The C Word

A few weeks ago The Courier printed a homophobic, poorly researched, unsubstantiated, gay-baiting column by Mark Husiuk about how the Dare to Stand Out conference at Queen Mary elementary school was really an attempt to train kids to be gay taught by a group of dildo-selling, orgy-attending, Pride-Society-Running heathens.

The column made the rounds via Facebook and was a kick in the gut to anyone who read it. The piece also came out on the heels of Anne Coulter’s visit to Canada.

There were a number of things wrong with the article:

It was published in The Courier, a paper I respect.

The writer obviously Googled the names of the speakers and focused on the most salacious bits about them. (The dildo-seller also has an honorary law degree at SFU thanks to her battle with Canadian Customs for censoring books)

The writer didn’t actually attend the conference

Long story short, the column justified the need for a Dare to Stand Out conference.

Ivan Coyote wrote a very even-handed and thoughtful “fuck you” to The Courier’s editors and Mette Bach, who writes Queer to Eternity for Xtra, also commented on both Hasiuk’s column and Coulter’s visit.

She says:

When creative expression turns into an excuse to spread lies and anger, it’s up to everyone to say they don’t want to hear it. Ottawa said no to Coulter. Vancouver can say no, too. It’s the only democratic thing to do.

And for that a male commenter wrote:

Leftists, like the pathetic amateur writer cunt who wrote this shit article hate freedom and different opinions.

It’s one thing tell a writer they suck, another thing for a man to call a woman the C word. I have 5 sisters; I know this first hand.

To paraphrase Liz Lemon on 30 Rock, a man can’t call a woman the C word because there is no male equivalent. Chauvinist pig just doesn’t cut it.

Like any self-respecting woman would do, Mette asked her editor to remove the post since it did nothing to further the dialogue and it was an obvious violation of guidelines for reader comments where it clearly states: “Do not get personal and do not defame others.”

However, Xtra is refusing to take the comment down on the grounds of censorship. But what it looks like is they’re trying to bring more eyes to the site.

Writers like Hiromi Gotto, David Batemen, Sarah Leavitt have commented on the site but the C word remains.

What angers me most about the C bomb is that it fuels the debate for all the wrong reasons. If these people are so riotous why are they resorting to using it? What if he had called her the N word; would it have come down then?

The point of Mette’s column was that with free speech comes responsibility and there seems to be a lack of it nationally and locally. Xtra needs to decide if it’s going to hold it readers to the same standards as its writers or if it’s going to use its columnists as whipping board to drum up web traffic.