A Voice for Men likes to present itself as a voice for gay men as well as straight ones. In a recent post, site founder and chief fulminator Paul Elam declared that
We regard men as human beings, regardless of their sexuality. And most of us feel that this is the salve that heals what has in recent history been inflicted on gay men.
No mention of lesbians, but of course they’re women, and Elam does not seem to like women very much.
AVFM managing editor Dean Esmay, meanwhile, likes to present himself as a champion not only of gay men but of lesbians as well, boasting in one recent tweet that “I have been lesbian-supporting since the ’80s.”
So why is AVFM giving a platform to one of Canada’s most influential opponents of same-sex marriage — and gay and lesbian rights in general?
Canadian Senator Anne Cools, one of the scheduled speakers at AVFM’s upcoming “Men’s Issues” conference in Detroit, has been a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage for decades.
Her objection? That only heterosexual marriage deserves legal protection because gay people can’t make babies – at least not with each other – thus making their interest in sex all about lust.
In a speech before the Canadian senate, she argued that
The public interest in marriage is reproduction, the continuation of the species, the offspring. There is no public interest in sex or the gratification of sexual impulses for their own sake. …
[L]ust, like all human passions, is not to be trusted. Lust and sex on their own have no public character and contain no public interest or public good. Marriage is about man and woman in a peculiar act of bringing forth offspring.
Never mind that plenty of stright couples don’t, or can’t, have kids. Or that some trans men can.
She’s not simply an opponent of same-sex marriage. Cools has consistently opposed other legislation designed to afford gays and lesbians the same basic rights as straight people — and the same legal protections as other victims of bigotry and discrimination.
She opposed adding “sexual orientation” to hate speech legislation, warning that doing so would expose “millions of Canadians…who hold moral opinions about sexuality, to criminal prosecution.” (Needless to say, the passage of the bill in question did not lead to millions of Canadians being rounded up and arrested.)
She also worried that adding “sexual orientation” to hate speech legislation would somehow – I don’t quite understand the logic – encourage the “depathologizing the paraphilias” and ultimately lead to children being “seduced” into dangerous sexual activities. Here’s her argument:
The fact of the matter is, honourable senators, that we discourage children from smoking cigarettes because tobacco is harmful. I would submit that we are talking about some sexual activities that are dangerous and life-threatening. The committee should have the moral courage to hear something of it. I have lost a lot of beloved friends to a variety of these conditions. I have made it my business to instruct myself. That is the first question. You can think about that.
Ms. Landolt, your concern that the term “sexual orientation” is so wide as to involve a wide range of sexual behaviours is well founded. I would like to put on the record here for this committee a document called the Journal of Homosexuality, particularly, volume 20 in 1990. The subject of the entire volume is pedophilia and male intergenerational intimacy, historical, social, psychological and legal perspectives. If you were to open up this text, the foreword is the debate on pedophilia, and the second article is “Man-Boy Relationships: Different Concepts for a Diversity of Phenomena.” It continues with “Pederasty Among Primitives and Institutionalized Initiation.”
She continued:
I want to know about these children out there and the impact that this is having on them, and, in addition to that, all of these children who are being seduced at youthful ages and who are discovering what is happening to them two or three years later. I have done a lot of counselling. I would like to get a greater picture of the problems out there for children on these grounds, because this sexual orientation debate is going on here as though children do not exist.
She also tried to raise the question of “the medical consequences to individuals who involve themselves in activities such as ‘rimming,’ … sado-masochism and so on.”
In explaining her opposition to adding sexual orientation ito the Canadian Human Rights Act, she offered a similar “slippery slope” argument:
The concern is that pederasts and paedophiles will advance claims to engage in adult/child sexual relationships as a matter of human rights; that claims will be advanced on the legal grounds that pederasty and paedophilia are sexual orientations having entitlements.
For more on her various backwards views, as well as the source of that last quote, see here.
On Twitter, I asked Esmay to explain why AVFM is providing a platform for a woman who opposes same-sex marriage. He hasn’t replied.
Another curious Twitterer asked the same question of Janet Bloomfield, the official spokeswoman for the upcoming AVFM conference. She handled the question with her usual (lack of) aplomb.
Apparently AVFM’s much vaunted “compassion for men and boys” doesn’t apply to gay men who want the same basic rights as straight men.
For more on AVFM’s tolerance of homophobia – and Elam’s notorious attack on one trans women, see here.
EDIT: After I put this post up, I decided to see if I might have better luck at getting answers from Bloomfield on Twitter. The conversation went about as well as could be expected. Remember, Bloomfield is AVFM’s offical “social media” spokeswoman for the conference.
I didn’t see her comment about harassment until after I tweeted a couple more times.
