1/20 A 🧵on Culture Guard's Kari Simpson & transphobia in BC's Convoy movement. It's no surprise that Convoyers attack drag events & rally against LGBTQ2S+ communities because the movement continues to be influenced by transphobic Christofascist "activists" like Kari. #bcpoli
2/ BC has many well-funded fundamentalist churches, spaces that voraciously defend traditional family values while they rally against progressives & the LGBTQ2S+ community. For orgs already in that space--like Culture Guard & Action4Canada--COVID is an opportunity to radicalize.
3/ Dr. Henry banned in-person religious gatherings in Nov 2020 as a new wave hit. A small # of churches defied the orders, including Riverside Calvary Chapel in Langley. "Concerned citizen" Kari was there to speak to media when police fined the church. (jccf.ca/wp-content/upl…)
4/ Kari Simpson is notorious for protesting LGBTQ2S+ rights & SOGI (sexual orientation & gender identity) education in schools while she demands society accommodate Christian values above all, often through frivolous lawsuits.
5/ Kari founded the Citizens Research Institute in the 1980s and fought to prevent schools from teaching "homosexual propaganda." Their Declaration of Family Rights is a bizarre legal notice that a child cannot be exposed to anything that portrays LGBTQ2S+ people as "normal."
6/ A @UBC MA thesis has a great synopsis of activities from Kari & others in the BC Christian far-right through the late 90s and early 00s against the @bctf's LGBTQ2S+ initiatives & for @Surrey_Schools's book ban. The thesis includes CFI's Declaration: open.library.ubc.ca/media/stream/p…
7/ Here are some articles:
- Jun 2008: straight.com/article-151918…
- Apr 2012: straight.com/article-663171…
- Oct 2017: theglobeandmail.com/news/british-c…
- Mar 2018: cbc.ca/news/canada/br…
- Aug 2018: interior-news.com/news/rainbow-f…
- Jan 2019: abbynews.com/news/lower-mai…
- Apr 2020: richmond-news.com/local-news/lgb…
8/ In 2008, Kari told Christian fundamentalists: "Unless the churches in Canada and America wake up...they're going to find themselves in a very bad position...once a worldly sort of person wakes up to God's calling, then you have a warrior." (The org is a @splcenter hate group.)
9/ In 2011, Kari founded Culture Guard. Culture Guard aims to stop SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) education initiatives like BC's SOGI123 and incubate homophobic and transphonic Christian nationalism. They've also been fixated on PM Trudeau from the start.
10/ Kari and Culture Guard spent much of the 2010s protesting SOGI & LGBTQ2S+ rights, pandering to Barry Neufeld & Jordan Peterson, spreading Christian nationalism, and engaging in her numerous court cases and human rights complaints.
11/ Kari and Culture Guard sought protection from the Hell's Angels and the neo-Nazis of Soldier of Odin at rallies in 2018 & 2019. See: vicnews.com/news/b-c-hells…, thetyee.ca/News/2019/05/2…. 📷@casualcactii
12/ After March 2020, Culture Guard added COVID disinformation to the menu. In 2021, Kari started the Canadian Voters Association (CVA), which aimed to "improve the governance of Canada." CVA project 300K repackaged Christofascim in an attempt to influence the 2021 fed election.
13/ FrontLine Canada is another a program of CVA. They made fake religious vaccine exemptions (Christians only) & ran Doctors on Tour, a disinformation parade that sent antivaxx MDs like Charles Hoffe, Stephen Malthouse & guests around BC. Events were almost always at churches.
14/ Kari & Doctors on Tour weaponized lower science literacy & worries around vaccines the same way Kari & Culture Guard weaponized fear of trans people: The gov't is coming for your children. Big Pharma coming for your children. They want you sick. Fight back. Save the children.
15/ Doctors on Tour became Justice for the Vaccinated (J4V) in September 2022. J4V is a national organization that portrays any health problem as a "vaccine injury" and features doctors who whip up disinformation. Same doctors as Doctors on Tour. More sponsors.
16/ Justice for the Vaccinated is supported by FrontLine Canada (actually Canadian Voter's Association), Stephen Malthouse's Canada Health Alliance, Odessa & Norbert Orlewicz's Librti platform, & the usual assortment of Freedom grifters. They still hate drag shows.
17/ Justice for the Vaccinated ended their tour in Nov 2022 & Kari Simpson has a new hobby: commentating on the Canadian Society for the Advancement of Science in Public Policy's* class action certification hearing for the far-right RoadKill Radio. (*CSASPP/SueBonnie-dot-ca)
18/ Kari is 1 person in a large movement. In this mix is the online trans moral panic, which gained more mainstream visibility in the mid-2010 & has spiraled into hysteria over the last few years, often in online spaces that also attract Convoyers (ie: antihate.ca/hate_tropes_fu…)
19/ The underpinnings of attacks against LGBTQ2S+ communities & Convoys are the same: far-right Christian conservatism. They aren't separate--they come from the same places & spaces. (We said a lot of things about Kari so hopefully she doesn't sue us like she does everyone else.)
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