Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri is praising the Peterborough Police Service for arresting a man accused of hurling homophobic slurs and burning a Pride flag — a move that drew the ire of some social media users who condemned her as a “fake” Conservative.
A 48-year-old man was arrested last week on two charges of criminal harassment after he was accused of stealing a Pride flag, burning it and — according to police — “screaming” anti-gay epithets.
The arrest demonstrates that “hate has no place in our community and our country and will not be tolerated,” Ferreri said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.
Dozens of social media users responded to Ferreri’s praise of the arrest with a stream of homophobic slurs. Others said the man’s arrest was unjustified and that as a member of a party that supports free speech, Ferreri was out of line.
One social media user, Shawn Quenneville, told Ferreri in an online post that “they’re pedophiles” — an apparent reference to members of the LGBTQ community.
IMHO the issue is that the the CPC is a “big tent” that was historically dominated by SoCons (which Harper kept in line pretty well), however over the past approx. 5-8 years the Libertarian contingent has grown quite a bit from grassroots.
Now even many of these “Libertarians” generally abide by SoCon principles but they don’t feel any need to push them on the general population; these people simply want to be left alone. This is causing some friction in the party as some SoCons are appealing to the “No True Scotsman” fallacy when discussing internal party/supporter politics.