Fleetwood–Port Kells Conservative candidate Shinder Purewal once called for ban on Vancouver Pride parade
Kwantlen Polytechnic University political scientist Shinder Purewal is a known political entity in B.C.
In 1999, he made an unsuccessful run for Burnaby council when he was employed at Simon Fraser University.
In 2011, the Indian immigrant ran for the Liberals in Surrey North, losing to the NDP's Jasbir Sandhu.
Later that year, he caused an uproar by tweeting that the Vancouver Pride parade should be banned, calling it "vulgar".
Now that Purewal is the nominated Conservative candidate in Fleetwood–Port Kells, the left-wing website Press Progress is reminding people about that tweet.
When the story broke, Purewal clarified his remark by saying his concerns were about the "explicit sexuality" of Pride parades.
In 2011, Kwantlen Polytechnic University distanced itself from Purewal's tweet.
And a Kwantlen Polytechnic University history professor, Frank Abbott, wrote a lengthy rebuttal on Straight.com to the sentiment expressed by Purewal.
Abbott described the claim of "vulgarity" as a "red herring".
"I don’t get the impression from Purewal’s remarks that he ever even attended a Pride parade. If he had, he might also have noted, as I did once again this year, the supportive inclusive spirit and the incredible diversity of the spectators and participants walking together on Denman Street and Beach Avenue: families, young people, older people, people of every cultural community in our multicultural country, gays, non-gays. In short, everyone," Abbott wrote.
"However, in the past I’ve noticed that when the TV news carried a brief clip of the parade, they seem to focus on the bare bums and flashy costumes," Abbott continued. "If a brief TV news clip is where Purewal got his information on the content of the Pride parade, I’d suggest that this is not the research methodology one would normally expect that a social scientist would employ before making public statements, even if they are only Twitters or tweets."
In 2013, Purewal wrote a column defending the Supreme Court of India for upholding a legislated ban on homosexual acts.
This overturned a previous ruling in the Delhi High Court.
"This clearly is not a decision or an opinion on the legitimacy or the correctness of the ban on homosexuality," Purewal emphasized. "At the end of their decision, the judges clearly reminded both parties that the notion of separation of powers, and checks and balances should be respected.
"In fact, they stated very clearly that 'the competent legislature shall be free to consider the desirability and propriety of deleting section 377 of the IPC from the statue book or amend the same.' Thus, they have thrown the ball in the court of Indian parliament where it belongs. The elected officials should decide the next move. The Indian Supreme Court is not at fault."
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