Wild news from North of the Border
Plus reasons to be cautiously optimistic in UK, Ukraine
Canada: I have a truly wild story up on Los Angeles Blade today about an Alberta school board trustee who claimed the Holy Spirit goaded her into sharing a hateful meme comparing LGBT people to Nazis. The story also looks into Canada’s Catholic schools’ troubled history with LGBT kids.
One province over, the Saskatchewan government has confirmed that it never even spoke to the school district whose policy supposedly prompted the government to introduce its blatantly unconstitutional “parental consent” rules on student name/pronoun changes. This is looking more and more like a deliberate attack on trans people to drum up political support. Meanwhile, the province’s Human Rights Commissioner has quit in protest, and the Commission is now calling on the government to scrap the bill.
Meanwhile, one provinces over from there, Manitoba’s new provincial government was officially sworn in. Uzoma Asagwara, who is nonbinary, will be Deputy Premier and Minister of Health – she was the first Black queer MLA elected in Manitoba back in 2019. (Manitoba made history in 1998 for electing Glen Murray mayor of Winnipeg, the first openly gay mayor of a large city in North America). Also notable, the new government caucus is nearly 30% Indigenous people, including the Premier. That has to be a high-water mark for any Canadian province. (Just over 18% of the province claims Indigenous ancestry; another 22% claim non-Indigenous visible minority status).
Scotland: Activists fear that the deeply unpopular governing Scottish Nationals will abandon their pledge to ban conversion therapy in hopes of winning the next election.
Ukraine: Take this news with some caution for now, as it comes from Twitter X – apparently the Ministries and Defense and Justice have reversed course and now support the draft law on civil partnerships that is before parliament. Justice is going to submit amendments to ensure that the law complies with the European Convention on Human Rights (and ECHR findings that require states to recognize same-sex partnerships at a minimum). I cannot read Ukrainian and can’t verify this user’s sources.
UK: The Sunak government is going to press ahead with a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban after all, in a desperate attempt to woo back LGBT voters after spending the last year stoking anti-LGBT animus. Wait til the bill is passed, I’m afraid.
Duly Noted
Malaysia: In a true “man does not bite dog” story, the Minister of Religious Affairs says there have been no same-sex marriages registered in the country. The Minister also says the government won’t deny LGBT people their constitutional rights, so, uh, yeah, make of that what you will.
Estonia: The local Lutheran Church says it will only marry heterosexual couples after same-sex marriage becomes legal in the country on Jan 1.
Meanwhile in the States:
Ohio: State Democrats have introduced bill to codify same-sex marriage and interracial marriage into state law. The bill is unlikely to pass through the Republican supermajorities in the state legislature.
On the Lighter Side…
I leave you today with this excerpt from Justice Kaul’s minority opinion in this week’s Supreme Court of India judgement on same-sex marriage.
