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Home » Blog This

March 12, 2007

Take your community standards and ...

Posted by Ariel Troster at 02:02 PM ET

God, this feel like so-20-years ago. Censorship is rearing its ugly head in Ottawa once again, after a father complained to the Hunt-Club Riverside Community Centre, after his son picked up a copy of Capital Xtra, Ottawa's gay and lesbian newspaper. He is, of course, objecting to an ad for a gay chat line, which appears in the back section of the newspaper.

In an article in Saturday's Ottawa Citizen (not online unfortunately), Greg Evans is quoted as saying, "I sat there looking back and forth at the pictures and words and the kids' basketball practice, and I thought, 'this is wrong.'"

Now a city councillor has taken up the case, and is apparently going to encourage city council to discuss an across-the-board ban on "explicit material" in community centres.

I don't know whether to stifle a yawn or hit the streets, because this issue just refuses to go away for the queer community.

First of all, I find it hard to believe that the city is actually taking one complaint seriously. I mean, do people read the Ottawa Sun? Because I'd like someone to explain to me why the Sunshine Girl doesn't elicit the same condemnation as a photo of two men embracing.

Are we to believe that the objectification of women is socially acceptable, while the queer community's depiction of our own sexuality should be condemned as obscene? That sounds like a double-standard to me.

Besides, children young enough to be "vulnerable" to sexually explicit content should not be left alone and unsupervised in public places where they could read free periodicals. Frankly, I find anti-choice religious rhetoric more damaging than any depictions of nudity and sexuality. The Christian Right offends my "community standards." Should we also ban advertisements for church socials and anti-abortion rallies?

Also, to quote Gareth Kirkby, editor of CapX:

Queers want access to our community newspaper of choice, just like everyone else. We live throughout the city and we want our paper treated exactly on par with other papers and widely available.

Capital Xtra is not an adult publication. It is a community newspaper. Like other local papers, it has a small amount of advertising devoted to dating services, escorts and so on. But the overwhelming majority of space goes to local, provincial and national news and views, along with listings and arts and culture coverage.

The municipal government has no business restricting the content of community newspapers.

Gays and lesbians are sick of having our lives and our media put under a microscope. It's deeply offensive to keep asking us to justify ourselves. It's time Ottawa dealt with our existence and our way of life and moved on.

More entries on: LGBT

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Reader comments:

I hear you. The solution isn't censorship, it's parents understanding that sexuality is healthy not shameful, and learning how to talk to their kids about it.

For what it's worth, I really wish I'd seen same-sex romantic/sexual images as part of the normal mosaic of life when I was growing up.

Posted by: shawnsyms at March 12, 2007 02:50 PM

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Yes, yes. That's the point I forgot to make ... in a world where kids are bombarded by over-sexualized images of anorexic women, the gay and lesbian media is a welcome respite for anyone who feels different. In fact, I wish young people could see more sexually explicit imagery that's actually sex-positive and accepting of a wide range of body types and sexual/gender orientations ...

Posted by: ariel at March 12, 2007 03:48 PM

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What a waste of time that this guy is being taken so seriously by city hall and that his pressure tactics have worked so far. This is about Greg Evans "right to hate". I do not agree that he should have this right.

Posted by: shannon at March 13, 2007 10:21 AM

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Capital Xtra has just posted an action alert about this on their website. You can find it here.

Posted by: Ariel at March 13, 2007 12:51 PM

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