feel unwelcome. While I respect how drag queens turn the torment they receive for being effeminate into art that confidently celebrates their true selves, I would not be comfortable taking my nieces and nephews to a drag show.
Drag as an art form developed in adult venues and is all about big breasts, skimpy dresses, and raunchy jokes. Society has long had a taboo against exposing kids to sex, and that may be a taboo worth keeping if it reduces the chances of kids becoming fodder for sexual predators or having sex before they’re old enough to handle the consequences. Parents are wrong to assume that most drag queens are “groomers,” but I can empathize with those parents who think kids should not be exposed to an overtly sexual artform — gay or straight — in middle school.
I also refuse to salute the Pride Progress flag. While the original rainbow represented diversity and equality, the Pride Progress flag represents the opposite. The Pride Progress flag has a jarring triangle with light blue, pink and white stripes to represent transgender people, and black and brown stripes to represent black and brown people. To me, it represents the faddish but wrongheaded idea that some people are more equal than others.
A parent who shared the Edmonton teacher recording pointed to a recent public statement by Muslim scholars that is worth considering. In the scholars’ interpretation of Islam, sexual relations are permitted only within marriage, can occur only between a man and a woman, and medical procedures to change the sex of individuals other than those born with disorders of sexual development are forbidden. The scholars reject the idea that moral disagreement amounts to “intolerance or incitement of violence” and affirm their right to express their beliefs “while simultaneously recognizing our constitutional obligation to exist peacefully with those whose beliefs differ from ours.” The Imams may be wrong about gay marriage and gender identity, but they’re right that in a liberal democracy they’re entitled to hold different viewpoints so long as they recognize that others may have different beliefs and express those disagreements peacefully.
In a well-functioning liberal democracy, progress occurs through peaceful dialogue and respect for fundamental freedoms like expression, conscience, and religion. It’s no coincidence that LGBT people have made the most progress in countries that best uphold these values. Gallup’s list of the places where the highest proportion of people believe it’s a good place to be gay overlaps remarkably with Freedom House’s ranking of countries that best protect civil liberties. Sweden and Norway are at the top with Canada close behind. Taiwan and Uruguay lead their continents.
Rather than bullying people into wearing the rainbow, flying the Pride Progress flag, or sending their kids to watch drag queens, I implore my fellow LGBT people to recommit to respectful dialogue and other liberal democratic values. These values are the reason we have progressed so far so fast, and they’re our best shot at making more progress in the long run.
Josh Dehaas is a former journalist and graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School.
