Calgary, as seen from about 20 miles south, is closer culturally to U.S. red states than to cities like Vancouver and Toronto. Chronicle photo by Kim Komenich
Posted on 07/22/2005 1:09:04 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Calgary, Alberta -- On the first day that gays and lesbians in this conservative Canadian province could get a license to marry, just five same-sex couples did so.
But this province is known as the Bible Belt of Canada and is the only one in the famously liberal nation that celebrates family values with an official holiday.
Canada on Wednesday became just the fourth country in the world to allow same-sex marriages, but many in Alberta simply aren't ready to accept so radical a notion. Eight of the nation's 10 provinces and one of its three territories have in recent years allowed gays and lesbians to marry, but most people in Calgary, which culturally is closer to the red states of the American heartland than the progressive cities of Toronto and Vancouver, are only grudgingly following suit.
"You could transplant here from Dallas and there's no difference, other than the accent and the weather," said Darcy Schack, the spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Association in Calgary, who also runs a firm that builds oil drilling equipment. "It's very much an oil-driven town, very redneck and very conservative."
Calgary, a thriving city of about 1 million people roughly 450 miles northwest of Spokane, Wash., is the province's largest city, and it guards its image as a frontier town of rugged individualists. Even its gay community defines itself differently than most. Here, the most popular event of the year is not Gay Pride, but the Gay Rodeo, where serious cowboys ride bulls and serious drag queens wrestle steers.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Oh my good golly! Now THERE'S a mental picture.
Calgary is THE best city in all of North America, in my humble opinion. And yet most of Alberta is so "redneck and conservative" that it makes Calgary look like a den of Communist homosexuals in comparison.
Alberta Forever!
So why doesn't the province secede from the sewer that is modern Canada?
There was a thread a while back about a homo who died from having sex with a horse. He died from internal bleeding.
There's something seriously wrong with those people. Next, they'll be demanding homobeastiality rights and marriage! Count on it!
Oh, BARF! I'm glad I missed that particular thread. *shudder*
Later pingout.
This is not a shock. I seem to recall reading a recent article somewhere that stated that the "marriage" rate for homosexuals in one of the European countries where it has been legal for a while was far far below heterosexual married couples.
That's not nearly as bad as the mental image of a drag queen wrestling a steer.
Brings to mind rodeo clowns, though, so maybe not so bad. :)
LOL
The one on the right looks a little like Garth Brooks.
It might just be the angle.
LOL
If you say so.
He's obviously never been to the Oak Lawn section of Dallas.
There is a stronger secessionist sentiment in Alberta than in Quebec, but you don't hear about it very much because Alberta is so far west and doesn't get a lot of media attention.
Ironically, the North American Free Trade Agreement has done more to keep Alberta in Canada than anything else. This is because NAFTA specifically prevents the Canadian government in Ottawa from implementing the kind of excessive control of the Alberta oil and gas markets that devastated the province back in the 1980s under Trudeau's National Energy Plan.
The secessionist movement in Alberta will probably get stronger over time, but the reality is that Canada is such a large and sparsely-populated country that the Federal government in Ottawa isn't even capable of enforcing most of the laws it passes (hence the large-scale violation of the mandatory gun registry laws that goes on in Canada's rural areas).
I grew up in Ottawa, but have lived in the west since 1973 (Calgary since '86).
I'd love Alberta to secede, especially to become the 51st State. If I knew of a credible separatist movement I'd join in a minute.
Canada is lost.
Cheers
Jim
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
