Sometimes life can be disappointing.
Just like when I was a child and that longed-for present wasn't in Santa's sack, my hopes were dashed this week when I wasn't included on the list of the first inductees into Canada's Queer Hall of Fame.
Pierre Trudeau, swimmer Mark Tewksbury and drag queen Robert Kaiser, known as Joan-E, were there but I was ignored. I can't say it doesn't hurt because it does.
Little Justin Trudeau, who has of course abandoned his drama teaching to become an MP, opined that his father would have been very proud and honoured and everybody patted themselves on the back and bathed in the comforting thought of how liberal and tolerant they were. Oh to be in Canada now that silliness rules the day.
As ridiculous as the entire enterprise is, it's not really about homosexuality, fame or even dressing up. It's about a country that obsesses about celebrating what keeps us apart rather than what binds us together and emphasizing group rather than individual rights. Canada is a tenuous nation at best and what we have done since the days of Trudeau and the Charter is to enshrine and empower the moans and groans of every minority interest group in the country.
Gay people have a right to be gay. Just as Muslim or Jewish people, sports fans or Star Trek devotees or anybody else have a perfect right to be exactly who they are and what they want to be.
But their first and most important loyalty should not be to their sexuality, religion or hobby but to their citizenship. This was the case at one time in our history but no longer.
The reason so much of this changed under prime minister Trudeau was that he governed Canada as an extension of his own social fantasies. To him the country was a political experiment that required the restructuring of a great nation and the fixing of what was not broken.
As Canadians we enjoyed freedoms, rights and legal protections and also knew from cultural norms and public education that there were numerous responsibilities and duties essential to living here.
We could be proud of our particular sub-group but were aware that those groups freely existed only because of the greater umbrella of Canada.
This sublime and workable ideal was carefully torn apart during 20 years of political and judicial interference, leading to a society today where we are defined by what offends or supports our various ethnic, sexual and religious causes and not by red and white or the authentic history and meaning of Canada.
So instead of, for example, museums of Canada we have museums of civilization or human rights.
It's all so misplaced, disingenuous and damaging.
Children leave school knowing almost nothing of our past but certain of which famous people are gay and how minority rights are vital to a thriving democracy.
Will someone, please, start a Sensible Hall of Fame. On second thought, no. Not in Canada.
