Ruth Institute Blog

I have blogged about this Quebec Policy Against Homophobia when the document first appeared. I pointed out that the Quebec government has written itself a blank check: they plan to wipe out homophobia and heterosexism. Now, heterosexism is the view that heterosexuality is normal. News flash: heterosexuality is normal for our species. It is simply not possible to wipe out this view and all its manifestations. Hence, my claim that the Provincial govt has given itself permission to intervene in every aspect of civil society.
I was beginning to think that I was the only person who noticed or cared about this massive state power grab. But, now, I have discovered this hard-hitting essay by Prof Douglas Farrow of McGill University.

The Québec policy against homophobia was released in December with introductory fanfare from Premier Jean Charest and Justice Minister Kathleen Weil, who is officially “the minister responsible for the fight against homophobia.” It diagrams a full-scale assault, to be coordinated by an inter-departmental committee, against “homophobic attitudes and behaviour patterns” and “sets out the government’s goal of removing all the obstacles” to full recognition of LGBT interests and modes of life. What is thus promulgated is no ordinary policy document, for it aims at the conversion, not merely of this or that piece of public infrastructure, but of the psychological and moral and sexual infrastructure of a generation. …
Herewith the Ministry of Justice moves boldly and decisively into territory once reserved for the voluntary organs of civil society. Not only is homophobia to be eradicated “at all levels of society,” it is to be eradicated as a matter of government policy and by means of government action. “The first challenge,” we are told, “is to ‘demystify’ sexual identities and orientations and the realities they involve. Prejudice is the foundation for homophobic attitudes and behaviour, and because of prejudice, sexual minority members are often forced to keep their sexual identity quiet, perpetuating the lack of understanding and the rejection of difference.”So the government will undertake to “raise awareness of the realities” and promote respect for the rights of sexual minorities, to “rally all players in society” to their cause, and to “ensure a concerted approach” to the matter in all branches of the bureaucracy….

This putative de-mystification, as we shall see, is actually an exercise in obfuscation. But there can be no obscuring the fact that the Québec policy against homophobia is an official endorsement of – indeed, the assumption of full responsibility for – the activist agenda of so-called LGBT groups. As such, it is also a declaration of war by the Charest government on all groups and citizens who oppose that agenda. …That is a very broad front indeed, just as the ambition to create social, and not merely legal, equality is a very large ambition. But the government is determined to assert “the state’s role as a leader in upholding rights and freedoms and keeping public order,” as well as “the responsibility and commitment of all institutional and social players, and of the general public, to combat homophobia.”
Can the government win such a war? Perhaps not. But a government so lacking in constitutional modesty, in moral judgment, and in political sense as to wage it, is a government that can and will wreak havoc in Quebec society. I feel it my duty to point that out to my fellow citizens, and to comment on some of the tactics displayed by the document, though these will already be familiar to anyone who has observed the earlier stages of this Kulturkampf, when the combatants were volunteers rather than conscripts

(Regular Ruth Readers may recall my review of Prof Farrow’s book, Nation of Bastards.) Scroll down about a third of teh way.