So let it be written...
I know it will be difficult to suspend your disbelief, being a Canadian resident and all, but try to imagine waking up to a headline like "Government will only accept single heterosexual male Syrian refugees — no single gay men allowed."
Metaphoric mountains would fall, the very cacaphony of which would be rivaled only by the deafening hue and cry of the chattering classes.
But if we reverse the players in that imagined headline, which is what is actually happening, our new Trudeau Liberal government is perfectly fine with that.
After all, they are the authors of this discrimination based on sexual orientation.
So much for bringing 25,000 Syrian refugees into a country that prides itself on fair play. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrines in Section 15(1) equality rights for all. Specifically, that "Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination."
You know, the same charter Pierre Trudeau's government set into play in 1982. Oh the irony. His son, our new prime minister, does not appear to be possessed of a fine appreciation of the inconvenient nuances of, um, freedom. Take his seemingly off-the-cuff ban on any pro-lifers being in his caucus, for example.
So is this decision to not take heterosexual single Syrian male refugees under our nation's generous wing a harbinger of some kind of twisted PC Barney state? Were Canadian voters so eager to see the backside of Harper's government they unwittingly unleashed a new creature upon the land?
What is the rationale for excluding single heterosexual men? Can not gay men potentially be terrorists, too? And what about women? There have been female suicide bombers in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, India, Afghanistan and France.
But for some reason, over here across the pond, in enlightened liberal Canada, the very thought that women can be among those capable of committing such evil deeds is unthinkable unorthodoxy.
Not to make light of the situation, and I suppose I'm dating myself here, but I can't help but think of the character of Corporal Max Klinger in M*A*S*H. Klinger would do anything to get that ever-elusive Section 8 discharge out of the U.S. military, and therefore out of the Korean War.
I wonder how many single, heterosexual Syrian male refugees will embark on a similar ruse to get into Canada?
I mean, how can the government conclusively determine if someone is homosexual or heterosexual, other than just take their word for it?
Do they have some kind of scanner for that? Just picture the queue.
"Are you gay?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Enter."
Clearly, deeper thought is required.
So let it be done.