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.
I hate to break it to you, but usually domestic partnership dissolutions involve all the same difficult crap that you associate with divorce.
http://www.justia.com/family/domestic-partners-unmarried-couples/docs/ending-a-domestic-partnership.html
I just read the transcript od Senator Cools at this link:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/373/lega/04eva-e.htm?comm_id=11&Language=E&Parl=37&Ses=3
Where she is discussing bill C-250….’to amend the Criminal Code (hate propaganda)’
and she was basically arguing against the bill because it would criminalize thought instead of actions and was too vague and poorly defined.
“Dude, I can read what you wrote. You didn’t even know this speech came from 2001 until just now. ”
But you did.
“Last I checked, Obama didn’t say I’m a child-molester.”
I’m wading through these links but I haven’t seen yet where Senator Cools called you a child molester either.
Move to Australia. The family court here resolves financial and child support/custody issues for any couple that splits up. http://www.familylawcourts.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/FLC/Home/Separation+and+Divorce/De+facto+relationships/
Of course, that doesn’t solve any of the issues about who is and isn’t capable or has any rights in health matters, hospital visiting or funeral arrangements. There are a great many more legal rights attached to marriage than just who signs a lease or pays the school fees.
Waded through the C-250 proceedings again and what I get is that this bill was an attempt to criminalize “hate speech” on the basis of “sexual orientation” and part of the opposition to this was that the term “sexual orientation” was vague and so broad as to include pedophilia as well as many other sexual crimes. She wasn’t calling homosexuals pedophiles but she was concerned that pederasts and pedophiles would also be protected by this bill as written.
“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.”
@2cyar
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ………………………
“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.)”
Legal right to decline fatherhood before the birth of the child.
Replace “gay men” with the word “men” and what you are saying is pretty much the same as how ALL men are portrayed in our society and one of the things that the MHRM is fighting against.
Don’t replace a oppressed group with a non oppressed group that is very insensitive and not true. Gay men have been harassed on TV, in movies, shows, and simply just jokes. Straight Men…not so much. Men have told other men to embrace that toxic masculinity because any less than that would be ::gasp!:: a woman! That’s why society has seen men as violent. I want to get rid of that toxic masculinity, we all do. It hurts everyone.
Straight men can marry, but they have no choice about whether they can stay that way.
Citation?
They can legally have sex, but are at risk of being called a rapist for doing so.
Only rapists are afraid of being called rapists. Is knowing consent that hard? And most rapists don’t even go to jail. I know some people who were raped and their rapists never went to jail. Citation: rainn.org
Straight men are literally setting themselves on fire to protest their treatment if family court
ONE straight man named Thomas bell beat his daughter until she bled! He had a chance if he would go to anger management classes but he chose not to. Family court chooses what’s best for the child/children, they will stay with the parent who has been taking care of them the most. But if men would only ask they will have a 50/50 chance of gaining custody or at least have more time on visitation.
Another straight man shot his ex wife.
http://manboobz.com/2011/10/14/mens-rights-redditor-on-seal-beach-shooter-he-is-one-of-us/
Divorces affect everyone but setting yourself on fire or shooting or whatever extreme violent method to get back at courts and your spouses is NOT the way to handle or solve anything but only makes it a lot worse
Citation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-meyer/dispelling-the-myth-of-ge_b_1617115.html
Woodyred
I’m a Christian and I’m really sorry times a gazillion of what Trans, Gays, Lesbians, BIs, women and non white people have to go through because of other Christians/religious and non religious bigots. Sorry I don’t want to stuff down my religion down your throat and you don’t have to listen but God loves all of you.
@LBT
::offering internet hugs, if wanted:: I hope you have fun drawing the sketch :3
@2ycar
See, I actually odn’t think that would be a bad idea. Because if you don’t want kids, you may not be the best parent (maybe you will, but I don’t want to force people into raising kids.)
As has been said many times, here though, the problem isn’t women want to force men to pay child support, it’s that kids need resources. Child support isn’t to punish fathers, it’s to help the fucking kid. If instead, one parent could opt out and the other got finacial support from somewhere else (govt?) that’d work, but I bet you and your mra buddies would hate the idea of something that might raise taxes….
