'Rehabilitated' Gay Politician Seeks Comeback (Canada)

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/10/102105robinson.htm

Longtime New Democrat Svend Robinson, who left federal politics after admitting to stealing an expensive ring, is making a political comeback.

Robinson announced on Friday that he will seek the NDP nomination in the riding of Vancouver Center to run in the next federal election. That riding is held by Liberal Hedy Fry.

Robinson was first elected in 1979 and served as a member of Parliament for 25 years.

[tuvor]

1. Misleading headline.

Svend's just as gay as ever.

[applegrove]

2. I can imagine someone under duress acting out of character. But really -

to be an MP - I think you should be beyond reproach. What is next? Conrad Black for PM? (And I don't know what duress it was that caused such an action... I know from my own experience that it was three years of being hounded and dehumanized after being harrassed in & out of the workplace that I broke down and couldn't take it and went to a hospital to demand some medication (turns out I was so hounded - they didn't have me on appropriate medication because I was not believed. They gave me the exact wrong pill to calm me down for PTSD - which I didn't take because it made things worse - so I had nothing to calm me down. In that case the hounding affected my medical treatment).

So I don't know what would make someone steal a ring.

A slippery slope. The people who know and love svend can accept him for the human he is and the mistake he made. I don't know if he should run again. The risk is that you open the doors to parliament to all sorts of shady or weak characters. And that will give a whole pile of neocons who have not run because of character issues - it will give them a pass to run in elections. and then we will end up like the United States - with criminals in power.

[SnowBack]

3. Svend was given a suspended sentence...

So he has no criminal record...


Sure he did something wrong, REALLY wrong... But it's legal for him to run, and if he gets the support of a majority of voters in his riding, he deserves to take his seat...

As to shady and weak characters, let's see... there's Steven Harper, Brian Mulroney, Bev Desjarlais, Ralph Klein, Gordon Campbell, and MANY more...

I hope Svend gets back in...

[applegrove]

4. He tells it like it is. I wish he wouldn't grandstand so much. But then

he has done alot of good for many issues.