Why are so many gay couples moving to Canada?

First off, I'd like to apologise for the lack of blog updates recently... I've been extremely busy and I haven't had the time to sit and write an entry.

Onto the news.

I recently came across an article on Xtra's site regarding why so many GLBT ex-patriots are choosing to move to Canada.

This comes as little surprise to me, honestly. As I mentioned in a previous posting, we have a good tradition of treating gays, lesbians and the intersexed with respect and compassion that stretches back to 1986, when Ontario added anti-discriminatory legislation regarding sexual orientation to its Human Rights Code. (This was made country-wide in 1996.) The fact that a country with laws protecting its GLBT citizens from discrimination is desirable to GLBT people worldwide is entirely unsurprising.

Also, there's the fact that in 2006, Canada-wide, there were but 90 cases of violence reported against GLBT citizens (roughly 10% of all hate crimes reported) in 2006, as compared to 1,415 reported in America in the same year (or 15.9% of all hate crimes that occurred) and compared to 1,008 in the UK (I couldn't track down a percentage) in 2007. The total number of hate crimes occurring in each country is 892 in Canada for the year of 2006 and 5,449 in America for the same year; I was unable to find a reliable statistic for the UK.

Don't take this as me favouring my country over all other countries; there are other countries who have a much better track record with the GLBT community than Canada, including Switzerland, Scandinavia, Denmark and Norway, amongst others, mainly in Europe. I acknowledge my country's flaws, but I understand and appreciate that my country has a very good record with its GLBT citizens which makes it desirable to gay and lesbian immigrants.

However, it raises the question as to why these ex-patriots aren't moving to the European countries which have a longer-standing history of providing civil rights to gays and lesbians. It could be because Canada is renowned as a multicultural wonder, which makes it easy to find a niche that's familiar; it could be that some people interested in immigrating are already proficient in the English language, which is one of the two main languages in Canada (unlike some of the European countries, whose languages and customs may be completely alien). Or, it could be many different reasons which I can't think of.

The simple fact remains that Canada is a highly desirable country to GLBT citizens worldwide. There are more reasons to this than immediate meet the eye, I'm sure, and I'm also certain that many GLBT persons decide to move to other countries that respect gay rights, but Canada still is one of the top countries to move to if you're gay.

"Somebody stick a dick in her mouth and shut her up!"

Xtra West

I realize that I'm a little bit late on this piece of news, but I thought it was worthy of a bit of criticism. The basic outline of the story is, in May 2007, a lesbian couple in Vancouver are in a comedy club on Commercial Drive and end up being heckled by a comedian named Guy Earle.

The reason? Well, it gets a bit muddled at this point. Some said that the two women were being "distracting" and "making out" at the front of the club. Others, including patrons of the club and the women themselves, said that one of the women simply gave the other a peck on the cheek.

The result, however, hasn't been disputed by either side. The comedian began to hurl insults at the women, calling them "dykes" and "bitches", and said that "dykes ruin everything". Another comedian who was also there that night compared him to the Michael Richards, the comedian who went off on a group of black men who were heckling him.

One of the women stated that she's suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from that night; not only did Earle shout insults at her, he also walked up to her after the show, screamed at her, then grabbed her sunglasses off of her face and snapped them.

My opinion on this? Charge this asshole with hate speech. Not only is he a bastard for discriminating against gay people, he's an idiot for doing something like this on Commercial Drive. That's pretty much like going to Davie Street and calling two gay men "faggots" if they kiss at your show. Come on. (For those of you unfamiliar with Vancouver, Davie St. is the gay mecca of Vancouver, and Commercial Dr. is the same for lesbians.)

Earle not only called these women what I said above, but he said things that I don't even want to repeat here. You'll have to read the article to understand the extent of my rage towards this man. He said some really fucked-up things and I personally take umbrage to them. It really hurts me to know that things like this still happen; I realize this happened back in 2007, but it's only a difference of three years. I certainly never experienced discrimination like this when I lived in Vancouver, or even living in my hometown, and I only now have realized how truly lucky I was.

Of course, living here in my hometown, I've never been explicit about my sexuality. I've told people that I'm gay, and it's a fairly commonly-known fact around town, but I still don't go throwing it in people's faces like straight people seem wont to do.

But, that opens up a whole new avenue of discussion, doesn't it? Even if these two women were making out at the front of the club, what if it had been a heterosexual couple? They would've gotten a few good-natured laughs from the comedian and everything would've proceeded smoothly. Could you imagine Earle saying that "breeders ruin everything"? I doubt it highly.

I know that while Western society as a whole is beginning to open its collective mind to differences between people, it's really discouraging to read about this and news like it. If I were still in the closet, I'd probably want to stay there after reading something like this.

Anyway, that's my update for the day. Comments are always appreciated, and I apologize for not updating last night; I was far too tired to do anything.

Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Apparently, there have been buses in Toronto carrying advertising from a company called Bus Stop Bible Studies that asks, "Does God care that I'm gay?" including a link to a website (which has since been replaced with a whiny rant about how persecuted Christians are).

However, I read on Box Turtle Bulletin that the original content of the page stated that while being gay is a sin, it's a sin no less terrible than being a murderer or a adulterer. This sounds reasonable at first blush, right?

Actually, no, it doesn't. People choose to murder or be unfaithful; people don't choose to be gay. Drawing a parallel like this is misleading and untrue.

I'm personally offended that something like this was allowed in Canada. We have a very good track record with the GLBTQ community; we were the first country in the Western hemisphere to both pass hate crime legislation and legalize same-sex marriage, and we're still the only country to have the latter country-wide. With the exception of Alberta, all of Canada seemed to accept (and in some parts of the country, welcome) these changes; to have something anti-gay like this posted on a bus for all to see angers and frustrates me. While I understand that Christians have as much of a right to free speech as I do, when you compare me being in a loving, devoted relationship with another man to someone who sleeps around on his wife it's bound to piss me off.

