Hypocrisy hiding in Kenney’s closet

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/04/2017 (3154 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Are you gay?”

It was 1979 or so. My Dad wasn’t angry or anything.

He was just looking at me, asking if I was gay. We were in the kitchen and the fridge was humming. Otherwise, silence.

I had written a number of pro-gay editorials in the school paper, my band had recorded a song that contained (funny) lyrics about gay sex, I went to gay bars occasionally with my punk pals and most of my friends — at Calgary’s Bishop Carroll High School, which would later produce Progressive Conservative Premier Alison Redford, former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith and indie music star Feist, among others — were gay. They were all in the closet, more or less, but my parents knew (or suspected) that I hung out with a pretty gay crowd.

“Are you gay?” my Dad repeated.

“Seriously?” I said. I wasn’t but I was miffed. “What if I am? Does it matter?”

“It matters,” he said.

I think he meant it matters in 1970s-era conservative Calgary, where homophobia was rampant and gay-bashing not unheard of.

“No it doesn’t,” I said, then left, angry.

“Are you gay?”

That’s the question k.d. lang asked Jason Kenney recently: “You’re gay aren’t you?” she tweeted at him.

She asked it because Kenney has proposed outing Alberta kids. Some media folks asked him about school gay-straight alliances and he told them that parents should be notified when a kid joins one. Which, of course, has the effect of outing them.

Is the newly selected Alberta Progressive Conservative leader gay? I don’t know. Many of us always assumed he was. None of us cared, either. It was his business. It was nobody else’s business.

Over the years, I’ve known many politicians who are in the closet. I wish they didn’t feel like they had to be. But, again, it’s their business. It’s personal.

Kenney made the personal the political when he said what he said. It became important — as lang pithily observed — when Kenney proposed one rule for gay kids and an entirely different rule for others. You know, like hypocrites do.

I’m an Albertan, like Kenney and lang. Growing up, I sometimes talked to my high school friends about why they were in the closet. They said they feared the reaction of their families, friends or a future employer. Or they feared simply getting the crap beaten out of them. In other words, they had their reasons.

If Kenney is gay, he may have his reasons, too. It’s his right. But Kenney shouldn’t ever, ever use the law to take away the rights of kids, in Alberta or anywhere else.

When he tries to do that? That’s when people will start asking Kenney if he’s gay, too.

Because a hypocrite is a hypocrite, gay or straight.

Are you gay?

If you are, it’s something to be proud about. If you are, I think it’s from God. If you are, it’s wonderful. If you are, it’s your business.

Not the business of hypocrites like Jason Kenney.

Troy Media columnist Warren Kinsella is a Canadian journalist, political adviser and commentator.