Brody's Notes & Scribbles... The Globe & Mail Forced To Disable Comments After MP's Christmas Card Riles Rightwing Homophobes

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) Dec 19 | There is a huge storm that has the eastern mid-Atlantic United States in its grip today as it dumps snow and ice everywhere. Here in the greater Washington D. C. metropolitan area, life has kinda slowed to a standstill as Washingtonians attempt to deal with more than 14 inches plus of the white stuff that is halting traffic and turning this town into a fair resemblance of my home back in Ontario province.
Which brings me to this op-ed that I have quietly been thinking about for the past couple of days. As I look out of my window at the snowfall and as Christmas is next week, once again I find myself waxing poetic, nostalgic, and yearning to be home in Canada...and then there's this:

Comments have been disabled

Editor's Note: Comments have been closed due to an overwhelming number of hateful and homophobic remarks. We appreciate that readers want to discuss this issue, but we can't allow our site to become a platform for intolerance.

Which elicited this response from Xtra.ca columnist Dale Smith in his Capital Xtra Op-Ed column Thursday:

"And finally, when Jane Taber posted a bit about Scott Brison’s Christmas card on her blog, showing the card with Brison and his husband posing with their dog (and it really is a gorgeous photo), there was such a homophobic and abusive response in their comment section that they had to suspend it. Seriously? In Canada in 2009? You’d think that people would get over it by now. Of course, I still think Taber requires someone to sigh and shake their head at her appalling use of the phrase “Brokeback Brisons.” Seriously? Can we all just move past the whole “Brokeback” thing already? It’s beyond tiresome"

So, what got this uproar fired up? Turns out that Jane Taber, a writer for my hometown paper, The Globe & Mail, wrote a nice fluffy holiday piece about out Liberal Gay MP Scott Brison from Nova Scotia. Mr. Brison and his husband sent out the following Christmas Card: 

Photo by Garey Pridham

Then, on Friday, Dale had this to say:

"The whole tempest-in-a-teapot over the online homophobic backlash of Scott Brison’s Christmas card continues to gain mainstream attention. I think the point deserves to be made, as Brison does, that these comments are coming online from people who don’t have to face Brison to make the remarks personally – which he invites them to do. Brison also makes the point that other MPs have their families on their Christmas cards – I have ones from Justin Trudeau and Stephen Harper with their respective families on the cover. The CBC put all the various cards going around online, and it looks like most of them have pictures of the MPs with their families – providing they’re not using the troops as a backdrop to make a political statement *coughs* Peter MacKay *coughs.* Brison looks forward to the time when this ceases to be an issue – which I will second."

This is absolutely unreal to me and I am appalled at my fellow Canadians.  Marriage has been legalised for nearly half a bloody decade federally now. Well, I am going to loudly second this sentiment that the editorial staff at Xtra.ca expressed;

It's too bad the Globe didn't leave the comments open. Homophobic wingnuts only remind us how much work we still have to do. It would be better to challenge their bigotry with counter-arguments, rather than shutting down the whole discussion.

And really, Brison's card isn't even very gay. It's a lovely photo, but there's such a distance between the two men that they could almost be mistaken for brothers. 

Here's a bit from Jane's article that accurately describes it all:

On the card, which is displayed above, he is standing with his husband of two years, Maxime St. Pierre, in a field on their property with Cape Blomidon and the Minas Basin in the background. Simba, their golden retriever, is with them. It was sent to about 5,000 friends and constituents. The photo was taken by Windsor, N.S., photographer Garey Pridham.

The Liberal MP says the card has gone out throughout the rural riding. And there have been no negative comments or raised eyebrows. “What could be more rural Nova Scotian than two guys and their dog standing in front of the Minas Basin,” Mr. Brison says. “It’s almost got a Norman Rockwell quality to it. It’s kind of Canadian Gothic.”

I am going to say this, although I completely understand the reasoning for turning the comments off by the Globe & Mail's editors, it only serves to stifle a flow of conversation that may lead to a better awareness of the painful reality that LGBT Canadians still must endure as well as their LGBT counterparts elsewhere especially south of the border in the United States with its potent Ultra-Right Christian political lobby. This is really silly and so not in keeping with the Christmas spirit eh?