Hello, RCMP? I’d like to report a #BarbaricCulturalPractice:
A Conservative candidate in suburban Toronto is defending therapies that attempt to turn gays straight, having penned an editorial that referred to homosexuality as “unnatural behaviour” and heterosexuals as “normal. Jagdish Grewal, running in Mississauga-Malton, wrote an editorial in the Punjabi Post earlier this year entitled “Is it wrong for a homosexual to become a normal person?” He describes an NDP private member’s bill passed unanimously in the Ontario legislature in June that removed public funding for services designed to “change or direct the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient.” Grewal writes in the piece that some psychologists blame a “shock” during childhood for causing a person to become gay, but that the change “can be corrected.”
Okay, one more time for the thick-skulled nincompoops: people are born gay. They don’t choose to be gay. That’s coming from both medical authorities AND the reported experience of LGBT people. Ignorant ideas like Grewal’s should not. Be. Expressed. Stop it. Conversion therapy is a failed idea and homophobia is barbaric.
At this point, what are we supposed to think about people who support candidates? Are they racist? Are they homophobes? Are they assholes? I know Conservative supporters will bristle at my harsh language, but what the fuck are we supposed to think? What is wrong with you people? Stop supporting this awful political party.
Also: nice turban, Mr. Grewal. I’ve always been a vigorous defender of the right to wear turbans because I tolerate cultural practices when they don’t impact people who don’t freely share them. Besides, turbans are objectively cool. Homophobia is not.