Canadian PM Trudeau proudly defends abortion and LGBTQ rights

Unlike a majority of Americans, I can express a fair amount of pride in my country’s leadership, and our head of state in particular. Here’s the latest example showing why, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau full-throatedly stands up for women’s and LGBTQ rights when asked why his government no longer subsidizes religious groups that work primarily to undermine those rights:

Transcript:

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No religious group is going to be barred from Canada’s Summer Jobs on the basis of their beliefs, period. […]

However, there are certain groups that are specifically dedicated to fighting abortion rights for women and inclusion of LGBTQ communities. And that is wrong. That is certainly not something that the federal government should be funding summer students to do, to roll back the clock on women’s rights. That’s not gonna happen. This government will continue to be unequivocal. We will stand up for women’s rights, we will defend women’s rights, and the rights of the LGBT community, regardless of what folks in certain religious groups try to push us against.

You have organizations out there, like the Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform that have been receiving thousands upon thousands of dollars of government money — of taxpayer money — to distribute hateful fliers of aborted fetuses to try and convince people to remove the right of a woman to control her reproductive choices. That is not something the federal government is going to fund.

We are not rolling back the clock on women’s rights. And I know that makes a few people upset, but there is no way government funding is going to organizations that have the specific and explicit purpose of limiting women’s rights, period.

When’s the last time you heard any national leader stand up for women and the LGBT community, or any minority group for that matter, against the religious-Right with such intensity? We Canadians may be a polite bunch (so I hear from Americans who’ve never driven on Canadian roads), but try to fuck with our citizens and you’re in for … well, a scolding, anyway.

(Unless those citizens are Muslims in French-Canada. Then we pass laws that discriminate against their clothing choices even as we pretend Islamophobia doesn’t exist. But that’s another story.)

(via Friendly Atheist)