Big Fat Hairy Living

When I was growing up, my family was uptight about sex. Really uptight about sex. Even though Jehovah’s Witnesses are allowed to have genitals, they must not show them, touch them, discuss them, or in any way acknowledge their existence. Sometimes I think that the reason my parents chose not to have me circumcised as a baby was not because they wanted to keep my penis in one piece, but because they didn’t want to think about or talk about genitals any more than absolutely necessary.

The library my family used to go to was Albert Campbell Library, the biggest library in the city if not actually not the one closest to us. We’d make regular trips there every week to get new reading material; sometimes the entire family would go, and sometimes it would be just my father and me. As a testament to how safe things were back then, my parents would let me roam the library unattended. The library had a large children’s area, which was where I went when my parents unleashed me.

The visit I remember the best happened when I was six or seven years old. It was one of those father-and-me visits. That day, on one of the desks in the children’s area, I spotted a book entitled Girls are Girls and Boys are Boys (yes, that link is the very same book.) It was a book about puberty. I remember flipping through it and being fascinated by all the drawings of naked men. I can recall with incredible clarity one particular drawing of a bearded man: he was standing naked at his bathroom mirror with his cock dangling in front of him. Bearded and hairy. That image stayed in my head for years.

I was fascinated by the pictures, but I knew right away that my parents would never let me take such a book home. I didn’t even know the word “genital,” but I knew that genitals were sinful, forbidden, and icky. I decided to hide the book by slipping it in the middle of a stack of storybooks, trying to act casual and praying that nobody would notice the book. When the time came to leave the library, the librarian checked it out and my father didn’t notice it. I was home free!

Not quite as home free as I’d thought. When we got home, my nosy sister wanted to see what books I’d gotten. She snatched the pile from me and started flipping through them, reading out their titles in the most annoying sing-song voice she could muster. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there watching her, probably hoping that she just wouldn’t notice what the book was about. When she got to “Girls are Girls and Boys are Boys,” she sang the title out and started flipping through it. That’s when she saw the pictures. She gasped. She was sitting at the dining room table flipping through the book and she gasped. She saw a penis and actually gasped. “This book has dirty pictures!”

My mother and father rushed in to take a look at the book. They weren’t just mad, they were really, really mad. Nothing makes them more mad than the naked human body. I can kind of understand their concern — I mean, seeing a penis could corrupt an impressionable young boy! Who knows what seeing such a thing at such a tender young age might do! It could scar an innocent young boy’s psyche and cause him to grow up into a piss-drinking cocksucking orgiastic geezer-fucking queer slut who fucks guys with beards in front of mirrors! Oh, wait…

They demanded to know where I’d gotten the book. They seemed satisfied enough that I hadn’t stolen it, so I managed to get away with nothing more than a talking to and a few days’ grounding. They took the book and placed it out of sight to be hidden from me until the next trip to the library when it would be returned.

Little did they know that I wasn’t as stupid as they thought. I knew exactly where they’d hidden it. They hadn’t hidden it at all; they’d placed it on top of the tall chest of drawers in the master bedroom. The next time they went out, I sneaked into the room, stole the book, and took it to my room. For the next week, whenever they left the house I’d take that book and look at the pictures. They never knew.

The author of Angry in the Great White North writes about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

The text of the [Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms] makes it clear from where these rights are derived. It opens with these words: “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” So the rights exist because we wrote them down, and they are subject to whatever limits the government can jam through parliament.

The author also states elsewhere in the post that Trudeau made “a new Canadian Constitution,” which is untrue in the same way it’s untrue to state that passing the Bill of Rights created a new US Constitution.

The quote is from section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, commonly referred to as the limitations clause. Since it’s not the preamble, it’s not what the Charter “opens with.” Admittedly, those are minor nitpicks, but another example of the kind of inaccurate statement he’s made before.

Minor nitpicks aside, his assertion that the limitations clause says that “the rights exist because we wrote them down” is false, a fact that is apparent to anyone who reads the entire Charter. Section 26 of the Charter states

The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed as denying the existence of any other rights or freedoms that exist in Canada.

