Gay Nazi action

This is in regards to last week's cover story ["The New Gay Right," Aug. 3], and the comments of "Jean," the gay member of the Canadian Alliance Party who said he is "fighting for the right to discriminate." There are three things to remember:

1) "Jean" is like the Canadian Alliance Party's foundation: middle-class (if not wealthy), male, very white and I assume thin. He is also part of a not-necessarily-visible gay minority. He enjoys the secure perks of white-guy status. If he were obese or oh, say, Native, he might know discrimination's dark side and not be such a fan of it.

2) "Jean" and his ilk are the ultimate yes-men and will do anything to appease a master. This happened before, just two generations ago during the Third Reich. If you know anything about history, you know there was plenty of gay Nazi action.

3) In the crematoria that they helped build, tens of thousands of card-carrying Nazi homosexuals were eventually incinerated after being murdered with cyanide.

If "Jean" doesn't pull his pro-discrimination head out of his bottom, he might get what he surely does not wish for.

--Joel Shane

Greenophobia?

I find it strange that Mirror's article on the Green Party of Canada ["Looking for the Limelight," Aug. 3] should only make mention of its national convention, held last weekend, on the fifth paragraph, halfway through the article. One would have thought that this would be the focus of the article.

What is even stranger is that Bernard Cooper is prominently featured in the piece when he has had nothing to do with the federal Green Party for at least five years. Cooper's comment that the Green Party doesn't "have a chance in hell of ever getting anyone elected" is stating the obvious. He misses the point, however, as does the article.

It's not about getting elected, at least within the current economic and sociopolitical climate. One of the main purposes of the Green Party in Canada is to provide a voice for environmental issues which get completely left out of the discussion and debates amongst the other parties.

The environment is the most important issue of our times; our ability to survive on this planet is being threatened by society's obsession with economic growth and short-term profit in the name of progress, which is devastating ecosystems, polluting air and water and creating the catastrophic climatic imbalances being felt around the world.

These issues should be front and centre during elections, carefully scrutinized through the lens of questioning. The Green Party tries to promote alternatives to status quo business-as-usual and explore how to bring about positive societal changes that will help protect the environment and our future.

It is high time that the press start helping out in this task, through substantive coverage--not just pegging the Green Party as another fringe party in the margins vying for visibility.

--Brian Sarwer-Foner, 1997 federal Green Party candidate for Westmount/Ville-Marie

Web site revolt

In regards to Gary Isaac's comment about the Quebec Government wanting to police the language of Web sites [Letters, July 27]. All I have to say is, fat chance.

I head a medium-sized Internet Web site development company here in Montreal, and many of the sites we host are based in the U.S. and abroad. Ninety-nine per cent of our clients are English. If Lise Beaudoin comes over to our office and orders us to translate everything into French, and forces our customers to spend twice as much to add French pages to their site, I will gladly close-up our shop of 26 employees and move everyone down to the U.S.

We're an Internet service provider. We can exist anywhere in the world. Does she really think that she can push us around? Because I won't push back: I'll leave, and take our employees, bank accounts, tax dollars and customers with us.

--Andrew Martin