03.30.2017 06:31 AM

Are you gay?

That’s the question k. d. lang asked Jason Kenney:


She asked it because Kenney had proposed outing Alberta kids. That’s right, kids. Just one of the fiery responses that elicited – plus background – is here.

Is the newly-selected Alberta PC leader gay? I don’t know. Many of us always assumed he was. None of us cared, either. It was his business. It was nobody else’s business. 

I know many – many – politicians who are in the closet. I wish they didn’t feel like they had to be. But, again, it’s their business. 

Jason Kenney made the personal the political when he said what he said. It became important – as lang pithily observed – when Jason Kenney proposed one rule for gay kids, and an entirely different rule for guys like him. You know, like hypocrites do. 

I grew up in Alberta, like Jason Kenney and k. d. lang. The vast majority of my male friends in high school were gay, and I’m not exaggerating. They were all in the closet, in those days, because they all felt they had to be. They had their reasons. 

Jason Kenney may have his reasons, too. It’s his right. But Jason Kenney shouldn’t ever, ever use the law to take away the rights of kids. 

When he tries to do that? Well, that’s when people will start asking Jason Kenney if he is gay, too. 

Because a hypocrite is a hypocrite, gay or straight. 

29 Comments

  1. Kevin says:

    Ironic. Whether Jason Kenney is gay wasn’t an issue before, but he’s managed to make it an issue now.

  2. MetisRebel says:

    Note he doesn’t want to inform their liberal parents if they join “The Young Conservatives”, brain damaging football team or afterschool chemistry clubs where they can learn to build nukes.

    Just whether or not they’re in support of LGBTQ rights.

    • raoul duke says:

      Re. after school chemistry; betcha he will if their Muslim! Although that may be more Dr. Leitch’s shtick.

  3. Neil says:

    He did NOT grow up in ALBERTA!!!!
    They never do, these guys, they all come from away.

    • Warren says:

      I thought he did

      • Neil says:

        Nah….. Onterrible ……Kenney was born in Oakville, Ontario, the son of Lynne (née Tunbridge) and Robert Martin Kenney, a fighter pilot and teacher, who was of Irish heritage.[5][6] He was raised in Wilcox, Saskatchewan. He is the grandson of jazz musician and big band leader Mart Kenney.[7]

        He went to high school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, at the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, a private Catholic high school, known for its Notre Dame Hounds Hockey. He then studied philosophy at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university in San Francisco, California. He left university without graduating to begin work for the Saskatchewan Liberal Party.[8] He was “very involved in the young Liberals” as a young man, and in 1988 served as executive assistant to Ralph Goodale, who at the time was leader of the party.[

      • Christian says:

        According to his wikipedia page he was born in Oakville and went to high school in Saskatchewan. And (are you ready for this?) was the executive assistant to the leader of the Sask Liberal Party in 1989. A certain Ralph Goodale…..

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Kenney

        Neil is right. These guys (Kenny, Chandler, Harper, etc.) all seem to be self-loathing former easterners/Liberals.

        • jay says:

          It gets better. Stockwell Day was born in Barrie, Ont., but graduated from Westmount High in Montreal, though I haven’t been able to find out if Schwartz’s named a sandwich after him.

        • Writerwriter says:

          Candler.. He’s a case…

    • PJH says:

      Well Wilcox Saskatchewan ain’t exactly Central Canada…….

      • Christian says:

        No, but he was born in Oakville, which is. It doesn’t say how long he lived there or when he moved west tho. Presumably sometime before starting high school. Anyway, the point is that he didn’t ‘grow up’ in Alberta.

        • Justin says:

          All this silly regionalism, name calling and the like. I’ve never felt like I was superior living in Ontario but Les ans Neil seem to think we’re awful people.

  4. albertaD says:

    For gay folk, Kenney’s rumoured orientation has always been an issue.

    • Kevin says:

      Well, now you’ve gone and spilled the beans. Yes, we would just die if we didn’t know whether Kenney were gay or not.

  5. cynical says:

    The only real issue is hypocrisy. I think your voters should be able to know what you are, especially if your party leans one way and you the other.
    I’d never vote on the basis of sexual orientation, because I’ve seen too many examples of really great people who’d have been denied a career in public service if I did.

  6. Sharon says:

    Who’s Jason Kenney?

  7. Sometimes politicians should just shut up about things they don’t really know anything about. The opinion he expressed, about concern that parents should know their kids’ challenges, is reasonable; anybody who has an inkling about ordinarily functional families should hope that things could always be that way, that parents and kids could always communicate, share and support one another. But of course that’s not the reality for everybody, and the situation can’t be dealt with from the perspective of an insensitive kind of idealism. He should have held back from trying to impress the one constituent who had complained to him with a policy-type statement that has implications he hadn’t even considered.

    BTW, excellent article by Paula Simons.

  8. lou says:

    Is this really a bigger deal than the Dauphin selling us out to China while he tries to avoid the House of Commons? Castro would be proud of how close to the tree the acorn has fallen. While we throw fits over silly conservative gaffes, we sit silent as the Liberals and their savior work behind the scenes to destroy all aspects of freedom that we hold dear. Fortunately I have no children to suffer the results of our nation’s stupidity in putting this neophyte and his enablers in power. Climate change? The biggest threat to our future is a man that admires Cuba and China. Self admitted.

    • Kev says:

      Which aspects of freedom are being destroyed? Be specific.

      Excellent use of “dauphin”, BTW: preferred word of Tory trolls everywhere, many of them even in Canada!

  9. John Manzo says:

    Please edit this otherwise brilliant post to correct the implication that Kenney was raised in Alberta. He was not.

    Kenney’s sexuality became an issue when he opposed same-sex marriage. You spread hate from the closet, you get outed. And that’s not because being gay is in any way shameful or something to be treated as pejorative: It’s because your reputation with your bigoted hatemongering supporters will be damaged and, hopefully, your political career will be destroyed. That’s why we out. Not to shame somebody for being gay, but to defend ourselves against those who want us dead.

  10. Ridiculosity says:

    I don’t care where the hell Kenney was born.

    I do care about his politics though – and his policies.

    Perhaps he should spend sometime in places where gay rights are celebrated like Afghanistan, Turkey, Russia or Jamaica.

    Maybe that would give him a little insight into why whether a kid decides to join a Gay/Straight Alliance is none of his fucking business. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.

  11. guppy says:

    Long lost twins…..Randy from Trailer Park Boys and gay?/virgin? Jason Kenney. Wasn’t Randy gay?

  12. Dan Johnson says:

    Whether Jason Kenney is gay or not is inconsequential of whether he can do a good job as a politician. But making statements about “outing” teens if they join a group of LGBTQ people that support each other is flat out bullying, whether Kenney is gay or not. This is not leadership on any level. If Kenney is gay he should say so publicly, if not only to be honest with himself, but to be honest with his constituents and those students he intends to hurt.

Leave a Reply to The Doctor Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.