Sun News’ Faith Goldy thinks I hate Christians. She’s wrong.

by Stephen Whitworth

editorialFaith Goldy doesn’t like me. Or rather, she doesn’t like Prairie Dog editor Stephen Whitmore.

Wanna hear about it? It’s a long story but I’ll try to keep it concise.

Okay. Remember waaay back in April, when Peter LaBarbera came to Saskatchewan to speak at an anti-abortion conference in Weyburn? LaBarbera is the president of a hate group called Americans For Truth About Homosexuality, so not surprisingly, the news that he was coming here caused a ‘ splosion of outrage.

Which is good. When someone says our LGBT friends and neighbours are mentally ill perverts who shouldn’t be allowed to marry the people they love, let alone raise children, outrage is called for. And when that person waltzes into Saskatchewan to spread their toxic manure? Well, that demands a response — and we can be proud of Weyburn’s collective lack of tolerance for LaBarbera’s intolerance.

Anyway.

LaBarbera followed up his Weyburn adventure by teaming up with local heterosexual rights activist/legend Bill Whatcott (as seen on The Daily Show!) to hand out anti-LGBT pamphlets at the University of Regina.

The U of R asked them to hoof it. They didn’t, the university called the cops, and Whatcott and LaBarbera were arrested and charged with mischief.

And that’s the prologue to this tale about me getting raked over the coals on Sun News.

Told you it’s a long one.


Sometime in May, a trouble-making friend alerted me to a Bill Whatcott tweet about the then-recent shootings in Isla Vista, California that left six people dead (plus the male, 22-year-old woman-hating killer, who committed suicide). Gun control was getting a lot of attention after Isla Vista, as it always does after massacres in the U.S.

That’s when Whatcott, a staunch “pro-life” activist, tweeted that the way to stop future massacres is to… make divorce illegal.

“Want to save lives? Maybe outlaw divorce instead of guns,” said the tweet.

Because the shooter’s parents, you see, were divorced. Obviously that’s why he went on a homicidal rampage.

Tighten up gun restrictions? That obviously could have never prevented this.

Anyway, this marvellously insane Tweet inspired me to tweet at Whatcott, “Do you own any guns?” It also inspired me to write a blog post where I called Whatcott’s cornucopia of extreme beliefs “part of an insane and terrifying worldview.”

I also wrote:

“Anti-abortion extremists are irrational and dangerous, flat-out, full stop. They are a big reason Canada needed a gun registry — a registry that was a response, by the way, to a massacre of women by a deranged Canadian “rampage killer”. Of course, Canada’s long gun registry was dismantled by the political party with the most anti-abortionists. Big shock there. For some people, God and guns go together even better than repressed homosexuality and self-hatred.”

I stand by that. For too many people, homophobic, anti-abortion and pro-gun beliefs go together. It’s a bad, bad, mix.

Also, Bill Whatcott being allowed to own guns makes me nervous.

Little did I realize that more than a month after that May 27 blog post, the Sun News Network would come roaring to Whatcott’s defence.

“Christians are second-class citizens! That’s the topic of tonight’s Byline,” screeched Sun News’ Faith Goldy in a video that I’ve watched a dozen times with a glee that defies my ability to convey it.

Goldy describes Whatcott, this armed, anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, anti-divorce activist facing mischief charges for distributing hate literature, affectionately. Her tone conveys a ‘this guy, aw shucks! Maybe he’s a little kooky but he’s not hurting anyone,’ sentiment.

Me, on the other hand?

“Stephen Whitworth, the self-described ‘handsome, wise and beloved’ editor of the magazine? Well, he leapt at the opportunity to vilify Christians like Bill Whatcott, who, in his mind, shouldn’t be allowed to own guns — and if they do, they ought to be tracked.”

Goldy went on to quote extensively from my little blog post. She also went on to call me “Whitmore”, but I forgive her. She seemed upset.

(You can watch the video on our site here, and I imagine it’s still on Sun News.)


Like a lot of conservative media personalities, Faith Goldy seems to think that all Christians are like Whatcott — anti-gay, love guns, no abortions ever, don’t have sex until marriage, etc. She’s wrong about that. Most Christians are, well, like most people — their beliefs come in a rainbow of diversity.

She also misrepresents the Christian right — a scary mob of angry knuckle-draggers with bigoted and stupid ideas that has seized public discourse in the United States and is entirely too prominent up here.

Goldy presents these extremists as harmless and wants their extreme beliefs tolerated.

You know what? Fuck that.

Lots of people are gay, or lesbian, or transgender. It’s normal. And lots of Christians are great people who stand for love, compassion and charity (not to mention ACTUAL Christian political ideas, like universal health care and welfare).

When someone — Peter LaBarbera, Bill Whatcott or even their fellow traveller, Faith Goldy — gets on a soapbox and spreads lies and misinformation about women, the LGBT community and the vast majority of Christians who aren’t bonkers, it creates space for violence and discrimination.

I have little patience for it.

And neither should you guys.


Stephen Whitworth is Prairie Dog’s handsome, wise and beloved editor. He writes a lot of stuff on Dog Blog at www.prairiedogmag.com.