Hannon is the Ryerson lecturer who was recently suspended because he holds the unpopular view that sex between young people and adults is not always abusive, and because he is occasionally paid for sex. He is not accused of using his class as a forum to promote paedophilia or prostitution, only for having an unorthodox opinion on the former and hands-on knowledge of the latter. He is known as a gifted teacher and journalist, and there have been no complaints from students. Indeed, the whole Hannon brouhaha was drummed up by an odd-couple of journalists.
Ryerson is an easy target. The school was only recently accredited as a university, and the administration lacks the smarts to defnd itself from an attack on academic freedom, even by the tabloid press.
The players in this story are archetypes. Hannon is the outsider, the effete intellectual, the vain, selfish homosexual. Steed plays the overbearing mother. She's nurutring, emotional, somewhat hysterical and overprotective enough to believe that adult students in their mid-20s need her mothering.
Steed is the mastermind here, but she likes to play the woman behind the man. Heather Bird plyas Dad and does most of the talking. Bird and the Sun are unrelenting, demanding that the school take action to protect the children.
As we veer to the right, we leave the liberal landscape of the individual for the more Tory territory of the nuclear family, where personal freedoms make way for society's privileged group.
Strong families are key to the success of the Tory agenda. The impending dismantlement of public support for day care, health care and education is reinforcing the idea of the nuclear family as a fortress. Families must take care of their own, and parents are on guard. In the latest edition of Saturday Night, conservative writer David Frum argues that even such bourgeois gay aspirations as marriage and adoption rights should be poo-pooed in an effort to bolster this traditional grouping. His argument implies that the family is an unhappy place, that we must trick people away from constructing fulfilling lives and into the obligatory drudgery of family life.
In these frugal times, some individual rights become luxuries, the first to be cashed in for the kids' basic needs. Deficit consciousness has filtered beyond the realm of finance and into other sphere of life. High-minded talk of controersial ideas, academic freedom and gay lifestyles seems frivolous. We can't afford it. We're getting back to basics and sticking to what we know.
Gerald Hannon is a test case to determine what types of sacrifices will be laid at the family altar. If Judy Steed and Heather Bird have their way, the moral of the story will be that someone with Hannon's ideas and private life should not be allowed to consort with adults, let alone children. But the jury's still out. Ryerson will announce its decision on Fri, Dec 22. Letters can be mailed to Ryerson's president, Claude Lajeunesse, at 350 Victoria St, Toronto M5B 2K3; or faxed to him at (416) 979-5292.
DAVID WALBERG,
PUBLISHER