Label Libel
by Carolyn Bennett, Canadian Minister of State
Marshall McLuhan was an important Canadian scholar. He invented the idea of the “global village” and observed that the “medium was the message.” He was very critical of “label libel.” Prejudice gets in the way of people seeing actions and words clearly. Once one is labeled, assumptions get made. It does seem unfair that once one is stuck with a label such as “bully” or “brain,” all of one’s actions and words get judged differently. Even other labels such as race, religion, and sexual orientation can affect the way people deal with one another. Barack Obama is a black candidate. Hillary Clinton is a female candidate. For some, everything he says and does is attributed to his race; everything she says and does is because she is a woman. They have many other characteristics, but they are assumed to have all of the characteristics of their “label.” Label libel.
In Canada, we have just had a terrible example of this kind of label libel and discrimination. Canada has one of the lowest organ donation rates in the industrialized world. Over 4,000 Canadians are on the waiting lists for organ transplantation. Approximately 5 Canadians die every week while waiting for an organ donation. Organ donation is indeed the gift of life.
Yet the government of Canada has just released a set of rules that will mean that gay men would be unable to donate their kidneys, bone marrow, or corneas—just because they are gay.
This means that partners in a same-sex couple who have been faithful to one another for a very long time would be unable to donate, while a heterosexual person with multiple sexual partners is not excluded. They call the rules “Exclusionary Criteria.” It sounds like discrimination to me.
Gary Levy, head of Toronto University’s transplant programme, told CBC News that 7 out of every 100 potential donors could be excluded.
The Minister of Health for the province of Ontario, George Smitherman, is fighting the new rules. He said in a letter to Xtra in Toronto, “As a gay man who proudly carries every tissue and organ donation card I have ever received in my wallet, I was outraged by Health Canada’s new organ donation regulation.” He continues, “Quite simply targeting gay men is ludicrous and ridiculous. As Ontario’s Minister of Health I find the new regulations that single out a particular group irrelevant, ignorant and impractical. ... Let’s be clear: Gay men can and should still continue to sign their organ donor cards and give the gift of life. I will continue to do so.”
It is important that all of us recognize prejudice in all its forms, even when authorities say it’s for our own good.
It is even more important that each of us recognize “label libel” within ourselves. We must make sure we judge every comment and every action on its own merits. As girls, visible minorities, jocks, LGBTs, whatever, we want others to see us for what we do and say. We need to set the example of eliminating label libel, prejudice, and discrimination.
