Alberta Tories oust candidate linked to anti-gay controversy

[Newsjock]

Source: Canadian Press

RED DEER — An ugly internal dispute over sex, religion and violence erupted within the Alberta Conservative party Saturday, ending up with a candidate being ousted and Premier Ed Stelmach saying the reasons for the "difficult" decision must remain confidential.

Mr. Stelmach presided over a private meeting of his party's 40-member executive committee, which voted not to endorse the nomination of a candidate who founded a group linked to an anti-gay letter.

Mr. Stelmach emerged from the closed-door session to announce that Craig Chandler's nomination in Calgary-Egmont was "not in the best interests of the party."

... A member of a Christian group headed by Mr. Chandler wrote a letter several years ago entitled "Homosexual Agenda Wicked," which suggested gays were as immoral as pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps.

... The offending letter was written by a member of the Christian group, Stephen Boissoin, and was published in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002.

In Friday's ruling, commission panel chairwoman Lori Andreachuk said both Mr. Boissoin and the Christian group broke provincial human rights law by likely exposing gays to hatred and contempt.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071201.wchandler1211/BNStory/National/home

[Robbien]

1. How could he say this was a difficult decision?

It is cut and dry. The guy is a instigator of hatred.

[CHIMO]

2. Difficult

Because they may loose the seat in an upcoming election. Red Deer is not a place where one wants to say that dinosaurs weren't around six thousand years ago.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Alberta ~ North Montana

Ironically, both are great dino fossil country.

[HuffleClaw]

4. and the guy is playing the victim too

"Mr. Chandler said he felt like the clock had been turned back 50 years and he was being grilled in front of the anti-communist hearings in the U.S. led by Senator Joseph McCarthy... ...He runs a Christian radio station in southern Alberta and a business in Calgary, and was formerly the CEO of Concerned Christians Canada Inc."

- fortunately the Canadian public, for the most part, prefers its religion being kept separate from its politics. Alberta is about as far right as you get in our nation and its the only real source of 'fundies' too.

"The Alberta Human Rights Commission weighed in Friday with a ruling that the letter broke provincial law and may even have played a role in the beating of a gay teenager in Red Deer, where the Tory executive met Saturday."


- i'm waiting for someone to pop up and reveal the guy's 'wide stance' though.