Homophobic Tory apologized for his remarks

[Flip]

Midge,

It will become more and more obvious that this whole hoopla was never about concern for gays and lesbians, and more about gaining cheap political points.

Exactly! Thankyou for making my point.
What the opposition are doing is exploitive and insulting.

It's no great revelation that you can catch a guy on tape at a moment when he wasn't thinking.  It seems pretty clear that he had not thought out what he was saying.
He hasn't been given a chance ( by the NDP ) to reconsider his position.
At the time he didn't hold office and perhaps didn't foresee that he would.
Do we judge a man by the current content of his character or by what evidence is left laying around?

I seem to recall someone saying on the news something to the effect that
"this is the kind of people that the conservatives are".
They are creating the one kind of prejudice by protesting another.

A double standard and an indignity to all.
 

 

[armyvern]

but the NDP could have saved this tape until the middle of an election.. and didnt.

Perhaps they need to do it -- in an attempt to first cause an election?  

They're are grasping at anything these days, so that would certainly not be unheard of (as in that's politics) ...

 

[Flip]

but the NDP could have saved this tape until the middle of an election.. and didnt.

This brings me to another point.......

When did this tape show up? And how?
What are the rules for presenting "evidence" like this?
Sitting on the tape until an election could be construed as un-ethical.

Just another thought...

 

[midgetcop]

It was found in an old cardboard box, along with the Belinda & Peter sex tape.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

but the NDP could have saved this tape until the middle of an election.. and didnt.

But then it would have been looked at for exactly what it is. Muckracking. It would have lost all value, except to the most shallow of voters (yeah, there's lots out there). This likely won't be the last we see. Laying the groundwork for a constant barrage of minuscule faux pas is more likely. In this case, and others sure to come, it's not about content. It's about keeping a parties name in the MSM with 'oh, look how unsuitable to govern, and 'another scandal has just broken'. It keeps the instigators, and their lame politics, off the front page and gets pseudo voters to go 'Geez, not again'

And these, will be the first ones to try and take the moral high ground by complaining about dirty politics and attack ads when something breaks about them.

 

[FascistLibertarian]

This brings me to a thought though.  Within our PC, white bread world where everyone knows and or understands that there are things that "you just shouldn't say" or beliefs that are too distasteful to voice we are allowing the homophobe, racist and biggot and chauvinist to exist, to hide beneath a PC veneer.

So true. A lot of people I thought were fine have shown there true colours when there was only men, white people, or people they assumed were hetrosexual were around.

if this was a Liberal or an NDP instead of a Conservative this whole thread would have the exact same posts, the only difference would be whom was posting them.

There are def homophobes in the NDP, Bloc and the Liberal Party. From my experince I feel there are (and I say this as a Conservative supporter and someone who doesnt know if the person who spoke is or was homophobic) probably more homophobes in the CPC. Dont worry though, there is a log cabin type LGBTQ CPC group coming out soon (not that the gay cabinet member will come out even though its an open secret in ottawa).
But yeah, whenever I tell my LGBTQ friends im voting CPC they dont get me. None of the LGBTQ people I know in real life vote CPC (I know a few online).
Its my mission to get it to the point where gays dont think twice about supporting the CPC and a CPC tent at pride in Toronto would not cause waves. Its going to take about 10 years I think......

 

[midgetcop]

But yeah, whenever I tell my LGBTQ friends im voting CPC they dont get me. None of the LGBTQ people I know in real life vote CPC (I know a few online).
Its my mission to get it to the point where gays dont think twice about supporting the CPC and a CPC tent at pride in Toronto would not cause waves. Its going to take about 10 years I think......

It will take some time...actually, probably a *lot* of time before the gay community feels that the Conservatives genuinely accept and support their causes. I'm sure that this incident doesn't help them any, and I bet that's exactly what the NDP was gunning for.

 

[sgf]

I just read the following article

http://www.eastottawa.ca/article-cp43654024-Tory-MP-feared-gay-marriage-would-mean-adverse-social-change-polygamy.html

OTTAWA - Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski says the toxic anti-gay comments he made 17 years ago weren't really his views, but he warned less than three years ago that same-sex marriage could lead to polygamy and social decline.
"I firmly believe that by passing this legislation, we start on a very slippery slope which could affect societal change in a very adverse way," he told the House of Commons on June 28, 2005.
It was the last passionate moment of debate on a landmark bill that would see Canada become one of the first countries in the world to legalize gay weddings.
"I see things that have been expressed before that could come down the pike, things like polygamy and others, while hiding behind the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," Lukiwski is recorded as saying in the official Hansard transcript. "I am fearful that societal change could happen."
Such comments should be taken into account when people decide whether this well-liked and very contrite MP has truly changed or "is simply trying to save his political skin," says University of Manitoba ethics professor Arthur Schafer.
"He says that's not who he is. Do we have any evidence from the last 17 years to confirm that?"
Lukiwski offered a more detailed and self-battering apology Friday for saying during a boozy videotaped party in 1991 that gay men are "faggots with dirt on their fingernails that transmit diseases."
The Saskatchewan MP was, at the time, a 40-year-old provincial Tory organizer.
Telling the House of Commons that his comments were "stupid, thoughtless and insensitive," Lukiwski repeated Friday that they do not reflect his personal beliefs. He also beseeched his gay friends and colleagues to forgive him.
"The comments I made . . . should not be tolerated in any society," he said. "They should not be tolerated today, they should not have been tolerated in 1991, they should not have been tolerated in years previous to that."
Government House leader Peter Van Loan accepted his parliamentary secretary's "quick, complete and unequivocal" apology and declared the excruciating chapter closed.
While MPs of all political stripes credited Lukiwski's candour under fire, some said the wrong message is being sent.

