Saturday, October 6, 2012

Rob Anders opens his mouth, more shit comes out.

Last week, Conservative MP Rob Anders was in trouble for an especially nasty comment he made concerning late Opposition leader Jack Layton and current leader Thomas Mulcair. To quote:

Anders told iPolitics that one of the great stories journalists were missing was "that Mr. Mulcair, with his arm twisted behind the scenes, helped to hasten Jack Layton’s death."

"It was very clear to me watching the two of those gentlemen in the front benches, that Jack Layton was ill and that Mr. Mulcair was making it quite obvious that if Jack wasn't well enough to fight the campaign and fight the election that he should step aside, and that because of that, Mr. Layton put his life at risk to go into the national election, and fight it, and did obviously an amazing job considering his state of health, and that he did that partly because of the arm-twisting behind the scenes by Mulcair and then subsequently died," iPolitics reported Anders as saying.

Anders has since apologized for these comments, but not before Peter Stoffer, a well-like NDP MP,  called him a dickhead, which is probably about the politest thing one could call Anders considering how vile the man is. Layton's widow, Olivia Chow, has accepted the apology, and suggested that Anders sponsor her in her 5km charity run for Prostate Cancer Canada.

Anders is still a dickhead, however, and lest he lose his title, opened his mouth again and let more hateful comments spew forth from it. He has come under fire for circulating a petition on his website and at a local (presumably Calgary) church that asks MPs to vote against bill C279, which aims to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the hate crime section of the criminal code to prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender identity and gender expression. According to Anders, however, "Its goal is to give transgendered men access to women’s public washroom facilities, [and] it is the duty of the House of Commons to protect and safeguard our children from any exposure and harm that will come from giving a man access to women’s public washroom facilities."

There is so much wrong with that statement, it's hard to know where to start. My first reaction was to facepalm over yet another transphobic asshole going on about bathrooms. I'm not the only one to react this way, either; Susan Gapka, chair of the Trans Lobby Group, pointed out to Anders that, "Trans people have been going to the washroom since the beginning of time." She also stated that Anders' "fear-mongering, storytelling and myth-making" is the reason why this bill is needed in the first place. Once again, trans people are accused of being pedophiles, as opposed to honest folk who just wanna take a piss in peace like everybody else.

NDP MP Randall Garrison is the bill's sponsor, and was quite polite in voicing his opposition to Anders' petition:
He said the comments made by Anders were either made out of ignorance or he is trying to spread fear about transgender people by equating them to sexual predators.

"He clearly doesn't understand the basic concepts to do with transgender Canadians," said Garrison.

He said the bill fills a gap because there are legal questions about whether transgender people are included in protections that are available to all other Canadians.

[...]

"I guess it's what I've come to expect from Mr. Anders ... time for his weekly apology," he said.

To date, Anders does not appear to have issued an apology.

Sadly, it doesn't appear that anyone has approached Peter Stoffer for his thoughts on the subject, either. Somebody should get on that.

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