A gay Toronto policeman is speaking out against Black Lives Matter activists’ recent demand at the Toronto gay pride parade that all police floats be banned from future pride parades.
After Pride Toronto agreed to the group’s demands after they made a scene at the parade, Constable Chuck Krangle wrote in an open letter that he had concerns about the new ban on police floats, saying that it is unacceptable to prevent police officers from participating in the parade.
A group of Black Lives Matter activists stopped during the parade and refused to move until Pride Toronto agreed to its list of demands. One demand stated that all police floats must be banned from future pride parades because of the “tense/unsafe relationship between the police and marginalized communities.” (RELATED: BLM Protesters Shut Down Canada’s Gay Pride Parade)
“Members of police services, and their employers (like RBC, Telus, Porter, etc.) have just as much right to participate as any other group,” Krangle wrote in the letter, published Monday by the Toronto Sun. “Police officers are significantly represented in the LGBTQ community and it would be unacceptable to alienate and discriminate against them and those who support them. They too struggled to gain a place and workplace free from discrimination and bias.”
“I do not speak for the police, and I do not speak for the LGBTQ community,” he added. “I speak as an individual, one who saw his first Pride, only to be excluded from the next. Exclusion does not promote inclusion.”
Pride Toronto claimed that it never actually agreed to a ban on police floats, but only to have a conversation with Black Lives Matter over their issues, reports the Global News. The director says they only signed Black Lives Matter’s list of demands to get the parade moving again.
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