UCP member quits over Kenney’s LGBTQ record
Party says leader’s views have changed, dismisses criticism as ‘ridiculous’
EDMONTON— An openly gay member of the United Conservative Party has left over leader Jason Kenney’s “troglodyte words” about gay rights.
On Thursday, Cody Johnston, a board member and campaign manager for the UCP, sent a letter to executive director Janice Harrington saying he wanted to be removed from all party boards and have his membership cancelled.
“I can no longer sit on any UCP board with a leader like Jason Kenney,” Johnston said during an interview.
“He was elected to serve people in his constituency and Albertans across the province as a whole. You don’t get to pick and choose who you represent.”
Johnston is also the communications and policy director for the Freedom Conservative Party, led by Derek Fildebrandt.
The breaking point came last week when Kenney was asked by a reporter about an old recording that surfaced online of him bragging about overturning a gay marriage law in1989 in San Francisco.
Kenney responded, saying, “Sure, there are things that I’ve done and said in my life that I regret.”
When asked if the remarks in the online clip were part of his regrets he said, “Sure.”
In the audio clip, recorded about 20 years ago, Kenney also said his activism overturning the law brought him closer to “the heart of the church, in a spiritual sense.”
Johnston said he wasn’t satisfied with Kenney’s response.
“You have a right to disagree with people, but that’s part of living in an open and free democracy,” Johnston said, adding that he was raised as an Apostolic Christian.
“Silencing people, and doing everything that Kenney’s been doing, is exactly counter to that.
“Not stating your opinion on abortion, not stating your opinion on gay rights, not apologizing for your troglodyte words, so backwards, and just point- blank, ‘Oh, I’ve regretted many things,’ well that’s a cop out.”
Christine Myatt, a spokesperson for the UCP, said in an emailed statement that, “Contrary to Mr. Johnston’s claim of a ‘recent audio recording,’ the comments in question were recorded almost two decades ago, and refer to events that took place more than three decades ago.”
Myatt said since then, Kenney has been on record supporting LGBTQ rights, “including speaking in favour of updating the Conservative Party of Canada’s definition of marriage.”
She said it is “ridiculous and unreasonable” to use recordings from 20 years ago “as recent or representative of Mr. Kenney’s views today.”
Johnston said that Wednesday night he received concerning phone calls from other members of the LGBTQ community who expressed problems they had with Kenney’s views.
He also said there are other members in the UCP concerned about Kenney’s leadership and that leaving the party entirely was his way of showing them what they could do to be heard.
“This is me coming forward, and this is not even the apex of his ignorance, this is just one of the many layers of an iceberg that’s full of his hate and his ideology,” Johnston said.
However, Harrison Fleming, a UCP member who is gay, said in an interview that he had never experienced homophobia within the party and that Johnston’s statements were purely political as a member of the opposing Freedom Conservative Party.
As former head of LGBTory, a conservative political organization that advocates for LGBTQ people who support conservative political parties, Fleming said he hasn’t heard from the people concerned about Kenney who were mentioned by Johnston.
“People have not reached out to me and expressed those sentiments,” Fleming said.
“And so, if they chose to reach out to the director of communications for an opposing political party, I would think that that has more to do with politics than with reality.”
Fleming said Kenney’s views have changed, as have many Canadians’, since the 20-year-old recording.