Premier Wynne "Slinks Out The Back Door"

The big talk today is the Sex Ed protest at Queen's Park, organized by Campaign Life Coalition, but I wanted to take a look back at last Saturday's protest at Valley Park MS,  organized by Thorncliffe Parents Association, which had already staged a protest in Thorncliffe Park on March 14th. Reports LifeSiteNews, "the Premier managed to slip away through a fire emergency exit rather than face her constituents."

Valley Park Protest -- LifeSiteNews

To be fair, the Premier tried talking to protestors days before. It looked like this. From the Toronto Star: "...Wynne said she believed the Mississauga event was organized behind the scenes by federal Tory activists trying to use sex education as a wedge issue to fan parental fears. And she is braced for more of the same in the months leading up to a federal election this fall."

Mississauga Protest -- Toronto Star

It's not a stretch to make that conclusion, with several federal Tory MPs speaking out on the curriculum, and James Lunney's recent meltdown about so-called anti-Christian bullying, to say nothing of the full-throated involvement of Charles McVety recently and Campaign Life Coalition. The religious right wing of the CPC -- Stephen Harper's people -- are mobilizing. Wynne explains in a Toronto Star video.

And then, there is only so much to say to a crowd of people screaming, "We say no!" and "Our children, our choice," pausing briefly to use the phrase "age inappropriate." It's a phrase, quite frankly, I'm sick of hearing because it's supposed to mean something. And so to say, grade three is too young to "learn about" diverse family structures if one is not also going to say the age at which this would appropriate information, means nothing.

And let's not pretend one minute longer that benign little item is not the first major deal breaker for the curriculum's detractors. When Charles McVety and Jack Fonseca hint -- as far as any interviewer will let them -- that the HPE document document has child grooming properties, they know they're talking nonsense. 

But it's nonsense they can sell to vulnerable, fearful parents who are dependent upon these demagogues to explain the curriculum to them and tell them why they should be so afraid.

Let's get back to the Valley Park MS protest. Sam Sotiropoulos was there, microphone in hand, to rally the troops. The former TDSB trustee has been working his way into this protest since the first Queen's Park event, at which he offered to speak. When organizers became worried they wouldn't have enough marshalls, as required by their permit, Mr Sotiropoulos signed up for that too. Soon he was posting to their Facebook group and event pages, discussed here, where he became an administrator. This seems to have re-formed as the Ontario Says My Child! My Choice! Facebook page. He was also the emcee of today's Queen's Park event. 

Here's Mr Sotiropoulos, with his Go Pro, at Valley Park:

The video is titled No More Kathleen Wynne... As the kids say, it's  a w k w a r d. He over-pronounces like a novice ESL teacher while locals stare back, clearly wondering who he is. His clarification that he is a former trustee doesn't seem to trigger any enthusiasm or recognition. He asks for a show of hands -- Who voted for Premier Wynne? -- expecting huge response; only a few hands go up. It's all very excruciating.

What's clear: A long range plan to unseat Premier Wynne and the OLP. 

My speculation: Having recently announced that he's joined the PCPO, as well as his desire to remake the party, I'll bet he's sniffing around to run for the Tories provincially in the next election.

Another of Mr Sotiropoulos' fellow administrators of the Ontario Says My Child! My Choice! Facebook page is Farina Siddiqui, a former political candidate, who's been giving information sessions on the curriculum -- the actual content of these sessions is not portrayed in the video linked. Here she is below giving instructions to protestors:

"We're not anti-gay," she calls out. "We're not against anyone. We're not homophobes."

We are not gay. Somebody else is. But they're not here today. With us. But we're not against them.

There are two reasons, I believe, people are likely to say, "I'm not homophobic."

1. They're horrified by homophobia and don't want to be associated with it.
2. They don't believe there's really such a thing as homophobia.

Sorry. I grew up hearing, "I'm not prejudiced, but..." 

I'm not buying this anymore.