Toronto mayor Rob Ford said he would not take part in the Pride Parade festivities, nor will he be present next Tuesday for the rainbow flag raising at city hall. Instead of taking part in the Pride Parade, Ford said he would do what he does every Canada Day weekend and head to the family cottage in Muskoka. This should not be controversial, but of course it was. So his brother Doug Ford indicated he would bring Rob back on the Sunday to march with homosexuals celebrating their sexual proclivities. Rob Ford reiterated he won’t be at Pride.
The politics of this does not fit with the worldview of downtown Toronto. The elite media found this outrageous, but according to the online poll with Breakfast Television 72% of people support Rob Ford. (On Breakfast Television this morning, it was reported that Torontians opposed Ford’s decision when according to their own poll 62% of respondents supported the mayor.) Ford’s voters outside the downtown core probably don’t care about Pride — if gays want to march, go ahead, but if people don’t want to take part in the orgy of deviancy, they shouldn’t be forced to. Ford will never win over the Church and Wellesley crowd, but could lose the vote of middle class families outside the downtown. If he were to show up now he would probably lose support among his base for selling out and face boos from the gays and their supporters at the march. It is impossibly bad politics for Ford to go to Pride.
I do not know what Rob Ford’s view on homosexuality is. Doug Ford has claimed they are both social liberals. You can be socially liberal and still be uncomfortable about taking part in Pride celebration of the homosexual lifestyle. But Toronto elite doesn’t think that way. As Barbara Kay notes:
The exaltation of homosexuality is second only to the reverence paid to unfettered abortion as a litmus test for political correctness amongst our cognitive and cultural elites.Rob Ford’s sin is that he does not believe in mixing politics with sexuality pride. Rob Ford is not a homophobe, but nor on the other hand does he think it is any particular honour to be homosexual. Many Canadians not schooled in the catechism of gender correctness agree with him.
Andrea Mrozek says that in Toronto, homosexuality trumps abortion. That’s probably true.