@House Mouse Queen
Like I stated upthread, I am a radical feminist and a trans woman. People should be more appreciative of radical feminism, I think. Despite Andrea Dworkin’s hatred of trans women, her writing is excellent and vital for the most important feminist analyses of rape culture. Nevertheless, radical feminism as a whole has a history of transmisogyny, so it is completely reasonable to single out a subset of radical feminists. It’s similar to how we WOC feminists criticize what we call “white feminism” not because all white feminists are racist but because feminism has a history of being dominated by white women.
Also, are you cis? If so, then you don’t have a place in telling us trans women what our reasons are for using TERF.
@fruitloopsie
Eh, small nitpick, but if you aren’t block quoting would you mind putting hte quotes in “quotes”? It’d just be a little easier to see which parts you say.
Another MRA who doesn’t realize that bodily autonomy =/= wallet autonomy. Sigh. I keep thinking one of them will have a creative argument, but I am always disappointed.
Off to eat roast chicken and garlic with my visiting sister. See you all later!
@cloudiah
*ack* *envy*
Short 2cyar: I shouldn’t have to wear a condom.
MRAs yammer on about women not being responsible for themselves yet MRAs are the ones who think men should be responsibility-free when it comes to birth control, child support, and violence.
Oh lordy another one.
Look at it this way — what’s the lowest bar we could set for a group calling itself the ‘men’s rights movement’? The absolute lowest, simplest, easiest to clear bar?
“Are they actually in favour of the rights of men?”
Yes, we could and should expect more — much more — of any group that claims to be a human rights group. But again, lowest bar, easiest target: does the MRM live up to its name?
Selecting Senator Cools as a speaker in their first and so far only conference tells us that they do not. Even on the easiest setting, the MRM loses. They are the Some Rights to Approved Men Movement.
We all know they fail at everyday human decency, now we know they fail even by their own shallow terms.
WOOT!
Off to read the thread, now.
“As has been said many times, here though, the problem isn’t women want to force men to pay child support, it’s that kids need resources. Child support isn’t to punish fathers, it’s to help the fucking kid. If instead, one parent could opt out and the other got finacial support from somewhere else (govt?) that’d work, but I bet you and your mra buddies would hate the idea of something that might raise taxes….”
It isn’t a child before birth. I trust that women, knowing that her sperm donor declines fatherhood, will make the right choice for herself…or better yet take/insist on better precautions before getting pregnant.
Well thank you all for the education on Senator Cools. I’ve come to the conclusion that she is indeed a traditionalists but by no means the drooling hatemonger that she has been portrayed as here.
TTFN
@2cyar
::facepalm::
The reason people can get abortions is because of bodily aunotomy. And it’s nice to see you take any oppurtunity to blame it on women…no he can’t be arsed to take proper precautions, she should ‘insist’ he does.
fuck you.
@2ycar
Look, if you want to use ‘traditionalist’ to mean ‘drooling hate monger’ be my guest.
Don’t let the door hit you on teh way out.
(and stick to the flounce!!!)
Marie
@fruitloopsie
“Eh, small nitpick, but if you aren’t block quoting would you mind putting hte quotes in “quotes”? It’d just be a little easier to see which parts you say.”
Oh shoot! Sorry I didn’t realize that I didn’t do that. Is what I did better? Or are you saying that I have to put my words in “quotes”?
I hope he sticks the flounce. That whole thing was mind-numbingly boring.
@fruitloopsie
No, I just meant using the normal quotes, like you just did :3 I realize I put that kinda weird, with the “” around quotes.
And I trust that penis havers know pregnancy is a possible outcome when put their dick in a vagina and if he doesn’t want kids he knows to use a condom or get a vasectomy. It takes two to make a baby and both parents are responsible. Not just the woman.
You need to accept that once you ejaculate inside of a woman’s vagina, you no longer control the sperm. You don’t control whether or not it fertilizes an egg. You don’t control if she carries the pregnancy the term. You don’t get to decide you don’t want to take care of your responsibilities. Don’t like it? Abstain or get a vasectomy.
I’m not sure what of kind of fucking monster would want to let their own kid go hungry or homeless though. I wouldn’t even abandon my cats. You should feel bad about being such a terrible person. My own dad is great but I’ve known people with deadbeat dads and it’s caused them a lot of pain and insecurity. More evidence that MRAs don’t give a shit about human rights. You care for nobody but yourselves.