The Shotgun Blog
« So... where are they? | Main | Dinner With Christopher »
Monday, February 07, 2005
Moderate social conservatism is good for the CPC
Hacks and Wonks has some very relevant analysis on why the gay marriage issue is not going to hurt the Conservatives and may in fact help them. I also found that the Compas poll he linked to was of particular interest:
Among the political parties, the Conservatives have by far the most to gain from the issue for a series of reasons:
- The Liberal and NDP electorates are divided on the issue but the Conservative electorate is almost unanimous in its opposition to gay marriage;
- Among voters who are passionate on the issue--take firm positions or say that same-sex marriage is an important issue for government to address--those who oppose gay marriage are far more numerous than those who favour it;
- the proportion of the electorate opposed to gay marriage is larger than the Conservative share of the vote;
- a large majority, including most Liberals, favours resolving the marriage issue by referendum, a traditional Alliance/Conservative party form of deliberation; and
- normally Liberal-voting immigrants tend to embrace the Conservative party position on the issue. [Here are my writings on this particular subject.]
I'd say the analysis from the Hacks and Wonks blog and from this Compas poll fits with what I observed last year: the Conservative Party would benefit from adopting moderate socially conservative positions. For example, on issues such as abortion and gay marriage, the moderate so-con position (restrictions on late-term abortions and civil unions for gays) is actually more popular than either the socially liberal position (no restrictions at all on abortion and gay marriage) or the purer so-con position (abortion ban and neither civil unions nor marriage for gays)
Posted by Laurent Moss on February 7, 2005 in Canadian Conservative Politics | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515b5d69e200d834226eae53ef
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Moderate social conservatism is good for the CPC:
» Why no one actually talks about same-sex marriage from Le blog de Polyscopique
In one corner, we have Paul Wells, who chides Paul Martin for being unable to say anything good about having gays and lesbians marry one another with the sanction of Parliament and for exclusively relying on legalistic arguments based on... [Read More]
Tracked on 2005-02-21 5:56:14 PM
Comments
Absolutely true.
As for moderation, it is a good idea as long as you don’t overdo it. The CPC needs to find positions that are slightly more socially conservative than the Canadian average on most issues. More importantly, it needs to communicate a principle that is consistent with those positions.
(Spector’s principle, for example, is that the CPC adopt the posture of the common sense of the average guy, at least for SSM.)
In terms of perception among the inattentive masses, the problem of extremism is not about being too extreme. It’s about being unclear. Unclear means “easy to misrepresent”. Unclear means that a skillful shyster and a willing media will conjure the specter of the hidden agenda. The CPC needs policies that are hard to misrepresent more than it needs moderation. If moderation generates a policy that is harder to explain, or inconsistent with other positions, it will backfire.
Posted by: Pete E | 2005-02-08 2:37:54 AM
I'd hate to think that the CPC is crafting policy based on what Compas tells them what will be a winner.
I'd much rather have a party say "This is what we believe in" because they actually believe it as opposed to whatever will get them votes.
We already have a party that does that, and although they are very successful at it, I wish we had a party that had some principles that didn't change with every whim and fashion.
Posted by: rhebner | 2005-02-08 9:02:37 AM
Canadians are ready for moderate socon positions on both abortion and gay marriage. One senses a definite fatigue, an exasperation with the sillier aspects of progressive "thought".
Time to trim the 60's! The vines planted back then are now out of control and sprouting 'suckers' everywhere.
Just look at Paul Martin!
Posted by: John Palubiski | 2005-02-08 9:54:56 AM
Interesting analysis.
I wonder what would happen to the polling if the question, "Do you favour amending the constitution of Canada to prohibit same sex marriage?" were to be asked.
The tension within the CPC between libertarian economic conservatives and the varying shades of socon is likely to be obscured at the upcoming policy convention. But that tension is the difference between a forward looking agenda and a nostagia for a "better yesterday tomorrow."