This says that there are other rights which exist which are still guaranteed even though they were not written into the charter; something that is possible because rights exist regardless of whether they are written into the Charter or not. Compare this to the ninth amendment to the US Constitution, another expression of the same principle.

What else is wrong with his interpretation? Let’s break down the limitations clause into individual parts and examine it piece by piece to see what it says:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to

In other words, the rights guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are not subject to any restrictions other than the ones spelled out in the rest of the clause.

such reasonable limits

Any limitation of a right must be reasonable, as determined by an independent and impartial judge.

prescribed by law

The limitation must be written into law, i.e. it must be a regulation or an Act of Parliament or a legislature and not simply an arbitrary action by a government official, regardless of whether that action can be considered reasonable or can be demonstrably justified:

as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

The limitation must be justified as being allowable in a free and democratic society. As an example, jailing everyone with blue eyes isn’t allowable, because it cannot be justified in a free and democratic society.

How does this section get applied in practice? The Oakes test was laid out in the 1986 Supreme Court decision in R. vs. Oakes. This test is used by judges to determine whether a law that violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is allowable under section 1.

If a court determines that a law infringes on a right guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, The Oakes test asks the following questions:

1. Is the limit put in place related to a pressing and substantial governmental objective according to the values of a free and democratic society? If not, the law is unconstitutional.
2. If it is related to a pressing and substantial objective, does the legislation limiting the right have a rational connection to Parliament’s objective? In other words, the limitation must not be based on irrational considerations and it must not be unfair or arbitrary.
3. If there is a rational connection, does the law achieve that objective while impairing the right minimally? In other words, are there other ways of achieving Parliament’s objective that infringe the right to a lesser extent? More simply put, is the law vague or overly broad?
4. If the impairment is minimal, is the effect of that limitation proportional to the importance of the objective? Is the benefit achieved by limited that right proportional to the damage caused by infringing it? In other words, are the effects of the impairment so severe that they outweigh the benefits of limiting the right?

A law must pass all the tests in order to stand. If it fails any part of the Oakes test, it cannot be justified under the limitations clause.

I’m not a legal scholar (and I’m getting tired of writing this), but it’s clear that his interpretation of the limitations clause is incorrect. His post contains other points which I don’t disagree with, but it starts off wrong, wrong, wrong.

The author of Angry in the Great White North writes about Senator Ted Kennedy’s recent speech calling for withdrawal of American troops from Iraq:

in the British tradition, the opposition is more formally known as “Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition”. That title carries some baggage. Opposition must not stray into treason. Loyalty to the Crown must be maintained. In American terms, “Crown” is replaced with “President”. Ted Kennedy should oppose, but remain loyal … The fact is, a President has made a decision, the legal requirements set by the Constitution have been met, and the troops are in Iraq. To keep second-guessing the decision and harping on a debate that has been lost seems disloyal to me. Part of being loyal is allowing yourelf to be led by that to which you have pledged your loyalty. Make suggestions about where to go next, but it is not acceptable to call the decisions already made into question … The same warning can be issued to Barbara Boxer and John Kerry, both of whom of late seemed to be indulging in speeches that, to me and others, seem to cross the line between loyal opposition and sedition.

Summary: “Loyalty to the President must be maintained. Once the President has made a decision, nobody must question it. Because Senators Boxer, Kerry, and Kennedy are questioning the President’s decision, I believe they have crossed the line into disloyalty and sedition.”

Shorter Angry in the Great White North: Why does Ted Kennedy hate America?

(Hint: Someone might want to do some reading up on American Constitutional law and history.)

New York Magazine has a great article on Martha, her company, and her comeback.

“A couple of weeks ago, on a frigid Friday morning, [Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Susan Lyne] took some time on the company’s private-plane lease to see Martha at Camp Cupcake … The holidays were over, so the visiting room was fairly empty and quiet. Martha and Susan played Scrabble. “You’re going to hate me,” teased Martha. “I have a seven-letter word.”

“Show me, show me,” said Lyne.

“It’s actually quite apropos,” said Martha, laying out her letters. The word was longing.

According to the article even Douglas Faneuil, the star witness against her in her trial thinks she shouldn’t have gone to jail.

I had another meeting with my manager to talk about my disastrous performance review.

