Content Notice: Defacing the flag, I guess?
Let it never be said that sensitivity and the need for safe spaces is in any way monopolized by minorities or liberals. As it turns out, all you need to do to ‘offend’ a certain brand of Canadian Nationalists is add some colour to a piece of fucking fabric:
I got a rape threat on my Facebook for sharing this. Facebook says said threat “isn’t a community standards violation.”
According to internet trash basket Life Site News, this ‘distortion’ of the Canadian flag ‘disturbed’ the head of the Christian Heritage Party.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared at the Toronto Gay Pride Parade waving a Canadian flag with the vertical red bars replaced by the rainbow stripes of the LGBTQ movement.
“It’s disturbing to see the flag put to such a use,” Rod Taylor, head of the Christian Heritage Party, told LifeSiteNews. “He is showing disrespect for all the Canadians who disagree with him on the gay agenda. He is basically saying, ‘This is the new Canada, so get used to it.’”
Yes, Rod Taylor, that is the message. You can’t institutionalize second class status for (cis) queer citizens. Boo hoo. I’d drink your tears but I think my doctor would advise against it–that much salt is bad for my health.
Life Site News goes on to correctly point out:
Another site, Findlaw.ca, goes further, stating “the Canadian flag may be a symbol of pride, unity, honour, and sacrifice, but it’s not against the law to disrespect, deface, and destroy it.” In fact, “there are no laws against desecration, such as burning, shredding, stomping, or spitting on it. However objectionable, such acts are protected forms of expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Yes, this is the part that reactionaries always forget about their so-called freeze peach: Actual freedom of speech protects citizens criticizing the state, and that criticism can include ‘defacing’ the flag, if we were even to accept that this qualifies as defacing. But perhaps nationalists are too busy arbitrarily drawing lines on “true” Canadians to remember that. They’ll romantically say shit like “people died for that flag!” and then promptly ignore the part where the war the soldier died in was ostensibly to protect our freedoms.
Freedoms like defacing the flag.
-Shiv
“Awww…. poor babies” is about all I have to say to Mr. Taylor and his ilk.”Has we wost all our pwecious pwiviledge? Awww…. here, kid, have a bikky and shut up.”
They remind me of the Monarchists of the 1960s, complaining about that “horrid new flag” that was replacing the Red Ensign .
“the”
The assertion “people died for that flag” is ahistorical, unless it’s referring to the Canadians fighting in the current Afghan war. The maple leaf flag is slightly younger than I am, and the only Canadian flag I remember, but nobody carried it in either world war, let alone when the American armies attacked Toronto two centuries ago.
As flags go, it’s attractive—moreso, imho, than any version of the U.S. stars and stripes—but that doesn’t magically alter the timeline to make it the flag Canadians died while carrying in Europe a century ago.
And in the next week, we will see more of the same self-righteousness and attempts to dictate others’ lives. People have the same right not to wear poppies as they do to urinate on the Canadian flag, and we will see the same threats of (or actual) violence against those who choose not to wear one, just as we see the threats and violence against those who rip up or colour flags.
I saw a couple of those “rainbow leaf” flags during the LGBT pride parade last weekend, but didn’t catch any photos of it. (Interestingly, I never saw the US flag once, despite the number of americans in the parade….)
@Vicki, duly vaccinated tool of the feminist conspiracy
Careful now, we don’t let no darned facts on this blag!
Without looking it up, I can tell you that the Maple Leaf flag was first raised on
15 February, 1965.
I remember this because I was honoured to participate in the raising at my school.
It occurred during a blizzard.
We were wearing our BrownieGuideCubScout uniforms; shorts or skirts.
This flag would have showed up better.