Some more bang-up public relations work from Ms. Bloomfield here.
@2ycar
you know, i’ts not okay to be against gay marrige just because everyone else is..
“You think these asshole cranks have done one fucking thing for gay men? You think that your shitball rinky dink non-movement in any deserves to be mentioned with movements that have help gay men (the actual gay rights movement, progressive movements, the Democratic Party and, yes, feminism)?”
The MHRM isn’t a gay rights movement, but neither is it anti-gay. It helps gay men only as far as it is able to help all men. Maybe that will change in the future but it is still a relatively small fledgling movement with few success thus far and must limit it’s focus to more general issues affecting all men.
Many people believe that we trans lesbians are violent rapist non-human creatures. Gee, maybe I should adopt the majority view! Clearly they’re right about us tr*nnies. /s
Yeah, why would a man want paternal rights at the time of the birth of their children anyhow?
“You educated yourself AT ALL? You didn’t even click the source David put in this very post. You’re a smug, ignorant straight boy who doesn’t actually know what it means to be oppressed, and you’re a tedious bore. Go fuck yourself with a cactus.”
You’re so rude. I am going to click on these links and educate myself.
Drop the appropriation you homophobic shitheaed.
Talk about projection.
RE: 2cyar
You’re so rude.
If you like, I can insult you politely!
You obviously commented on a post you didn’t read. You didn’t check the source. You expected to be taken seriously when you were a complete ignorant, and you expected me to coddle your feelings because you obviously knew about as much about queer liberation as you do about Ms. Cools. That shows a staggering ignorance that impresses me with its breadth and depth. I could wax rhapsodic about the depths of your ignorance. I could write poetry in its honor, and in fact, I believe I shall!
Roses are red, violets are blue,
Tulips are pink
And know more than you.
Okay, it’s pretty lousy poetry. But it’s absolutely polite!
You see, 2cyar, I can stop being rude whenever I want. But somehow, I suspect that you will STILL be smug in your own ignorance.
@2cyar
I fucking give up. You don’t care that Cools, who will easily be the most influential and powerful speaker featured at the AVfM conference, is virulently anti-gay. You completely discount the struggle of gay men and seemingly know almost nothing about their very incomplete struggle for equal rights. You repeat MRA brain-dead talking pointing and gloss over the fact that they as a movement have done jack squat, other than dox, harass and rant about women (Not “few success”, FYI).
nthing the ban request.
News flash: Endorsing a homophobic Canadian politician makes your movement an anti-gay movement.
Also supporting getting rid of this little shitweasel.
Basically 2cyar’s opposition to marriage — he lets it slip out occasionally that he thinks marriage is bad because it’s unfair to men — is that men should not be required to help support the children (and their mother) that might result from any fucking he is able to do. That’s pretty standard MRA thinking — if it’s not strictly to men’s advantage, then get rid of it.
I think there are problems with the way the state rewards marriage — for example, I don’t see why two elderly sisters sharing a home shouldn’t get the same economic benefit as an elderly man and woman who are married. But what I want to do is INCREASE the number of people who can CHOOSE marriage or obtain its benefits, not deny marriage to gay couples with the rationale that arguing for something that won’t happen (total abolition of marriage) somehow solves the equality problem.
Hey, I’m an old guy, I was born deep in the jungles of darkest Homophobistan. Luckily (because it’s the right thing but also because I have a gay child who’s now happily married) I managed to get over it. Time for 2cyar to shovel the shit out of his brain
An apt video:
http://youtu.be/3dqj6WbtvpE
@LBT
It doesn’t make it better that you’re not calling radical feminists transphobes. It’s the silly acronym that puts radical feminist in it. It makes it sound like all radical feminists are like that.What if I developed an acronym about liberal feminists TELF and started using it everywhere until it caught on. You don’t think a liberal feminist would one day say, hey you know that’s insulting because we are feminists. You even said yourself that you don’t call ‘them’ transphobes so why put the two together?
TE can be applied to ANYONE and doesn’t conjure up horrible images of any feminist group. I think people use it because they really don’t like radical feminists, forgetting that all the theory currently used by 3rd wave is FROM radical feminism.
Ok, so I read the article about Senator Cooles linked to in this article:
http://www.theinterim.com/issues/marriage-family/senator-cools-defends-marriage/
Firstly….this was in 2001. Does anyone have anyhting more recent? I know my own opinions have changed drastically over the last 13 years.
Secondly….it seems she is talking about marriage as an institution created to control and temper the lusts of HETEROSEXUALS.
