Crossroads Christian Communications is a non-profit organization that produces religious TV programming. So naturally the federal government awarded it over half a million dollars to dig wells, build latrines and provide health education in Uganda.
Crossroads got $544,813 from CIDA, the government’s international development agency, in a multi-year contract that would have run to 2014. Payments to the Christian group were suspended on Sunday, however, pending an investigation into their anti-gay views.
On a now-deleted part of the Crossroads website about “sexual sins” (still available in Google’s cache) the organization included homosexuality in a list of perversions:
Perversion - Turning from the true and/or proper purpose of sexual intercourse; misusing or abusing it, such as in pedophilia, homosexuality and lesbianism, sadism, masochism, transvestism, and beastiality.
Yup. Having a same-sex partner is just like fucking the family pet.
Julian Fantino, the minister responsible for CIDA, suspended payments to the evangelical group only after CP reporters brought it up. “I have asked officials to review this organization before further payments are made,” Fantino subsequently tweeted.
Of course, Crossroads’s anti-gay rhetoric is pretty tame considering the water project is in Uganda, where homosexuality is criminalized and where bigots have been trying to pass a “kill the gays” bill for over three years. (The bill is still not dead, by the way.)
The government has previously decried Uganda’s record on gay rights, with foreign minister John Baird singling the country out for criticism last fall. Then again, John Baird also had no compunction about speaking at an event put on by the anti-gay Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
The Conservatives record on some of this stuff is mixed, to say the least. But isn’t the real question here about why a TV production group was given money to dig wells in Africa? I mean, sure, part of the organization is geared toward development projects but it’s hardly their main focus. Crossroads bills itself as “Canada’s leader in providing faith and values media content for people of all ages” and their most popular show is 100 Huntley Street, a terribly dull daily talk show.
Until Crossroads figures out how it feels about perversions, maybe the money allocated to this group can go to any number of charities already working on expanding access to clean drinking water in Africa. Who knows, they might even let Crossroads film it.
via:CP image: Original
Comments are closed.