Essays in Idleness

A piece of legislation passed our provincial legislature, yesterday. Should gentle reader be curious, and patient, he may begin exhuming details himself (here, for instance).

We are not in Kansas any more. They are not even in Kansas any more, even in Kansas,  as I am reminded by another current news item, about a “sperm donor” taken to court for child support, but let off. For reasons likely beyond his comprehension, and certainly beyond mine, the man is off the hook for a large bill, accrued since the lesbian couple in possession of his child split up. So the state must play “father” to the actual mother. In fact, the man came out at least 50$ ahead, paid in 2009 for each of his acts of masturbation, arranged through Craigslist. He may further profit from his legal expenses, made the draw for a “GoFundMe” Internet campaign. I look at the photo of his face with the news report. He could be the poster-boy for fatherhood today.

That case is now presented in liberal media as an example of discrimination against lesbians — on the argument that the mother wouldn’t have gone after the sperm-donor had her non-mother “partner” been a man, and thus automatically on the hook (in the State of Kansas). We are now far advanced into Cloud Cuckooland.

As the Ontario legislation shows, it is not a “simple” matter of parenthood being redefined — so that, for instance, a child in Ontario may now have up to four parents at any given moment, to none of whom he need be biologically related. His whole existence is now contractual. His fate is that of chattel before courts that will adjudicate between the “rights” of these various impermanent masters. Laws once designed to protect the child have now been so “reformed,” that he could be a pork belly. He has no mother and father any more. Like a dog, he has only owners. (See also here.)

But something else interests me. It is the way this Bill 28 was passed — by all three parties in the legislature, unanimously, without audible debate. It was rushed through, with derisory media attention. The leader of the only party that might have opposed it — Patrick Brown of the “Progressive Conservatives” — told his members to vote for the bill, or be absent from the legislature. This is the same Patrick Brown previously condemned in liberal media for being a dark “social conservative,” beyond the reach of sunlight. When all along he was an unprincipled wimp, rat, and sell-out.

Of the dozen or so “Conservative” members “from the sticks” who were unambiguously opposed: all, without exception, agreed to disappear for the sake of “party unity.” The considerable number of voters who elected them (almost invariably by larger margins than their more progressive colleagues), and the large numbers present as minorities in other Ontario ridings, were thus deprived of a voice, on an issue of tremendous importance to them. Moreover they were smeared, as a group, for “bigotry,” “sexism,” “homophobia,” &c — implicitly by the party leader who also came to office by their votes. And all for defending old-fashioned motherhood and apple pie.

Why? Why did they agree to take this? In what sort of “democracy” does the opposition agree to be smeared, ignored, and then shut down?

I can hardly blame the politicians. They are filth, but I know that already. Rather I’m inclined to quote Kate McMillan, sweet mistress of the lively Saskatchewan blog, Small Dead Animals. As she likes to say:

“Not Showing Up To Riot Is A Failed Conservative Policy.”