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Somewhere over the rainbow, Toronto could be No. 1

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Now that Toronto has made the Top 3 list of the best LGBTQ cities in the world, what will Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory have to do to make it No. 1?

Well, they could follow the path of California.

Wynne, being a proud lesbian, could very easily walk the walk and Tory, so all-inclusive in his inclusivity, could be present for the raising of the rainbow flag when the premier triumphantly announces her selective travel ban.

That’s right, a travel ban.

While it did not garner a lot of press, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra upped his state’s LGBTQ profile the other day by taking to the podium to add four new states to his travel ban for discriminating against this mixed-tribe community.

Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee were already on his list but, on Thursday, Becerra added Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas.

It is now against California state law to travel to those states if it is for state-funded or state-sponsored business.

“While the Department of Justice works to protect the rights of all our people, discriminatory laws in any part of our country set all of us several steps back,” said Becerra. “That’s why when (we) said we would not tolerate discrimination against LGBTQ members of our community, we meant it.”

Now, no one knows for certain exactly when the planet tipped on its axis and dumped so many of the world’s leftist elites into California, but they are certainly there in full force.

There is nary a Hollywood star still breathing, for example, who has not spoken unkindly of U.S. President Donald Trump, and God bless their enormous egos, their excessive wealth and their immense carbon footprint for lecturing us Canadians on our filthy oil sands and our former slaughtering of baby seals.

We had it coming.

Forget that the Great White North is covered in ice 90% of the time, and slush the remaining days. We should be heating our homes with something other than environmentally-toxic fossil fuels.

Until the option is invented, however, we are stuck. Silly us for living where we live, and not thinking ahead.

Now, with California being California and therefore as progressive as all get out, one would have thought that San Francisco would top the list of the best LGBTQ cities in the world, and not come in a miserable 10th.

The rainbow flag used to celebrate gay pride was originally designed by a San Francisco artist. The second gay pride parade — nipped by Chicago by a day — was held simultaneously in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1970.

So, Premier Wynne, Mayor Tory, there you have it.

A travel ban is your path to Toronto becoming the LGBTQ community’s No. 1 city thereby topping Madrid and Amsterdam.

What added Alabama, South Dakota and Texas to California’s list was legislation recently passed which would prevent LGBTQ parents from adopting or fostering children, while Kentucky got the no-go ruling by passing a bill that would allow students to exclude LGBTQ classmates from campus clubs.

As far as California is concerned, therefore, there are now only 42 states in America worth the time of its day.

There are risks, of course, if Premier Wynne decides to follow suit and Tory decides to ride shotgun on this bandwagon.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of well-pensioned civil servant-voters in Ontario, as well as relatives of those civil servants, who are among the fortunate Snow Birds who flock to Texas every winter.

Texas is the new Florida — its damned intolerance baked in the warmth of a southern sun.

Hence the challenge to principles.

markbonokoski@gmail.com

 

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