Township to pay damages for refusing to declare Pride month
The Township of Emo will have to pay damages after refusing to proclaim Pride Month.
In 2020, Borderland Pride requested the township declare June as Pride Month and display a rainbow flag for one week.
The township refused that request and now the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has ruled that the refusal was discriminatory.
In decision released Wednesday, the tribunal awarded $15,000 in compensation to Borderland Pride for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect.”
The township will have to pay $10,000 of that amount. Emo mayor Harold McQuaker is personally responsible for the remaining $5,000.
The tribunal also ordered McQuaker and the township’s current chief administrative officer to complete human rights training within 30 days.
The tribunal declined, however, to order the township to make any Pride Month proclamations either retroactively or going forward. – SNnewswatch.com
article website here
What? Having a Pride month is a human right? Since when? How? Why? How is this discriminatory? There are no declared months for heterosexuals. I believe, in order to discriminate, you must favour one over another based on race, religion, gender etc. I do not see that here. What I see here is the exact opposite. I see the township not favouring one community over another. Hetro Month…….a month to celebrate being heterosexual….Have a parade. What would that flag look like? Does not matter. Just demand that the local government hoist that flag for a week. If they won’t then take them to the Human Rights Tribunal. Get $15,000. Maybe more.
I have always believed that human rights are rights that applies to everyone. Basic. Pride month is not that.
The Pride organizations can have their Pride activities and celebrations without having local governments making any declaration whatsoever. Nobody is stopping them in Emo. Have a parade. Have a dance. Picnic. Nobody is stopping them.
These types of decisions are just one of the reasons that politically, countries are becoming more and more socially and fiscally conservative. People are fed up. You can see it in elections all over Europe and recently in the US. Canada is next.