Outed

It seems that a gay man can get lynched in modern Toronto, he just has to be a Conservative.

A Toronto Conservative candidate set to face off against high-profile Liberal incumbent Bob Rae quit the campaign trail yesterday after his online rants were outed by another blogger.

Chris Reid quickly vanished from the party's campaign roster as past quotes pulled from his blog, Political Thoughts of a Gay Conservative, broke free of the blogosphere and into the mainstream media.

The Liberals were quick to call the 11th hour Toronto-Centre change-up another in a growing list of Conservative campaign gaffes, but the former candidate stands by his comments.

"This is what Liberals do, instead of us having a rational debate about issues, you just get smearing words," Reid told Sun Media yesterday after spending the day watching TV coverage of his own departure.

He called the incident ridiculous.

"Canadians are posting on blogs all over the place and Canadians have their own thoughts," Reid said. "We're not all just cookie cutters of party lines."

His grave crime?

A May post entitled "conservative solutions that would make Canada a better place," listed policies Reid wanted to debate, including closing the CBC, ending abortion and allowing properly-trained citizens to carry concealed handguns.

"If women and gays really wanted to stop being victims of hate crimes, they'd be in support of this, but judging from discussions, they'd rather be helpless and rely on government," Reid wrote.

I must agree with the Liberals, how on earth did this man become a Conservative Party candidate?  He's actually conservative.  The answer is quite simple.  It's likely that the Harper team did know that Mr. Reid had, shall we say unconventional opinions, but probably thought the mainstream media, and the opposition, would never do a drive by smear of a gay Torontonian.  Reid also, allegedly, said the following:

Passengers and the driver "stood by and watched another person being butchered, and couldn't muster up any courage or self-sacrifice to intervene," Reid wrote.

"This is where socialism [has] gotten us folks, a castrated effeminate population."

Which is very similar to what the Steyn wrote years ago when a Swedish cabinet minister was knifed, while dozens looked on.  It's a pity the blog was taken down, it sounded quite interesting.  To those who question the at times frustrating incrementalism of the Harper Tories, here is a small piece of evidence that it is warranted.