One of the things we talked about at the last meeting — in addition to the stuff about web surfing and wisecracks — was the need for me to work on something that doesn’t make me want to puke. At that meeting, my manager assigned me support work for another project and asked me schedule another meeting in a few weeks to talk some more about what I wanted to do.

At the follow-up meeting he told me that he’s pleased with the work I’ve done the past two weeks; he sees my decent work as evidence that I can work hard on something I don’t hate. Good news. The problem is that the jobs in the department are all ones I hate. Bad news. I could work on supporting other projects, but there’s not enough to fill all my time, and the rest of the work is technical stuff that I dislike.

Given that, he mentioned that it would be challenging to find work for me. That’s when he brought up the possibility of moving to another department. I get the impression that he doesn’t see much of a future for me in this department. I have a feeling that I’ll be at the top of the list when the next round of layoffs come.

My first dating experience, if it could really be called that, happened in high school when I was still confused about my sexuality and still very much in the closet.

I’d known Tony (not his real name) since elementary school. He was a chubby sandy-haired Italian kid who kind of looked a bit like me. His family was devoutly catholic. We went to the same elementary school, the same junior high, and the same high school. Even before I knew what sex was, I’d always been strangely attracted to him. Even before he turned into a football-playing, rugby-playing hairy Italian Stallion.

In my teens, I’d developed a habit of sucking dick in public washrooms. Using the cock-peeking techniques I’d learned there, I extended my peeking to high school, doing stupid things like looking under stall partitions to get glimpses of cocks. That was how I started “dating” him. It was grade 11.

I would position myself in the far stall in one of the school’s washrooms and wait for someone to come in to use another stall. I’d attempt to crouch down and see if I could get a look at their cock. It was pretty obvious, pretty stupid, and I never did see much cock. But I was a horny 16-year-old and it seemed to make sense at the time.

It was during one of these cock-peeking expeditions that I had my first encounter with him. I was attempting to take a peek at the cock of the guy in the second stall and was probably even more obvious than usual, because when I sat back up on the toilet, he got up, turned around, and knelt under the partition, offering his dick to me. I can remember exactly how it looked: hairy legs, hairy bush, hairy all over. Thick at the base. Uncut.

I froze, not knowing what to do. After a few seconds, he told me what to do: “Suck it,” he stage whispered. I got on my knees and did, just for a few seconds. Then someone came in and we both scrambled to get back on our toilets. He pulled up his pants and left. I didn’t even know whose dick I had sucked. I was frightened.

The next day, he came up to me in the hallway. He was wearing a backpack and a T-shirt and the straps of the backpack were pulling his shirt down in front exposing his incredibly hairy chest. Only in grade 11 and he had more chest hair than a gorilla. I tried not to stare, but I think he noticed because pulled up his shirt. He asked me if I wanted to come over to his place some time to hang out. I nervously stammered something like “Yeah, sure,” and then he thanked me for “yesterday.” I must have stared at him like a stupid cow, because he looked around and whispered something about how I had helped him out the day before after school. He emphasized his point by scratching his nuts, something totally innocent for a straight guy but incredibly sexual for a gay guy. I was still staring at him stupidly, and he asked me for my phone number. I gave it to him. He told me not to worry, that my secret was safe. He just wanted to see me again. Only then did I understand what he was talking about.

We “dated” each other until the end of high school, and it was one of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had. We would meet every few weeks, usually going over to his place and sometimes to my place because of the condo’s underground pool. We’d fuck around, have a good time, and then he’d completely and utterly ignore me for the next few weeks. I’d try to approach him in the halls at school and he’d brush me off. I’d call him and he’d tell me he couldn’t talk, or even worse, he’d get his sister to answer the phone. But then after a few weeks he’d decide he wanted to get together, and he’d call or talk to me in school. I was stupid and I always went back. We’d have sex, he’d ignore me, I’d cry, he’d talk to me again, and the cycle would repeat. Catholic guilt.

Through it all he kept his word and never told my secret. We lost touch after high school, and the last time I heard of him was when I ran into his sister in the subway. She told me that he was living downtown with his girlfriend.

I still remember his phone number.

