A Canadian mayor is fighting back against a Pride organization that has persisted in a years-long crusade against him and his remote township for refusing to issue a “Pride month proclamation” — as the tiny town has become a flashpoint in culture wars over LGBTQ issues. 

The dispute centers around Emo, Ontario — a township along the American border directly north of Minnesota, which in 2020 refused to oblige a local group’s request to formally declare June as “Pride Month” and fly a Pride flag. 

The group, Borderland Pride, is a “2SLGBTQIA+ Pride organization” — the “2S” in “2SLGBTQIA” stands for “Two-Spirited,” defined by Canada’s government as a “culturally-specific identity used by some Indigenous people to indicate a person whose gender identity, spiritual identity and/or sexual orientation comprises both male and female spirits.”

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario recently ordered the township to pay $10,000 to Borderland Pride for the town’s refusal, and ordered its mayor, Harold McQuaker, to personally pay $5,000 and complete a “Human Rights 101” training course. Mr. McQuaker, at a council meeting, had remarked “There’s no flag being flown for the other side of the coin” and then explained that he meant “there’s no flags being flown for the straight people.” The human rights tribunal found that remark to be “demeaning and disparaging” to the LGBTQ community. 

Yet Mr. McQuaker has insisted that he “utterly” refuses to pay the $5,000 fine, telling the Toronto Sun that it’s “extortion” and noting that he would not take the human rights class. 

Borderland Pride has called those comments “disturbing, inappropriate, and unlawful.

“What we are seeing is a public temper tantrum from an elected official who has been emboldened by the pattern of attacks on institutions and the rule of law from the political right,” the organization said in a statement, noting that the mayor is required by law to “respect the authority of the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.”

“We intend to collect our judgment,” the group said. In a Facebook post, the group also indicated that it has garnished his bank account for the damages: “Sure, sex is great, but have you ever garnished your mayor’s bank account after he publicly refused to comply with a Tribunal’s order to pay damages?”

The Sun has reached out to Mr. McQuaker for comment about whether his bank account was garnished.

Following his vote in 2020 to not pronounce June as Pride Month, Mr. McQuaker told an Ontario news service, TB News Watch, that the town was Christian-based and that he had to consider the residents when making decisions. 

“Sometimes decisions don’t suit all of the people. Moving forward I personally, and as mayor of Emo, I have nothing against the LGBTQ lifestyles. I’ve always believed in the majority rules in a democracy. We have three flags. We have our Canadian flag, our provincial flag and our municipal flag,” he told the outlet. “And I’m proud of all three of them.”