Friday, August 25, 2006

Something wicked this way comes

Following a relatively calm spring session, the upcoming fall session of Canadian parliament promises to be rife with (you guessed it) Bullshit.

First, there was PM Harper's announcement a few months ago that there would be a free vote on same-sex marriage in the fall. Even though equal marriage has already been approved with the passage of Bill C-38, in a nod to his wingnut base, Harper plans to re-visit the issue and possibly repeal the bill. (Pretty arrogant for Harper to play politics with the civil rights of Canadian citizens who, as taxpayers, are actually his employers.) The idea of putting human rights to a vote has always seemed a tad, oh I don't know... despicable? to me. A clear majority of Canadians support the concept of same-sex marriage, but even if they didn't, so what? Minority rights exist to protect minorities from the majority. In any event, even some conservatives are balking at reviving this issue, since it clearly panders to the nutcase fringe, and many say that none of their constituents have even raised it with them. So this vote is likely an all-show no-go issue, but even so. How insulting, how humiliating to an entire community of Canadians. Ugh.

Second on the Bullshit Agenda is anti-feminist group "REAL Women", and their ongoing efforts to get the national Status Of Women shut down. RW has been griping about Status of Women as a "waste of taxpayers' money"... ever since their own application for "taxpayers' money" was rejected a few years ago. With a conservative government now in place, RW is preparing to launch another offensive at Status of Women. I refuse to link to their site, but I can tell you that some of the things I read there are insane in a way that's almost science fiction. For example, they maintain that "half of domestic violence is instigated by women"...
I'm not sure what this is meant to imply, maybe that if a woman threw the first punch she deserves to get beaten to a pulp? Or deserves to stay in a situation where she has to throw punches to start with? Batshit.

So here it comes, the Canadian wingnut element is about to show its fugly face in a big way. I just hope they're taken as seriously as they deserve to be.