Fred Litwin - Conservative Confidential: Inside The Fabulous Blue Tent

Conservative Confidentia l

Inside the Fablulous Blue Tent

by Fred Litwin

Copyright 2015 by Fred Litwin

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Fred Litwin

First edition published in 2015 by NorthernBlues Books

Cover design by Kathleen Lynch

Edited by Benita Mehta

FIRST EDITION

Litwin, Fred

Conservative Confidential ISBN - 978-0-9948630-0-3

Dedicated to the memory of Christopher Hitchens

After 9/11, when many of my friends were questioning the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan; when so many people were wondering if Osama bin Laden was really behind 9/11; when it seemed that the mere mention of the name George Bush prompted an immediate allergic reaction; and when that ridiculous slop called Fahrenheit 9/11 seemed to be in every cinema, it was calming to know that Christopher Hitchens had my back.

About the Author

Fred Litwin is a marketing and sales professional who worked nine years for Intel Corporation in England, Singapore and Hong Kong. In 1998-1999, Fred managed a team of twenty people organizing the launch of the Pentium III microprocessor in Asia.

In 2000, he founded NorthernBlues Music, a cutting-edge label dedicated to stretching the boundaries of the blues. To date, the company has released over 70 CDs, and has garnered twelve Juno Award nominations in Canada and over forty Blues Music Award nominations in the United States.

In 2007, Fred started the Free Thinking Film Society in Ottawa to showcase films on liberty, freedom and democracy. The Society has now shown over 100 films and also organizes book launches and panel discussions.

Conservative Confidential: Inside the Fabulous Blue Tent is his first book and you can find updates and pictures at ConservativeConfidential.com.

Contents

Introduction

Is Canada Run By A Gay Mafia?

That was the headline on a Vice.com article from July 5, 2013. I, Fred Litwin, know the answer to that question. The answer is.... no, not really. But the true story is a lot more interesting, and that story is what this book is about.

Whats been going on in Canadas conservative movement, and inside the Conservative Party, will surprise a lot of Canadians. Whats been going on inside the Left will come as a shock to a lot of people, too. And whats been going on inside the gay leadership will probably even astound gay people. What the big city media has been up to particularly the corporate management of the CBC is downright disturbing.

This book is about all those things, and more. There are intrigues with the Iranian embassy. Theres the serial fabricator Michael Moore. Theres the vulgar American loudmouth Ann Coulter, theres the decrepit counterculture guru Noam Chomsky, and theres a particularly obnoxious right-winger named Pamela Geller youll meet in an entire chapter on the nasty counter-jihad subculture within the conservative movement.

There are also the twists and turns of my own personal journey. The story opens on Sept. 11, 2001, and I bet the way it unfolds, and the way it ends, will cause a lot of people to say: hey, thats my story, too.

But some people will not be happy with this book at all, so its probably best to start with some trigger warnings.

If youre a Conservative you might find the last few chapters upsetting. I dont know if they will make you angry but if you are looking for a safe space, just read the first half of the book. Its because of the first half that a lot of progressives will be even angrier with me, so my advice to them: If youre the daring sort and you think you can handle the odd micro-aggression here and there, then read all the way through. If you stick it out, you might actually end up liking the last chapters.

Consider this book as a kind of coming out story. Coming out is something Ive had to do my entire life. When I finally came out as a gay man in the early 1980s, it was a daunting task, but it turned out to be far easier than I expected. Coming out years later as a conservative proved far more vexing.

It would be hard for most people to imagine how lonely it was to be gay when I was a boy. As my hormones raged in high school in the 1970s, I found myself completely isolated. I always knew I was different. My friends couldnt stop talking about girls, and since I really had absolutely no interest, I was just silent. Id always try to change the topic movies, television, or hockey but that only takes you so far. The conversation would inevitably come back to girls. I would just go back into my shell and feel incredibly awkward.

There were no gay characters on television or in the movies. There was really no gay anything. Every time I saw a cute boy, I couldnt say a word. I even had to be careful about noticeably turning my head. As recently as the 1960s, when I was in my early teens, homosexual acts were offences under the Criminal Code, and gay people were further liable to be considered criminal sexual psychopaths and subjected to indefinite prison terms. In 1959, the RCMP set out on a national investigation to identify homosexuals in Canada, with a particular focus on the federal civil service. A 1960-61 report found 560 federal employees who were believed to be gay. The next year, another 300 federal employees were added to the list, along with 2,000 homosexuals who were employed outside the federal civil service. By the following year, the RCMP had enlisted the support of local police force morality squads. In 1964-65, there were 6,000 homosexuals in RCMP files. The number rose to 7,500 in the next year. By 1967-68, the RCMP had accumulated 9,000 files on suspected homosexuals, one-third of whom were federal employees.

To aid in its mission, the RCMP developed the Fruit Machine, which tested pupil dilation when showing individuals pictures of naked men and women. If the pupil dilated when showing pictures of the same sex, then that person would be deemed homosexual. As word got out that the RCMP was testing people, it became very hard to get people to take the test. Even if you were straight, a false positive could destroy your career. A report on file with the Canadian Museum of History estimates that at least 100 employees lost their jobs as a result of the machines testing.

Homosexuality wasnt decriminalized in Canada until the Trudeau government changed the laws in 1969, but long after that, Canadian society was still hostile to gay people. In the 1970s, many newspapers, including the Toronto Star, had a ban on gay advertisements, and gay people were prohibited from even entering Canada. Gays could not serve in the military until 1992. Gay bookstores were continually harassed and fought continual battles with Canada Customs. Gays were bashed, and gay teenagers routinely committed suicide. Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, gay bars and baths throughout the country were raided by police and hundreds of gay people were arrested. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental disorder in 1973, but the Canadian Psychiatric Association followed suit only in 1982, and the Province of Alberta only in 2010. Doctors in Alberta reportedly billed for treating homosexuality in more than 1,700 cases between 1995 and 2004.

Coming out as a Conservative in the first decade of the 21 st century, a lot of my friends treated me like I was crazy. I faced a wall of disbelief. How on earth could you be a Conservative? Youre gay, people would tell me as if all gay people think the same way. I was told I suffered from false consciousness. I never lost a friend by coming out as a gay person, but I lost friends coming out as a Conservative. As recently as July 2014, a longtime friend in the music industry said it was time for us to totally part company. He was upset that I had been critical of Barack Obama. The basic disconnect between [Prime Minister Stephen] Harpers moralistic smugness and that fact that youre gay is a mystery I simply cant fathom.