From: hanson@cs.UAlberta.CA (Hanson Curtis Jay)
Subject: Homophobic Human Rights Ministers
Keywords: homophobic, Canada, suicide
Organization: University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 20:50:20 GMT

  I guess I should introduce this topic a bit.  In our lovely little
rural-minded province of Alberta, a couple of months ago, the ruling
provincial political party had a leadership convention and essentially
swept clean the cabinet that was sitting at the time.  The department which
is responsible for overseeing (at arms length <-;) the Alberta Human Rights
Commission is this horrid, "I'll do nearly anything to keep my rural senior
voters happy" minister who has stuck her foot in her mouth more times in
her first month of office than anyone around here can remember for a long
time.

  This new leadership claimed to want to lead to the province in a new
direction.  The new direction is back to the 1890's.  Shortly after
this new group of "leaders" was making themselves comfortable in their
new offices the Alberta Human Rights Commission went over the
governments head and stated that it would now be looking into cases of
discrimination based on sexual orientation.  Well, this did not sit
nicely with the lovely minister.  She went in search of legal advice
to determine whether the commission had the authority to do this or
not.  Not much happened out of that.

  Her next bombshell was that she threatened to dissolve the commision
entirely claiming that there were other departments that could handle the
cases they were receiving and that homosexuals already had enought rights
(FACT: we have yet to get any equality in this province).

  There is a lovely, right-wing Christian-Fundie rag that is published b
bi-weekly here called "Alberta Report."  Mrs.  Dianne Mirosh (this
"puritan" minister) was on the cover with a headline asking "Homophobe or
Heroine?"  The five page article first discusses Mrs. Mirosh and then
expounds into Alberta Reports unchanging essay on homosexuality and all the
damage they inflict on themselves and the lives of others through things
like paedophilia and recruitment (haven't we heard this before?).

  That's the background.  Last night, on our local CBC (public service)
television newscast, our newly elected premier was taking calls.  I was
just about to call in and ask the minister why it is even necessary to take
a poll to see if public opinion wishes to see sexual orientation included
in our provincial Individual Rights Protection Act.  When a man called in
and was nearly in tears.  He told the premier about how his nine year old
son, last March, committed suicide because he was gay and didn`t want to
grow up a freak.  I nearly fell off my chair.  Though it is a terrible
tragedy it is the kind of thing that only happens once in a long, long
while.  Having someone who is straight begging the politicians to change
the policy.  The caller also told of how he had called Mrs. Mirosh's office
and had basically been told to piss off.  What blew me away was that the
Premier wanted the man to call him later and together they would talk to
Mrs. Mirosh.  As well, the anchorman asked the caller to give him a call as
they were very interested in following up on the story.  (Once a newshound
always a newshound.)

  This has been a very interesting week as it was only this past Saturday
that while eating out with some older gay friends of mine I came up with
the idea of getting straight people who have gay friends or relatives to
write to this Anita Bryant of the North and tell her that she has offended
them with her comments.  I told my mother about it and she is really
gung-ho on the idea.  We're going to be drafting the letter this weekend
and my entire family will likely sign it.  She's going to take it to work,
she's an O.R. nurse at one of the main hospitals here and get some of the
other nurses and doctors to sign it.

  They worst part of this however is that any province wide vote on an
amendment would be terribly biased.  The electoral boundaries of this
province have been divided up in such a way as to preserve the rural power
base on which the government for the past decade has been based.  The two
major centers, Edmonton and Calgary, comprise over 60% of the provinces
population but have less than 40% representation in the Legislature.  The
politicians cater to those aging fundie-rednecks and as long as they do
that, we here are not likely to see any changes soon.

  The only really good thing about the father's call was that it really
seemed to hit the Premier hard.  It may have actually made him think about
how much pain is inflicted by people like Dianne Mirosh with their
righteous attitudes.

	If anyone's read this far.  Thanks.

	My first posting here, how can you tell eh?

	e.p

  "Disco was always gay until John Travolta came along."