"Gay men in Canada live with daily violence unimaginable to straight people"

Gay pride is not just a parade, it is an attitude.

I don't understand, why are people so closed minded?

[quote] I don't understand, why are people so closed minded?

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight

To hate all the people your relatives hate.

You've got to be carefully taught.

Nonsense. Gay people in Canada have it great.

Yes battered wives and child brides know nothing of daily violence. Gay bashing is wrong, but no one has the monopoly on violence. It's not a competition.

Hyperbole

Gay men have it SO much better in most African countries, Indonesia, most of the Middle East.

about the author -

[quote]Richard Murray Vaughan is a Canadian poet, novelist and playwright. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Vaughan is a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of New Brunswick. Vaughan currently lives in Toronto. Wikipedia

He sounds exhausting.

WTH has happened to Canada? They used to be so nice and polite.

Drama queen trying to sell her "creative writing".

I am a gay man born and living in Canada and I do not have to live with "daily violence unimaginable". In fact I have a pretty good life.

The author means well but is obviously a drama queen.

R10 Most of us still are.

Jesus. Imagine being stuck in a conversation with this guy at a party.

He's appears to be upset at one point because he "can't pass for straight'

The writer of the article is from a teeny little hick town. Toronto is the opposite of that. He's a dumb old twit.

I love how gay men murdered by a gay man is the fault of straight people and homophobia

The Alt-Right types in Canada refer to the Toronto serial killings as "gay on gay violence". The police systematically ignored the gay community's concerns that gay men were going missing.

I thought Canada was this amazing liberal utopia filled with diversity and love and Justin Trudeau's quirky socks.

Canada is a utopia. This can't be true.

[quote]Justin Trudeau's quirky socks.

She was my favorite on [italic]Family Ties[/italic].

R18 Well if gay people are killing gay people then it IS gay on gay violence.

I live in the deep south, USA. And I don't fear daily violence. Not even close

His perspective strikes me as that of a 'village gay', the type that lives in a gay ghetto, and everything is analyzed through a gay prism until some homophobic injustice can be found, or at least manufactured

r18 They also ignored women's concerns about the Highway of Tears, IPs concerns about reserve conditions and racist LEOS, and rural farmers concerns about being repeatedly targeted by thieves, etc.

The 1% corporate elite love it when people write columns like this because it allows them to divide and conquer.

What R19 said.

r26 The cities are better compared to the US, but our smaller and/or rural areas are, pardon the phrase complete shitholes.

R27 No they're not. They are like a throwback to a different era. A charming innocence.

r28 where do you live? Seriously.

Wait, I think I'll read that as sarcasm.

Ah..No one has thrown me off a roof or denied to make a cake for me and my partner or shot up a club...yet

R29 I was born on a farm in Southern Ontario and then later raised in a small town. These areas are still lovely and relatively unscathed by our fast moving times.

I live in a city now but have fond memories of the farm/rural area and the small town.

I don't know how you cope, OP.

R24 has a point. I stopped participating in local gay activism directly because of this attitude. I’d had enough when a random remark about a local am-dram group putting on a production of Annie descended into a discussion of whether it was intrinsically homophobic.

I still don’t know to this day why anyone thought that but it made me realise what had been a very necessary watchdog organisation had become a victimhood enabling cult. Every little fucking thing was being picked apart and found wanting by uneducated and unintelligent drama addicts. The irony was those who saw offence everywhere had never experienced any real homophobia. It’s like they feel left out because they secretly know they have never had a struggle and envy those who do.

The killer was gay, though, so it is hard to put gay men as a victim class using this case.

It is true that violence against gay men is common - sexual orientation is the group most overrepresented in Canada's hate crime stats, and almost everyone victimized in such crimes is male. But the gay serial killer story doesn't work as an illustration of this fact.

R34 and it wasn't like he was closeted or tormented. He was out and open

Sometimes a psychopath is just a psychopath and sexual orientation has nothing to do with the crimes. If he was out and open maybe the people he came across most often were other gay men so that’s who he killed. I don’t know of course but it’s as reasonable as anything else.

Oh no R36. You can't pick and choose when gay comes into things. If a gay person kills a gay person, it's gay on gay violence. Don't deny it and try to pin it on straights.

R37 huh? I think u must of misread R36

R38 don’t try to reason with him, he’s the only one I’ve got on ignore so that means he’s the crazy MRA anti-choice misogynist spamming threads with pictures of aborted foetuses. Because gay men are exactly the audience for this kind of oppressive crazy....

I think a lot of you are missing the point. This point is, many people in the gay community alerted the police that gay men were going missing, and those concerns were dismissed by the police. So yes, homophobia did contribute to this tragedy. Remember when one of Dahmer's victims went to a police station for help and the cops sent the terrified bleeding boy back to Dahmer because they didn't want to get involved with "gay drama"?

This is a writer's self-promotion. But he must be tiresome to be around. He is pitching himself to be the voice of imagined victims. As someone already pointed out, there are plenty of genuine victims out there who don't use such hyperbole.

one gay serial killer does not mean that all of us in canada are going to die

Everybody dies someday.