Not only that, but all an advertisement like this would do is confuse vulnerable gay men and women. Gay men and lesbians who have been indoctrinated into Christianity by their parents are already confused, and seeing an article such as this, comparing them to killers and cheaters, would bruise their damaged psyches even further.

It really hurts me to see that the whole "Christian" notion of "love the sinner, hate the sin" is still in effect, because it's patently false. There's no such thing as loving the sinner when it comes to homosexuality; America, the so-called "Christian Nation", proved this. If that was true, then why would Oklahoma be trying to nullify the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Bill in their state? (Hilarious story, by the way. They picked the wrong part of the U.S. code and ended up removing all hate-crime protections except the ones for gay people.)

At any rate, I'm frustrated that Toronto allowed these ads to be placed on their buses and am happy that the page has been replaced, even if these so-called Christians are now pissing and moaning about how their free speech is being trodden upon. They may have had the best intentions in mind, but in reality it came across as condescending.

Comments are always welcome, and I very much appreciate the ones I've already received! Thank you Lou, Angela and Jayden!

The Fa’afafine

I've just been doing a bit of reading, and I came across a term that I'd read once before, a long while back; fa'afafine. This term describes a subsection of male Samoan society that takes on traditionally female roles. There is no stigma associated with being a fa’afafine, unlike identifying as gay, even though the fa'afafine have sex with other fa'afafine; gay men in Samoan society are generally looked down upon as being different or repugnant.

One of the things that interested me most about what I read is that the fa'afafine usually come from large families, which could lend credence to the theories regarding birth order and certain female fertility studies which have been done. Another thing that interested me, which is related to the above sentence, was the fact that the fa'afafine lavish most of their affection on their nieces and nephews in lieu of having their own children. The correlation here is that these men, while they resist the categorization of "gay", are homosexual in the scientific definition of the word and thus must succumb to their genetics. The female fertility study I linked to above found that "female maternal relatives of homosexuals have higher fecundity (fertility rates) than female maternal relatives of heterosexuals". This fertility boost was not found in paternal or male relatives of homosexual men. This is also interesting because it could open up a line of discussion about gay men being born to take care of their large extended families.

The reason this interests me is that it points very strongly towards the theory that homosexuality is definitely not a choice. Now, of course, you could ask any gay person walking down the street if they chose to be attracted to the same sex, and they would obviously answer in the negative; what I'm getting at is more the idea of persuading people who are sitting on the fence about whether or not sexual orientation is a choice in the direction that no, it's not.

Of course, in thirty or forty years the fact that being gay is not a choice will be widely accepted amongst the more socially developed nations, and perhaps even starting to be considered in the less-developed ones; studies like these intensely interest me because they're baby steps on the road to that destination. If humans don't end up destroying the environment and making our planet uninhabitable for current life (which is a subject for another post), then the future is going to be a wonderful place... Not just for gay people, but for all minorities. We're starting to take the first motions towards universal acceptance, and it's looking good. It's just a matter of time.

So who in the gay world ISN'T talking about Ricky Martin?

Wow, he finally came out. In other news, water is wet, oranges are orange and Monsters get you high. (Well, they certainly get ME high.)

I read his coming-out declaration on the Huffington Post. (Article here.) In seven paragraphs he managed to inspire and uplift me, and hundreds of thousands of other gay men; you don't need to hide in the closet anymore, guys! If I idolized Ricky Martin, I was still closeted and I received this news, it would more than likely give me the push I needed to come out. Despite what certain members of the gay community may say, what Ricky Martin did was a brave thing.

I came out in early 2006; I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with a group of my old high-school friends, and one of them identified as bisexual; she confided in all of us that she was bi.

"What would you guys say if I told you I'm bi?" I remember her saying; this gave me the impetus I needed to say, "What would you guys say if I told you I'm gay?" I still remember the laughter of all my friends; "I knew it!" one of them shouted in sardonic glee, and the others just chuckled and looked uncomfortable. I then informed him that I was serious, and all the conversation stopped dead. "Well, that's okay man," one of them finally said, breaking the uneasy silence. I looked around, and saw what I had never expected to see, in all my discomfort; seven faces lit up with happiness, reflecting my true inner feelings. It was as if they understood what it had taken for me to say it; for all I knew, they'd known all along. All of them, with the exception of my bisexual friend, were straight, but I felt so supported and effervescent with joy that it turned out to be one of the best nights of my life.

Now, this experience has very little to do with Ricky Martin's publicized coming out, but there is something we have in common; having lived in a small town my whole life, I had been taught from an early age that it was not okay to be gay, and that fags got hurt, much like how I'm sure Ricky Martin had been taught the same having grown up in Puerto Rico. The courage it took to come out to my small group of friends in a small hick town dimly mirrors the courage Ricky Martin has to reveal a vital part of himself to everyone. While I may not be opening myself up to judgement from the entire globe, it still takes a brave heart to look into the eyes of the oh-so-judgemental world and scream that yes, you're gay, and yes, you're proud.

Who Is Sparkles?

Grrrreat to meet you!

I'm a 20-year-old gay man from the gorgeous Okanagan region of British Columbia, Canada. I've been told that I have a good voice, so I decided that I should create a space for me to speak.

What I'm going to be writing in this blog is my opinions on gay current events, my personal experiences on living a proud gay lifestyle in a conservative Canadian town and anything else that catches my eye that I think would be interesting for my readers. Watch this space for interesting things; I plan on updating rather frequently, starting today.

I'm glad to have you aboard on my journey... I hope you'll find it as interesting as I do.

Greetings and welcome,

Sparkles