The message is out

Closing submissions for Phase I continue at 0930 hours(9:30 am)  this morning, Wednesday, 25 February 2009.  The roster for the day is as follows:

9:30 am – 11:30 am:   Children’s Aid Society of SD&G

11:45 am – 12:30 pm:  Jacques Leduc

1:30 pm – 3:30 pm:  Ontario Provincial Police

3:45 pm – 4:45 pm:  Ontario Provincial Police Association

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I posted another batch of articles last night.   The long absent media is suddenly and curiously interested and on a roll 🙂  What a shame they weren’t there for the duration.

Note that for ease of access I am posting all coverage re submissions on the Closing Submissions page.  It is accessible via the Home page.

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I looked through the Citizens for Community Renewal’s submission.  It looks for all the world to me like Paul Scott and his group are intent on creating a problem which no doubt they and they alone can fix.  According to CCR, Cornwall is arife with ‘homophobes’!

No defining of terms here.

Still, the question is:  Will Paul Scott be part of the ‘solution?’  He has effectively created a non existent problem, will he be equally intent on creating a solution?  In other words, will there be a special slot at the post-inquiry government trough for Paul and/or his supporters to purge Cornwall of ‘homophobes’?  Something like a safe house for homosexuals who feel they have been wrongfully accused of sexual abuse? Or a centrally located office where homosexuals can lodge complaints of homophobia? Perhaps a satellite Human Rights tribunal office located right in the core of Cornwall?

We shall see. Whatever the plan CCR has done a bang up job of misrepresenting victims, their families and supporters as ‘homophobes.’ The message has gone international.  It would seem that Cornwall will without doubt be known as the homophobe capital of Canada.

Cornwall:  Home to countless real and “alleged” paedophiles; home to droves of real and “alleged” victims.  And, thanks to CCR, homophobe capital of Canada.

Anyway, I will limit comments to those related to two relevant quotes (in red) from the CCR written submission :

(1)  “Attention must be paid to the reality that homophobia was prevalent in Cornwall. While homophobia is generally a destructive social attitude, it appears to CCR that in Cornwall the effect of that attitude reached extreme proportions. Gay or bi-sexual men took pains to keep their orientation secret. There were suicides which are almost certainly connected with the individual being publically [sic] identified as being involved in a homosexual form of sexual offense.  Indeed the issue was so paramount to the OPP officers involved in Project Truth that they took pains to ensure that the individuals whom they charged in July 1998 would not attempt to commit suicide. (Even so, one of those individuals did make a suicide attempt and was hospitalized.) One of the alleged victims of Jacques Leduc, C-17, received an anonymous note after he had come forward which threatened him with death and called him a ‘faggot.’”

Which suicides?  Those of men who were charged or about to be charged because they had been sexually abusing young lads, and the jig was up?   Those who knew their despicable acts were about to become public?  I would suggest those who committed suicide did so because they had been caught. And I would suggest that the stigma felt by those men was not that it would be known that they had engaged in homosexual acts, but because it would be known they had been sexually abusing young boys.  I believe the stigma associated with child sexual abuse is warranted.

As for police taking pains to ensure that those whom they charged did not commit suicide, I do believe it is stretching the limits of common sense to conclude that police were concerned the men would commit suicide because they, the “alleged” abusers,  would be identified as homosexual or bi-sexual.

Finally, as for C-17 receiving an anonymous note, yes indeed he did.  That was rather strange.  Not a soul knew that that boy told police Jacques Leduc had been sexually abusing him.  Rest assured C-17 certainly didn’t tell a soul.  Rest assured none of his friends knew.  My recollection is that even his parents didn’t know until police came knocking on the door asking the boy questions.  I think C-17 was all of 15 at the time?  Or was he 16?   No matter, rest assured the “public” knew nothing of this boy’s allegations.  That note clearly came from one of the few people who knew the boy was talking.  The police knew.  And the bishop knew because for some strange reason he was told by police.   Who else knew?   I believe the circle is small.   I personally think the note came  from someone who was intent on letting the boy know that someone knew he was talking and that he should shut up.

Did the word “faggot” upset the child?  I don’t know.  I believe the death threat certainly did.   What teenage boy wouldn’t be upset by a death threat landing in his mail box?  However I must say that I think the CCR is grasping at straws to turn this death threat into something anti-homosexual.   If this is the best they can do to advance their agenda it’s really quite pathetic.

(2)  “Activities that in a less homophobic community would be seen as benign, in Cornwall became evidence of a pedophile ring. For example, it is hardly abnormal for adult gay men to become friends and to socialize with one another, including vacationing together in Florida. In Cornwall however this activity alone became evidence in some people’s minds of membership in the “pedophile ring”. For this equation of homosexuality with “pedophilia” to occur in the 21st century and for people to reason that associated gay men were guilty by association is a reflection of the depth of the community’s homophobia.”

What nonsense.   The truth of the matter here is that there were reports that prominent men from Cornwall and beyond vacationed together in Florida, and that while in Florida the men availed themselves of the ‘services’ of underage male ‘prostitutes.’  I believe there was even talk that on occasion young boys were taken on the trips.   No matter, adult males were said to be engaging young boys in sexual activity while in Florida.

Adult males having sex with boys is generally viewed by the unwashed masses as paedophilia, – even if the adult male is a self-declared homosexual. True enough various ‘experts’ might not call these men paedophiles, they might refer to them as homosexual paedophiles, or bisexual paedophiles, or ephebophiles, or pederasts or boy lovers, or whatever – it’s all dependant on which expert, the year, and how the ‘expert’ defines those various sexual perversions in which adult males get their sexual jollies by sexually abusing boys twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years their junior.

I don’t see how CCR or anyone can conclude that anyone who talks about adult males sexually abusing young boys is equating homosexuality with paedophilia, nor do I personally see how CCR can say that talk of self-identified homosexuals molesting boys constitutes “homophobia.”  But then neither do I know how the CCR defines homophobia.  I suppose, for example, that if the CCR regards anyone who says that a known homosexual was also a molester is a homophobe it would indeed be homophobia, would it not?

As for “guilt by association” I don’t know what CCR is getting at here, but I must say it strikes me as passing strange language at an inquiry which has tried to malign anyone who ever rubbed shoulders with Perry Dunlop.  Conspirators one and all.   I suppose it’s more goose and gander stuff – guilt by association is fair game if the subject is Perry Dunlop, and the guilt-by-association-buck stops there.

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CAS has started.  Apologies. Excuses.

Will get on with posting the media of the day as I watch and listen.

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As you work your way through submissions please do blog quotes and/or comments.  There is a lot of reading there.  It will take time to read and digest, particularly with submissions running throughout the week.  If everyone blogs what catches their eye we can start to get a feel for what’s in those submissions.

Enough for now

Sylvia

(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)