The author of Angry in the Great White North responds one last time to my post on that same-sex marriage thing and talks about my “infatuation” with bear porn:

You’re right of course, you did not use the word “infatuation”. It’s merely a dream job of yours. My inference was clearly unwarranted.

It’s called humour. When I say that my dream job involves jerking off to bear porn and eating pastry, I’m joking.

He finishes off his with this zinger:

In any case, I don’t care to debate you any further. Your tone and your rude behaviour bore me, and I hate to be bored. Feel free to post to my blog, by [sic] I will ban anyone who uses it to debase others or to indulge in puerile name-calling.

“I’m bored! I’m not listening! I’ve got my fingers in my ears! Can’thearyoucan’thearyoucan’thearyounananaanana!”

Note the lack of any response to my arguments about rights or discrimination.

The author of Angry in the Great White North responds to my response to his post on same-sex marriage:

I have posted a quickie response, and invite you to read it. I am disappointed at the angry tone you’ve used (I’m supposed to be the angry one here), but as I said in my original post (or “rant”, as you’ve described it), this is an emotional issue and all participants in the debate deserve to be treated with the utmost respect and consideration.

His full response is available on his blog.

It’s interesting that someone whose blog is entitled “Angry in the Great White North” is disappointed at “the angry tone” I’m supposed to have used. If there’s humour in there, I’ve missed it. That doesn’t matter, though, because he mistakes annoyance and frustration for anger. It irritates me that right-wingers constantly repeat the same hackneyed points, which when stripped of their supporting arguments boil down to “You shouldn’t marry because you’re not heterosexual and can’t have babies.”

As for treating participants with respect and consideration, someone calling me “friend” with a plastic smile and asking for respect all the while arguing that I’m shouldn’t be allowed to marry because I’m different is not worthy of respect. It’s like a segregationist telling a black man who’s upset at racist laws that he’s “disappointed” at the black man’s “lack of respect.” When Mark is on his death bed and hospital administrators at St. Michaels Hospital won’t let me in to see him because I’m “not family” and these conservatives show up to help me argue my way in, then I’ll start showing them respect.

Regarding the Canadian Constitution, he writes that

the Charter of Rights is from 1984, and is being used from SSM advocates as the basis as their arguments

(Emphasis his.) What he originally wrote, and what I responded to, was his statement that “the Canadian constitution is a very recent document, from 1984.” He’s Wrong. So very, very, wrong. Wrong-o-matic. Wrongalicious. He’s the Wrongatollah Wrongmeini.

The Canadian constitution is not a single document. It’s considered an unwritten constitution, composed partly of Acts of Parliament and partly of unwritten customs that have been developed over centuries. As an example, the role of the Prime Minister, how he or she is chosen, and how long he or she remains in office are nowhere defined in any of the documents that make up the Constitution of Canada. The office of Prime Minister developed over a long period of time and is a matter of custom, not written law.

The fact that the Canadian constitution is composed of many documents and many unwritten customs makes it impossible to pin a single date on it. One could argue that the most significant date is 1867, the year the British North America Act, now referred to as the constitution Act, 1867, was passed, but even that’s not completely accurate.

But even if you interpret his statement that Constitution of Canada is “a very recent document, from 1984″ very loosely, he’s still wrong. That’s because what he’s probably thinking of is the Constitution Act, 1982. Yes, 1982, not 1984. And not only is it not from 1984, it’s not “the constitution,” it’s just part of it. And it’s not “the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of the constitution Act, 1982, which is in turn part of the Constitution of Canada. Wrong. Wrong-a-wrong-a-ding-dong.

Having got that bit of wrongness out of the way, we see that writes

Rights like the right to vote (mentioned by our friend) are individual in nature — they can be exercised without substantially impacting your neighbour directly. It is hard to imagine any legal act having more impact than marriage. So much so, in fact, that it is managed by the community to make sure that people directly involved (as well as the community as a whole) do not get hurt by ill-advised marriages.

“it is managed by the community to make sure that people directly involved (as well as the community as a whole) do not get hurt by ill-advised marriages not get hurt by ill-advised marriages?” Perhaps I’m missing something here, because I really don’t understand this argument. There are no blood tests, psychological test, or criminal background checks required to get married in Canada. Restrictions are pretty minimal, so unless I’m missing something here, I don’t see how marriage is managed to prevent “ill-advised marriages,” unless one defines “ill-advised” as meaning “gay,” or perhaps “incestuous,” in which case I’ve got a whole load of other arguments for him.

