i appreciate your attempt at reaching across ye olde partisan divide, but you've managed to word your effort poorly. i HONESTLY think there isn't an equal amount of baseless blind hatred of the mayor as there is adoration. sincerely. i think a lot of people who are very very frustrated by the mayor and his policies have chosen rather trite and cliched ways of expressing it - hyperbolic declarations against the man, instead of his policies, as it seems that knocking his policy planks have little to no effect on either his praxis nor his support - but i am not convinced that there is a well of unreasoned hate that equals (qualitatively or quantitatively) the faith of his supporters. i reject your assertion, that simply because i do not think as you do, that i am just as blind as the people i lambaste. i make an effort to not only vary my news sources (although really, don peat is not a conservative, i swear to god he just writes for them) but to also get as much of a sense of the tenor of ford nation by reading the comments. the conservative reader who makes a good, fair, and accurate comment about a story supporting the mayor is a rare one. most fling talking points like so much monkey poo. the mayor's detractors, while not immune to the seduction of partisan bs, are less vitriolic and far more compassionate.
i chalk it up to a difference in values. we're never going to agree because you lot think you're making a concession to understanding our* pov when you are actually doing no such thing. your post illustrates this well, i think.
More compassionate? Ignoring the unprecedented amount of humiliating harassment, cruel jokes (how many times have the ) and malicious attacks on the man, I can't even count how many times I've seen people wish death on him or for him to get a heart attack. In fact, on this very forum, several people have wished for his death. We're talking about municipal politics - this unbridled hatred is pretty unprecedented on this political level.
I'm not saying that anybody who is a Ford detractor is necessairly uninformed or blind - what I'm saying is that if somebody really doesn't see equal amounts of stupidity on both sides, they're probably blinded by bias. Almost every issue has idiots on both side, as well as intelligent reasonable people, and if you can't see that, then it probably means you're too partisan to see straight.
Let's revisit Rob's actual words:
"Why are we catering to one group with a disease that's preventable? It's very preventable. If you're not doing needles and you're not gay, you won't get AIDS probably. And I don't know why we're spending $1.5-million on this."
It would have been statistically true - but not supportive of Rob's agenda - to state that, if you don't engage in high-risk behaviours, you probably won't get AIDS. And educating people so that they can reduce their risk of infection is the entire purpose of a preventive educational program, which is what we were spending $1.5M on. At least his second sentence demonstrates some understanding that the disease is preventable (but only if the right efforts are in place).
Rob's statements, however, are both inaccurate and ignorant. There is not "one group" of people who get HIV. And simply being gay does not put you at high risk for HIV. Unprotected sex - homosexual or heterosexual - is the key risk factor. And far too many heterosexuals are getting HIV for Rob to simply dismiss it as a "gay" disease or a "drug user's" disease. Labeling a disease in that way only serves to stigmatize those with the disease, and that's why his comments are homophobic.
His statements aren't inaccurate, and I posted the statistics on here a few weeks back. Homosexuals and drug users make up the majority of HIV infections. Obviously anybody can get it, but he was completely correct to state that chances are that you probably won't get HIV if you aren't in one of those two groups.
Wasn't this statement made in response for his voting against accepting provincial funding for HIV treatment and prevention? That's what I seem to recall anyway. If my memory is correct, then it's not the statement itself that proves his homophobia, its that he thinks its ok to turn down treatment programs simply because the people affected are gay or drug addicts. If that weren't enough, his opposition to gay marriage in itself is enough to label him a prejudiced homophobe.
I believe the statement was in regards to a promotional campaign for HIV awareness, which is a bit different than explicit HIV treatment.
That being said, I agree with you that the implications of what he said are worth considering. There definitely is a case to be made that the implications of what he said were homophobic.
The problem is, most of the people who label him homophobic use that statement completely out of its context, implying that simply saying that gay people are more likely to get HIV is homophobic, when its actually true. He didn't say anything untrue.
Now, as to whether the implications were homophobic, I don't think they were. Ford is against most spending for social initiatives - I think his comments here were more to the effect that a promotional campaign is unneeded because HIV isn't a widespread problem. I don't think he was implying that gay people deserve HIV, as that would also necessitate he was implying drug users deserve HIV and we know that he, along with several family members, have a history of drug abuse.
You seem to be ignoring his comments about "traditional marriage" and his endorsement of the views of renowned bigot Wendell Brereton.
Perhaps you'd care to enlighten us with your previous board name?
I don't think being for traditional marriage makes someone a homophobe. I think there needs to be a higher threshold for labeling someone "homophobic." I'm completely in favor of gay marriage. That being said, there are a lot of older people who grew up with the concept of marriage being between a "man and a woman". It's only in the last 10-15 years that there has really been a shift in public opinion on gay marriage.
I think that you could definitely make the claim that for youth who support "traditional marriage," there may be some homophobia at play, but its not that outside the norm for older generations. Many people have changed their minds in the last decade and we have no clue where Ford even stands on this issue today.
And the fact that he is the first mayor in nearly 20 years to not march in the Pride Parade.
Pride isn't synonymous with gay people. Heck, there are even gay people who dislike the Pride Parade. Just because someone doesn't want to march in the parade, doesn't mean they hate gays.
