Why the Levant-rant has caused far more harm than good.
As entertaining as Ezra Levant can be, at least in a face-meet-palm kind of way, I really wish that he never turned his gaze upon the Harbour City. In his 45-minute piece he did far more harm than good. Let me explain why.
The Issue Has Already Been Resolved:
The Levant-rant if nothing else is steeped in unbridled passion. Its purpose is to inflame, to invoke righteous anger, and to elicit a response from angry viewers. He wants said viewers to make city council recognize the error of their ways. Levant wants them to pay. The problem, however, is that all of this seething anger, righteous or otherwise, is created in vain. As you can read in my last post, the city council has already responded by providing the thing that was of primary importance for Christians and other religious groups: a guarantee that the city would abide by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and be able to rent city property. The issue has been resolved.
Now in fairness to Levant, the statement issued by the mayor on behalf of the administration happened shortly before his newscast went viral. However, it certainly would not have been difficult for him to provide an update with this information attached.
Now to be sure, council’s affirmation of religious people’s rights does nothing to resolve the issue of Leadercast but Leadercast was never the primary issue for either the Christians in Nanaimo or for Ezra Levant. That issue needs to be worked out by the Daily News, Council, and Leadercast.
Misrepresentation of the Facts:
Through Exaggeration:
A significant problem with the Levant rant is that he frequently distorts the facts. He distorts first of all by exaggerating—a common strategy for our species when we really want to win an argument. For example Levant states that council voted to “ban Christians”. This is incredibly misleading. The language of the resolution does not mention Christians by name at all; there was worry from Christian groups that the language had potentially scary implications for events that they would want to host on city property. In this sense Christians and other religious groups could be seen as collateral damage but it was simply not the case that the city council of Nanaimo was deliberately and specifically targeting Christians.
A second example is found in Levant’s statement that council is trying to “drive Christians out of town” (see 20:00). This despite the fact that the mayor and some of the councilors attended the annual prayer breakfast for Christians shortly after this mess was started. The mayor even paid his respects to the Christian citizens of Nanaimo by reading some sections of the Bible. You can make the argument that council was naïve or even ignorant regarding the implications their resolution had for Christians but they certainly were not intending to drive them out of town.
Through Minimizing:
Levant also distorts by minimizing. My last post indicated that I am unable to confirm or refute the claims made about Dr. Cloud’s stance on reparative therapy. In Levant’s rant he refers to Dr. Cloud’s alleged views on reparative therapy as “funny ideas about the gays”. Reparative therapy is neither a “funny idea” in the humorous sense of the word nor in the benignly absurd sense of the word. No, reparative therapy is something that has done horrific damage to many LGBT people over the past decades. Even prominent supporters of reparative therapy from yesteryear have come forward to apologize for their prior beliefs and have distanced themselves from people who still promote it.
Through Conflating Issues:
Levant distorts by conflating issues. As I’ve mentioned there are two issues at play: the issue of cancelling Leadercast (the specific target of the motion) and the issue of Christians and other religious groups being potentially banned from renting city property (collateral damage). Levant’s-rant, however, tries to make Christians the specific target of the motion by referring to Leadercast several times in his rant as a Christian conference. This is despite the fact that the event is not religious at all but rather a conference about leadership in general.
Tone:
The second reason why Levant has done more harm than good is his poor use of tone. Christian leaders in Nanaimo worked very hard to phrase their critiques in a way that honoured and respected the councillors and the mayor. They wanted the administration to know that they aren’t despised or hated by Nanaimo’s religious groups.
Conversely Levant uses the tactic of demonizing. As human beings it is very tempting to treat people with whom we disagree as horrible human beings with no redeeming qualities; this is basically what Levant does. He frequently refers to the councilors and the mayor as “blowhards” and “bigots”. He suggests that they are only motivated by the advancement of their own egos and is never willing to grant that they may actually be trying to do the right thing for the city.
Levant’s demonizing tactics are taken to such an extreme that he actually takes an important act of charity undertaken by one of the councillors and presents it as a vile act of self-aggrandizement. At one point Levant shows an image of councilor Pattje wearing a pair of women’s shoes. He refers to this picture as a narcissitic selfie, intended to make, in Levant’s view, some sort of political statement he cannot understand. What a horrific example of self-indulgence! That is unless one realizes that the picture was intended to raise awareness for a very important fundraiser called “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes”. This event, put on by the Haven Society is a walk in which men wear women’s shoes in order to raise funds to help end rape, sexual, assault, and gender violence. Thank you Mr. Pattje for participating in this important cause and shame on Mr. Levant for not recognizing this.
Now to be sure Levant in no way claims to speak as a representative of the Christians in Nanaimo but he does present himself as their advocate. If people mistake Levant’s uncharitable tone for the tone of local religious groups, then terrible damage has been done indeed.
It was also a key priority for the Christians in Nanaimo to address this issue in a way that was respectful towards the LGBT community. Regrettably, many Christians have failed to live up to their mandate to love their LGBT neighbours and as a result many Christians in town feel burdened to be better. Christian leaders want their churches to be comprised of people that respect and love LGBT people.
Yet in Levant’s rant, we see subtle digs toward the LGBT community. The one that caught my eye was when Levant referred to them as a “community” in inverted commas (see 10:45). When we call something a “community” we are effectively stating that the group in view is not something that fits the standard definition and can therefore only be called a community in a qualified sense—hence the inverted commas. As a Christian I know I would take offense if someone referred to my co-believers or my church as a “community”. This may seem like a subtle point but when we are talking about Christians and the LGBT community, we must be aware of the pain that is there. When there is a history of pain, subtlety matters even more than it does in normal conversation. Now again, Levant in no way speaks for the Christian leaders or churches of Nanaimo but if he causes more pain towards the LGBT people of Nanaimo than he has most certainly caused more harm than good.
Halfway through his 45 minute rant, Mr. Levant says that the actions undertaken by the city council of Nanaimo was for the purpose of showboating for the camera and not about the facts. The irony of this comment leaps off the screen. If only Levant was innocent of the very error he accused city council of undertaking, he would have been able to do some real good. The fact that he wasn’t leaves me mourning the pain that he caused and hoping that a blog like this one can help minimize the damage.
Note: There are several different versions of Levant’s piece. The one that led to the writing of this blog is the 45-minute version which can be found on youtube.