We’re not shedding a tear for Richard Decarie, a Canadian politician who was barred from the Conservative Party of Canada’s 2020 leadership race after — and perhaps because — he said that being LGBTQ+ is a “choice.”
According to The Canadian Press, Décarie had submitted the required application, fee, and nomination signatures for the leadership race, and the party had interviewed him for the position.
On Twitter, Décarie told followers that the Leadership Election Organizing Committee provided him with “no reasons” for their rejection. “It seems my candidacy was viewed as a threat to the establishment of the CPC and to the kind of leader THEY want to select,” he added in his February 29 tweet.
He added: “True Blue Conservatives, including those with traditional values, are a major force within our Party.”
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Cory Hann, a spokesman for the party, said that he couldn’t offer specific reasons for the Décarie decision, citing the confidentiality of the process.
Décarie aired his views on LGBTQ+ individuals in an interview on CTV’s Power Play in January after saying that the “real people” he meets agree that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed.
At that point, his interviewer asserted LGBTQ+ people are “real people, too” and Décarie replied, “I think LGBTQ is a liberal term. I don’t talk about people that way.”
Related: Canada’s new coin celebrates day gay sex was legalized
He went on:
“I think it’s a choice, and how people are behaving is one thing. I think government has a responsibility to encourage the traditional value that we have had for the past years. That’s the kind of [socially conservative] issues that I would bring as a leader.”
Emphasizing his "so-con" values, Décarie says "LGBTQ" is a "Liberal" term and that being gay is a "choice." #cdnpoli #ctvpp
More at https://t.co/uCQmGSHoEL pic.twitter.com/F9Z70Ejsdi
— CTV Power Play (@CTV_PowerPlay) January 22, 2020
Other Conservative politicians, including two of his competitors for the Conservative leadership role, criticized Décarie for the comments.
Ontario MP Marilyn Gladu said that Décarie’s comments were “unacceptable” and that she “will stand up for the rights and freedoms of every Canadian”.
And former Minister of Justice and Attorney General Peter MacKay tweeted, “Being gay is not a choice and nobody should be running for office on a platform to roll back hard-won rights.”
Décarie has a history of anti-LGBTQ remarks, PinkNews points out: He tweeted in 2017 that LGBT-inclusive education “degenerates young minds” and that transgender children “do not exist.”
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
When is Queertygoing to make this so annoying garbage put “paid content” on every notification???
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
interesting because I DID NOT choose to be Gay however he DID choose to be a pernicious noxious ignorant smcubag
Cam
The problem Republicans and right wingers around the word keep finding themselves in, is that perverting language only works for a while.
Republicans keep getting shocked that Latinos don’t support them, because poll after poll says Latinos support “Family Values”. The problem is that to Republicans the words solely stand for bigotry. To the people polled it means, ties to family, supporting each other etc… And Republicans have forgotten that those words don’t mean the same to people outside their bigoted enclave.
Same with this guy. “Traditional Values” code word for racism and hating LGBTQ people.
GayEGO
Good comments! I came out to my family when I was 50 in 1991 and I called my husband my roommate then. The one person in my family who said I chose to be gay was my sister who was living in Texas. My other sister who lived in Idaho where we were all raised told me that she didn’t judge. My mother was OK with it, and my dad had passed away, fortunately, as he would have been upset.
We got married in Massachusetts in 2004 when marriage equality was passed and we were together for 57 years until he passed away last year. We lived the American dream because we lived in a state where you can, a Blue state!
GayEGO
I am thinking that people who make the comment that “we choose to be gay” have never been through the struggles we have to be able to live our lives as who we are, not who others tell us to be. The only choice I had to make was: Am I going to hide myself in a straight community or am I going to live my life as who I am, a gay man. I made the latter choice, met my lifetime partner of 57 years, and we have lived a wonderful, American dream life.
GymMan456
Right. I actually think now there is a large group of bisexuals who have had a minor struggle with themselves and got out “solely heterosexual” – effectively stepping on their gay sides, because it is so much easier to be hetero.
And then you think everyone chooses – as if the choice of how to live and act is the same as to recognize what you are and what you feel.
But it is quite easy to understand, Bisexuals have a choice.
msfrost
“traditional values” is a buzzword. Yes, buzzword is a buzzword.
SteveM
As a Canadian (and I am not a member of the Conservative Party), I want to tell Queerty and anyone else reading the above article the facts about Richard Decarie. He is NOT a politician and never has been, although he wants to become one. I don’t recall him ever presenting himself as a candidate for for any elected position at either the federal or provincial level. If he did, he was defeated. He was a deputy chief of staff to Stephen Harper, after Harper became the Conservative Party leader and leader of the opposition in our federal parliament, but before he became Prime Minister in early 2006. Decarie is a virtual nobody and a religious nutbar. Before he announced his candidacy for the Conservative Party leadership, he was a talk show host in the province of Quebec, but he was absolutely unknown elsewhere in Canada. Readers of Queerty can conveniently ignore what that bozo has to say, because he’s nothing but a kook, as all religious nutbars are.
iron
the little grenades get published. on a nobody ug
winemaker
And i thought Canada was an enlightened country, Anyway being gay is not a choice or lifestyle, it’s a life. It’s been proven scientifically we are born gay or straight. Really, who in their life would choose a ‘lifestyle’ that subjected them to ridicule, job discrimination, discrimination and housing, making them targets for assault and even being killed. Really this idiot needs some learning, needs to get with the program and finally needs to come into the twenty first century. We’re here, we’re queer, so get used to it!
ptb2016
Comedian Daniel Sloss said this. “I’m not gay but if it were a choice I’d think about it. I mean it can cost a lot of time and money convincing a girl to sleep with me. What could be better than hanging out with your best friend and getting blow jobs?”