For example in this paragraph she is talking about heterosexuals:
“Human lust is actuated by strong primitive instinctual cravings, impulses and urges. These urges are powerful and profound and can become ungovernable. It was to the governance of one sexual urge, the man and woman sexual union and its procreation factor, that marriage was developed. Marriage was developed for the protection of the function of procreation, for the continuation of the species, and the securing of property therein. – See more at: http://www.theinterim.com/issues/marriage-family/senator-cools-defends-marriage/#sthash.B3UxsrwK.dpuf”
Yes it’s true that she wanted to deny gays the right to marry, but so did Obama in 2001.
“Basically 2cyar’s opposition to marriage — he lets it slip out occasionally that he thinks marriage is bad because it’s unfair to men — is that men should not be required to help support the children (and their mother) that might result from any fucking he is able to do. That’s pretty standard MRA thinking — if it’s not strictly to men’s advantage, then get rid of it.”
Incorrect…I’m not ‘letting it slip out’…absolutely I think that marriage is unfair to men, and also to women in some circumstances. At some point it will become increasingly unfair to women and then they will be the ones who get rid of it. I would like to see it replaced with domestic relationship agreements and remove the arbitrariness of family court when couples decide to separate. I do think that parents should be required to support their children, but not their ex partners. I also think that men should have equivalent reproductive rights to women.
“I think there are problems with the way the state rewards marriage — for example, I don’t see why two elderly sisters sharing a home shouldn’t get the same economic benefit as an elderly man and woman who are married….”
I agree….or also two single friends…or mother daughter or whatever. It’s not about sex. I would like to see State sponsored marriage replaced with domestic relationship agreements or contracts and take divorce court out of the picture.
“How is Obama relevant…”
Do you have a problem with Obama speaking at a NOW convention?
@house mouse queen
omgiod. Because it was describing an attitude this is common among a certain group of radical feminists.`
….. gosh my brain is too frazzled to work out why this even seems so iffy to me. TERF is a word describing trans exclusionary radical feminists. It’s like, is even mentioning taht some radical feminists are transmisogynistic* a problem for you?
*and I know the term is trans exclusionary but a lot more of TERFs shit is directed to trans women, not just trans people in general.
:::head desk::
“You obviously commented on a post you didn’t read. You didn’t check the source. You expected to be taken seriously when you were a complete ignorant, and you expected me to coddle your feelings because you obviously knew about as much about queer liberation as you do about Ms. Cools.”
I was responding to the accusation that AVFM was anti-gay because one of it’s speakers didn’t support gay marriage in 2001.
Anne Cools was still opposed to same-sex marriage in 2005.
2005 was the last time it came up for a vote in front of her, so the last time we have Cools on record as taking a position.
And it would be a relatively simple thing for one of the conference organizers to simply ask Senator Cools what her current position on same-sex marriage and whether or not she supports the adoption and or custody of children by gay men.
I know that some men have uteruses, but i suspect those are not the men you are talking about. So can you elaborate further on what equivalent reproductive rights for men would look like? (Just for shits and giggles.)
RE: House Mouse Queen
I am aware that radical feminists are not inherently transphobic. The thing is, and what Marie and Ally have said, is that transphobic feminists are twisting radical feminist ideology to dump a shitload of misogyny on trans women. It’s a very specific philosophy they’re using, and they had a HUGE impact on how trans women are treated today. I feel that to hide that is throwing trans women under the bus for the sake of a sanitized image of feminism.
Feminists fucked up. They fucked up BAD, and they’re STILL fucking up about it. I’m not going to pretend that their transphobia is completely separate from their twisting of feminist ideology, because it’s NOT. Read The Transsexual Empire if you’d like an example.
Frankly, I will side with trans women over cis radical feminists any day. Because from what I’ve seen, trans women get the shit end of the stick more often.
RE: 2cyar
Firstly….this was in 2001. Does anyone have anyhting more recent?
Gee, I don’t know, 2cyar, why don’t you implement this amazing thing called Google? We’re not your mother; we aren’t doing your homework for you.
Like I said, you’re smug in your ignorance. You aren’t even willing to Google. That’s sad, man.
I was responding to the accusation that AVFM was anti-gay because one of it’s speakers didn’t support gay marriage in 2001.
Dude, I can read what you wrote. You didn’t even know this speech came from 2001 until just now. You were blowing hot air out of your ass and expecting us to believe you. Horseshit.
Do you have a problem with Obama speaking at a NOW convention?
Last I checked, Obama didn’t say I’m a child-molester. Also, he took down DOMA. Also, he’s not fucking speaking at a NOW convention, so the question is completely irrelevant. But please, keep trying to look smart. Keep trying to distract us from your willful stupidity.
Aaaaand I’m going to take a break now, because I’m getting really het up in here and my anger is not going to help fucking anything. TIME TO DRAW UNIMAGINATIVE’S BONUS SKETCH.