Editorial by John-Henry Westen
With the crushing defeat of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in yesterday’s election, perhaps the party will rethink its decision to have leaders like John Tory who lean so far left they’re completely out of touch with the Conservative base. The Liberals won 71 seats with the PC’s taking only 26, followed by the NDP with 10 seats.
John Tory’s big claim to fame is leading the Toronto Gay Pride parade. The PC’s should have sensed trouble when after the party elected Tory, EGALE the largest gay activist group in the nation, which had just finished forcing same-sex ‘marriage’ down the throats of Canadians, sent a congratulatory note.
Tory distinguished himself on gay ‘marriage’ activism, going so far as to interfere with federal Conservative politics. Prior to last year’s federal election, Tory publicly counseled Conservative Leader Stephen Harper to drop the battle to defend traditional marriage.
Don’t get me wrong, no PC leader should ever be hostile towards gays and lesbians, however Tory’s fervor for even the fringe of the gay movement is distasteful to conservatives of any stripe. In May of this year, Tory said he was “delighted” to be named as a supporter of the 17th annual Inside Out Toronto Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival.
The Inside Out Festival showcased such films including “Bad Grrls”, “Clown F*** Punk” and “Triple X Selects – The Best of Lezsploitation”. Inside Out described one film as “the cream of the crop of smoking-hot hardcore porn for dykes and genderqueers of all stripes.”
Unbelievably, during the election Tory’s handlers would not even publicly object to gay sex in public, which remains illegal in Canada. When I spoke with Tory’s media director Ingrid Thompson last month about Tory’s stand on public sex acts, a hot-button issue for the fringe of gay activism, she refused to say specifically that the party or Mr. Tory objected to sex in public.
Thompson would only say that the party opposed lawbreaking generally. Asked repeatedly for the Conservative Party or Mr. Tory’s stand specifically on gay sex in public, Thompson said, “I’m skeptical to be honest with you that we’ll be able to say more than that, obviously Mr. Tory is someone who stands for respecting the law.”
After all his pandering to homosexual activists some may call it poetic justice that Tory lost his seat in the Legislature to incumbent Education Minister Kathleen Wynne – an open lesbian.