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Who will be the next Liberal leader?

It isn't a foreign accent it is French, one of our two official languages.
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Yes, and Tony Blair also has a foreign accent, and he's English, another one of our founding nations. I prefer the relatively unaccented, flat English that the world perceives as Canadian (and American), and Quebec politicans such as Mulroney, Martin and Charest are more than capable of acheiving.

Of course, many of us have accents, as do I. That said, it's nice to have an English-Canadian sounding PM for a change, and Kennedy would have been nice in that regard. And, no, accent does not trump substance and ability, I'd take the best fellow no matter what he sounded like (which was IMO Kennedy for the Libs), so this accent matter is just a side story.
 
No shame here Andrea.
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Why then, did you come here? Since you are proud to support homophobia, illegal wars, increased gun availablity & environmental degradation, why didn't you stay in Spain and join one of the Falangist parties? As it is, every post of yours brings to mind a paraphrase of Chevy Chase's famous line: "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still alive.
 
Abeja: That wasn't you in the news item on page A10 of today's Globe, was it? He espouses your views, and alarms young people.
 
AP, yes, I know and agree re these gender-rights issues, and I'd side with you over Harper anyday. But the way you're jittery-hung-up and throwing these "bigotry" labels around is oppressive; and it seems to indicate that your own personal universe is as dreary and narrow, in its way, as the Pasty Straight White Conservative Male Harperland you're attacking.

Having been to Provincetown, I know. I'll take true rainbow culture over gay (or straight) ghettos any day...
 
So, adma, you don't think people who support removing constitution rights from homosexuals are bigots? What about people who would deny voting rights on the basis of gender, or skin colour? Are they not bigots?
 
AP, you're succumbing to single-issue hysteria. I agree with you in principle. But you're so hyperactively hung up about it in a way that, well, again, portrays your homoverse as flat-on unappealing and retrograde as Harper's heteroverse. You've locked yourself into a cultural gay ghetto in an era when gayness has already unlocked itself. Listening to you, it's like we're thrown back to an era when AIDS was still called GRID. There's *already* better critical-mass spokespersons for the cause. The fact that this House vote turned out to be such an anemic gesture in the end, a token and compromised sop to the cultural right which even Harper could do nothing more than shrug over, tells you how far we've come in 2006.

Face it; bigots and bigotry exists. Being of Eastern European background, I've my share of family members, family friends, etc with expressed sentiments against "Jews" or whatnot. I don't, personally, subscribe to such views; however, to constantly, persistently barb them and demonize them as "bigots" (or, as the case may be, "homophobes") can be even more bitterly pathological than whatever evil-Jew meme they're able to dredge up. Maybe their views *do* guide, by negative example, how I incorporate them (or not) into my life--but I don't let it get to my head; after all there's often mitigating qualities, personal or otherwise, *on* their behalf. Sometimes it's better to take a passive or quasi-passive approach, or even a bit of Jon Stewart-esque pants-down strategic striking when necessary.

It isn't that homophobic bigotry is evil, so much as...
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^I don't think anyone is being hysterical or hung up about this issue, but by suggesting this is so you skirt the point at which you start to belittle the larger impact the loss of such a right could have meant in this country. If you advance a right, then withdraw it, what does that imply for all the other advancements that have been made for the rights of same sex couples? Can each of those particular advancements and recognitions be selectively withdrawn on the basis of a majority vote?

Very nice to bring up personal anecdotes as a defense against bigotry (all the while illustrating by an unspoken reflection on history that persistent cases of bigotry can morph into something more). Hating on the basis that a group of people simply exist is exactly the type of thing that the Nazi's counted on. It may not be an all-encompassing truth, but it is important to point out that bigotry is always in seed waiting for the right ground to grow in. You may not let it go to your head, but some people do.
 
The war against homophobia, which is the most dangerous threat to gays, never ends. Andreapalladio's righteous anger is healthy and admirable.

Several of the men at my Big Gay Party yesterday are early leaders in Toronto's gay political scene - Tim McCaskell who co-founded AIDS Action Now in 1988 and his partner Richard Fung ( who I went to art school with ) who founded the first gay asian organisation in Toronto in 1981, for instance. As a community, gay men and lesbians Toronto in the 1970's were light years ahead of Europeans, and most Americans, in accepting the political implications of their sexuality and setting up an open and tolerant environment for gays. Torontonians have offered real leadership in this area.

One of the men told us that he and Tim - and others - had recently been at a local meeting, about organisations dealing with HIV issues in general, at which the issue of gay men with the disease was virtually dismissed. He was horrified. But it indicates that times and priorities change and we must always stand up for ourselves and speak out.
 
^All at the same time that the advancement of gay rights in other parts of the world have hardly moved at all, a fact that should never be overlooked. The recognition and establishment of gay rights has only begun.

To be openly gay in some parts of the world still means risking scorn, arrest and death. The same thing once existed in Canada - and not all that long ago.
 
Dion has a "foreign" accent? Wow..where do we even start with that one?
 
^Best to start by laughing. Foreign accent indeed! It's priceless.
 
however, to constantly, persistently barb them and demonize them as "bigots" (or, as the case may be, "homophobes") can be even more bitterly pathological than whatever evil-Jew meme they're able to dredge up. Maybe their views *do* guide, by negative example, how I incorporate them (or not) into my life--but I don't let it get to my head; after all there's often mitigating qualities, personal or otherwise, *on* their behalf. Sometimes it's better to take a passive or quasi-passive approach, or even a bit of Jon Stewart-esque pants-down strategic striking when necessary.
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Silence in the face of bigotry indicates agreement with it. If you oppose it, you'd say so. Harper's and Abejas's bigotry requires condemnation, not polite smiles.
 
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