More generally, he’s using the whole “rights that impose obligations on others aren’t rights” line of argument simply rephrased as “rights are inherently individual.” So voting is a right because it’s individual and it doesn’t affect one’s neighbour. The right to a fair trial doesn’t affect one’s neighbour. The right to be promptly informed of the reason for one’s arrest doesn’t affect one’s neighbour. The right to freedom of expression doesn’t affect one’s neighbour. The right to marry another consenting adult doesn’t affect one’s… oops. Sorry. Went too far there. Tee-hee!

Further down, he fails to respond to the point I tried to make in my previous post when he writes

It is not discrimination when the rules are applied evenly.

Sometimes I feel like I have to talk really slowly to get people to understand: Rules applied evenly to everyone can still discriminate. Tell me, does a law that prevents butt-fucking discriminate against gay men so long as the same law is applied to everyone, gay or straight? Is that what you’re saying? Does a law that prevents mixed-race marriages discriminate? Perhaps you might like to respond to my original post?

Finally, he closes off with

PS: To Scarborough guy infatuated with bear porn (his words, not mine): I do know about “substantive rights”. First, marriage is not a right, so it doesn’t apply. Second, I don’t like made up rights

I’m not “Scarborough guy” (read the sidebar), and I’m not “infatuated” with bear porn; the word “infatuated” never appeared on this site until now, so those could hardly be my words.

As for marriage not being a right? Well, I’ll go by the words of legal and human rights experts over that of some guy with a web page.

While surfing the web, I ran across this rant against same sex marriage. How many times is it possible to recycle the same old tired arguments? Don’t respond: I already know that the answer is “infinitely many times.” (And before you click on that link, be warned that this guy is an engineer and he lives in Ajax. Proceed with caution.)

Brushing aside his comically incorrect misstatements of fact (”the Canadian constitution is a very recent document, from 1984″), and focusing only on his arguments, it seems that he believes that marriage can’t be a right because rights “are inherently individual things that you have automatically … actions you can exercise without the moderating influence of society,” i.e., one can’t marry without another person being involved. So tell me, is the right to vote not a right? Because it’s not like one can exercise the right to vote on one’s own without the “moderating influence of society.” Not that the phrase “moderating influence of society” means much anyway.

He goes on to bring up the old “homos can’t have kids” canard:

Why should alternative arrangements get the same benefits as a child-bearing long-term monogamous stable heterosexual couple when they do not provide society anything in return?

Like infertile heterosexuals and post-menopausal women?

The fact is, the laws that define marriage as a state between a man and woman do not discriminate against gays. Marriage is not restricted to heterosexuals. Homosexuals can get married as well. All heterosexual men are allowed to marry women, and forbidden from marrying men. Similarly, all gay men are allowed to marry women, and forbidden from marrying men.

Of all the conservative arguments against same-sex marriage, this is one of the stupidest. Seriously, this is just fucking stupid. Tell me, is a law defining marriage as being between a man and a woman of the same race discriminatory? Because remember, such a law would apply equally to all groups: Black men could marry a woman of the same race and white men could marry someone of the same race. What’s that, you say? Homosexuality is a behaviour and isn’t analogous to race? Then what about a law defining marriage as being between two people of the same religion? Christians could marry each other, just like jews could. No problem with that law, right?

The law is applied equally to all - that is what it means not to be discriminatory. When blacks in the US were not allowed to enter certain restaurants or go to certain schools, that was discriminatory — they could not partake in the same behaviours as their fellow white citizens … What people are confusing is discrimination with desire. The law might affect your desired actions differently.

Using his “desire” argument, one could say that Jim Crow laws affected the desire of blacks to go to the same restaurants as whites, but didn’t prevent them from going to restaurants - just the ones they wanted. Similarly, laws defining marriage as being between a man and a woman don’t prevent gays from marrying - just from marrying the ones they want.

Do us all a favour: look up “substantive rights” in Google.