Many of you have no doubt heard of the
tenancy problems at the MacFarland building in Lethbridge. The problem is wider
than reported in the local media, and involves two widely disparate tenancies
invited to locate next to each other.
On one side is a
children’s music program that runs into the evening hours and the other side of
a thin wall is a sexually liberated straight and gay theatre, with rehearsals
and public performances taking place—also in the evenings.
The landlord of this
building must be either naive or desperate to juxtapose these two tenants, who
are at extreme opposite ends of the sexual scale—young children and sexually
explicit performers—where sounds from one side permeate the other.
Unfortunately, the
theatre saw the problem as “homophobic,” and angrily responded in every media
to a complaint from the children’s music program. By considering it as
anti-gay, their response has sadly buried the basic problem.
The problem is not homosexuality, but a public
adult program of sexuality—of any variety—inappropriately practiced adjacent to
a program involving young children. Straight or gay, the theatre is free to rehearse
and play its performances, but not within hearing proximity to minors.
One would have hoped
that the theatre would have been more sensitive to the presence of the adjacent
children than the perceived attack on themselves. The impression they leave is
that tolerance for its openness to sexual practices should trump the needs of young
children.
But, perhaps, as
abortion continues to confirm that children are disposable, we shouldn’t be
surprised.
