An anti-gay lawyer in Canada compared the rainbow pride flag, which represents the struggles of the vulnerable LGBTQ+ community, to a swastika. Both of them, he says, are oppressive.

Speaking at #TheRebelLive, John Carpay of @JCCFCanada just compared the rainbow flag to a swastika, and said that protecting LGBTQ rights is totalitarianism. In case you were wondering if they were bigots. #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/jMdezFWUBs — Michael Bueckert (@mbueckert) November 10, 2018

John Carpay, a member of Canada’s United Conservative Party with a history of opposing pro-LGBTQ+ legislation, was speaking at far-right event for Rebel Media, a group whose coverage of white supremacy has been far less than critical. The leader of the UCP, Jason Kenney, has compared Carpay to civil rights leader Rosa Parks… because irony is dead.

“How do we defeat today’s totalitarianism? You’ve got to think about the common characteristics. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a hammer and sickle for communism, or whether it’s the swastika for Nazi Germany or whether it’s a rainbow flag, the underlying thing is a hostility to individual freedoms,” Carpay said.

It’s obvious what Carpay is doing. He’s suggesting that the LGBTQ+ flag represents the idea that gay people and activists want to control others and force them to behave a certain way. He acts like a gay couple trying to buy the same cake as a straight couple, then complaining if a Christian baker doesn’t want to sell it to them, shouldn’t be trying to force that baker to violate his religious beliefs — as if he’s the one who’s oppressed.

It’s a wild misunderstanding that equates equal treatment under the law with some kind of special privilege that comes at the expense of people of faith.

Even though his message was abundantly clear, Carpay is now claiming that people are actually twisting his words.

Carpay told CBC News in a phone interview that the 30-second clip gives an incorrect impression that he’s “equating different belief systems” and doesn’t do justice to his 20-minute presentation, which focused on the “nature of totalitarianism.” “I’m saying that totalitarianism has common characteristics and then I’m saying it doesn’t matter what external symbol is being used when freedoms are under attack,” Carpay said. “We have to defend the free society. It doesn’t matter what the external symbol might be for an ideology, what matters is our fundamental freedoms being attacked and what are we doing to defend them.”

Carpay is a lawyer, so maybe he’s looking for a loophole, but he doesn’t seem to understand that it isn’t the “context” that is the real problem. It’s seeing a civil rights movement as a totalitarian regime ripping away freedoms from everyday citizens. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of all that. Carpay also provides no evidence to support his ridiculous conclusion. He doesn’t understand that most LGBTQ+ people just want to live their lives without intrusion from government, which, by his own logic, means he should be defending them and their civil rights.

Carpay issued a fake “apology,” but there’s no denying his underlying premise. We know that because he’s fought against reasonable LGBTQ+ protections for many years.

Carpay said examples of freedoms being under attack include anti-LGBT protestors being removed from college campuses and Alberta government Bill 24, which protects students from being outed by teachers if they join a gay-straight alliance… Carpay is the lawyer behind a lawsuit challenging Alberta’s Bill 24. In arguments before the court, he alleged that gay-straight alliances — peer-support groups that are meant to tackle bullying and provide supportive environments for LGBTQ students — are “ideological sexual clubs.”

Ignorance is never a good defense, but that’s all Carpay has going for him.

I guess everyone in Canada isn’t nice after all.