These remarks were made three years ago

The following remarks were also made by Lukiwski

Lukiwski was one of the very last MPs to speak on the landmark bill to legalize same-sex marriage. He was among many Conservative and Liberal MPs who spoke, at times vehemently, against the move. But he went farther than most.
He concluded by pointing a rhetorical finger at those MPs whose support would allow the bill to pass moments later.
"Let that be on their heads, not anyone else's head," he said. "It is the members opposite who made that choice and shame on them."

/quote]

I dont think he has changed all that much from 1991.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

To many, and for many, he voiced what are considered genuine concerns. Not everyone was (is) for gay marriage. That is his, and many others, opinion, and he shouldn't be chastised for it. It doesn't necessarily connect to his previous statement through a core belief. Just because the bill passed, doesn't mean everyone HAS to accept it as morally right, and not agreeing with it doesn't make someone a homophobic monster, not fit to live in Canada.

They're really starting to stretch this story, and I think it's already losing steam, hence the reach of the supposed journalists quoted.

 

[armyvern]

sgf,

Since when does concerns about societal change (expressed by MANY Canadians during that debate I'd point out) = strict homophobia?

After all,

Liberal Comuzzi the minister of state for economic development in Northern Ontario resigned from cabinet so he could vote against it. Is he therefore homophobic?

What about these ones?

Party                For                 Against             Absentees            Total*

Liberals             95                      32                        4                   131
Conservatives      3                      93                        2                    98
Bloc                  43                       5                         6                    54
NDP                  17                        1                        1                    19
Independents      0                        2                         2                     4

Surely 133 (& 32 Liberals) of them aren't simply homophobics?

Being that Prime Minister Martin made it a free vote for back-benchers, yet felt it necessary to put his cabinet ministers under order to vote "for" same-sex marriage ... apparently more than a few citizens (and Liberals) had concerns with it. That doesn't make them homophobic.


*http://www.mapleleafweb.com/features/same-sex-marriage-canada

 

[midgetcop]

Oy, let's please *not* let this turn into a thread about gay marriage. I'm sure this road is already well traveled on these forums.

 

[armyvern]

Oy, let's please *not* let this turn into a thread about gay marriage. I'm sure this road is already well traveled on these forums.

Just pointing out her erroneous linking of the Gay marriage debate and one's concerns with that particular issue (and their vote) to EQUALS homophobic.

 

[midgetcop]

Just pointing out her erroneous linking of the Gay marriage debate and one's concerns with that particular issue (and their vote) to EQUALS homophobic.

Understood. Just didn't want this to go any further than it already has....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Back inside page of today's (here) paper. The story is dead.

 

[Gimpy]

Back inside page of today's (here) paper. The story is dead.

Is it really? I highly doubt it when one of, if not, the largest conservative-leaning papers in the country (Toronto Sun) has 3/4 of a page for the story within the first 10 pages. It might also help people if you actually told us where "here" is because there is no paper called " The Here 'Sun/Star/Post' " in Canada.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Is it really? I highly doubt it when one of, if not, the largest conservative-leaning papers in the country (Toronto Sun) has 3/4 of a page for the story within the first 10 pages. It might also help people if you actually told us where "here" is because there is no paper called " The Here 'Sun/Star/Post' " in Canada.

Here = One of Izzy Asper's Canwest Global papers. The world knows of his vehement support to the Liberals, including firing editors of local papers that question people like Chretien

Being carried in the Tor Sun makes sense being produced in the Liberal Centre of the Universe., and I certainly wouldn't classify them as a conservative leaning paper.


perhaps to mollify the critics I should have stated 'I think the story is dead here', and this area hates conservatives.

 

[Gimpy]

Here = One of Izzy Asper's Canwest Global papers. The world knows of his vehement support to the Liberals, including firing editors of local papers that question people like Chretien

Being carried in the Tor Sun makes sense being produced in the Liberal Centre of the Universe., and I certainly wouldn't classify them as a conservative leaning paper.

Would you not classify a conservative paper as one when they print a headline "Joe Blows" after Joe Clark said he would support the Liberal Party over the newly founded CPC? How about extensively criticizing the Liberals over the Sponsorship scandal while the Star did nothing at all? Don't let your disdain of Toronto get in the way of the facts. The Toronto Sun is a conservative paper, if you read it everyday (which I do) you might come to realize just how conservative it is.

And did I miss something or is Izzy Asper overseeing the printing of these papers from his grave? I really don't think Izzy Asper has any issues or knows anything about the  current conservative government because he died 2 and a half years before they were elected so its a moot point.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The legacy lives! Potatoes, tomatoes. Matter of opinion. Cherry picked articles for obviously, and deserved unmissable targets don't sway mine. I don't read it every day because of their stance to some issues near and dear to me are opposite of my personal beliefs.

However, enough of the hijack.

 

[stegner]

Saw CTV Question Period today. This issue is by no means dead when the premiere Canadian sunday political show talks about it.

[urlhttp://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080406/politics_poll_080406/20080406?hub=QPeriod[/url] 

I found it ironic that that the Conservatives sent Jay Hill to the show considering that he was accused of making a racist comment about Nova Scotia MP Gordon Earle back in 1999 when he was with the Reform Party.

It is interesting that Brad Wall's anti-Ukranian comments in the video have not received nearly as much publicity.       

 

[a_majoor]

Really, the only reason this story has "legs" is the MSM and opposition parties want to try and stick the CPC with something, anything in the way of a scandal.

If they can go back 16 years to find a videotape of a person who was then a private citizen, I wonder why they can't seem to investigate where the $40 million unaccounted for ADSCAM dollars went, or who really owns that hotel and golf course in Shawinigan, or who leaked the information about Trust Funds in 2005? You know, real scandals with real financial consequences to taxpaying Canadians........