Adopting moderate socon positions might work electorally, though I suspect the Grits will use any such adoption as a flail in the next election. But, in terms of a re-orientation of Canadian politics and the creation of a genuine philosophical base for the CPC it will be nothing but pandering.
SSM was the perfect spot for the CPC to adopt an individual rights based agenda which would have provided the philosophical underpinings for a Canadian Conservative revolution. (A contradiction in terms I know.) That opportunity was lost the instant the need to placate the socons (and, in the short term, goosing the polls) overrode the capacity of the CPC to consider the truely radical idea of treating individuals as if their rights mattered.
to dismantle the nanny state requires rather more than trimming positions to line up with the polls and the socon base. It requires a fundamental re-orientation of conservative thinking so that there is, within the party, a reasoned response to the socon demands for ever more intrusion on individual rights.
the alternative, and the one the CPC is presently embarked upon, is simply round after round of claiming the Tories would be a somehow better version of the Liberals and hoping that does not scare the voters in Metro Toronto. This will, eventually, win the CPC a minority or even a slim majority government. But it will do nothing to fundamentally alter the orthodoxy of Trudeaupia. Change without difference may win the occassional election but to what end?
Posted by: Jay Currie | 2005-02-08 2:23:20 PM
You see Jay, to the Conservatives, rights do matter. In this case the right of the majority to keep marriage as it is, an institution by the way, that pre-dates our Charter. So how you or anyone else can argue that marriage is a right for gays is beyond me, but it is also beyond the 65 percent of Canadians (so cons one and all) who are against it.
Posted by: MikeP | 2005-02-08 3:26:12 PM
Jay,
Thanks for your thought-provoking comment. However, I disagree with your premise. Gay marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with either individual rights or liberty. Gays can get that with civil unions. Gay marriage has everything to do with identity politics.
Anyway, gay marriage is a pretty poor starting point for a libertarian revolution. To start with, civil marriage after SSM would still be an institution defined and regulated by the State. The pure libertarian response would be for the government to abolish civil marriage and to let individuals enter into any kind of nuptial contractual agreements they want to, including and up to polygamy. Now this would really be political suicide, since only a tiny fringe of bisexual culture warriors, radical libertarians and religious polygamists would support such a move.
Finally, I don't think libertarians have much choice except to ally with social conservatives. Libertarians are not numerous enough to carry the day by themselves and social progressives will have no truck or trade with libertarians for the simple reason that social progressives now own the State and use it merrily for their grand social engineering experiments. On the gay rights front, the gravest threat to individual rights comes from the Left, not from the Right. Witness Bill C-250 or the growing use of antidiscrimination law to eviscerate freedom of association, freedom of religion and private property rights (e.g. the KoC case)
Posted by: Laurent | 2005-02-08 7:11:09 PM
Laurent,
I banged the "get government out of marriage" drum early on in this debate. And I agree that SSM is an unattractive place to begin pushing for a more libertarian approach.
However, where I think the CPC is going off course is in treating this as a matter of identity politics rather than as a question to be determined on a rights analysis.
I agree with you that the greatest threat to individual liberty comes from the left with its welter of anti-discrimination legislation. However, if the right goes down the socon road, even on the moderate shoulder, it will have very little coherent intellectual ammunition with which to dismantle the structures of Trudeaupia.
Libertarians in Canada have a variety of places where they will feel equally uncomfortable. The business wing of the Liberal Party is certainly an option from time to time, especially if Harper and Co insist on pandering to the socons.
Of course, the libertarian position is largely philosophical; it is not about gritty electoral politics. In a sense it is a style of analysis rather than a political agenda.
Mike, with the right question I suspect I can get 65% of Canadians to be against just about anything. The issue is how strongly they feel about it. While I will certainly grant you that a core of 20-30% of Canadians are strongly anti-SSM, the remainder would just as soon not be bothered with the issue. (It would be interesting to see what a priority poll revealed about the question. I suspect it would have a very limited depth of appeal.)
Posted by: Jay Currie | 2005-02-09 4:31:31 AM
On a note related to this thead, I'd like to plug the writings of one libertarian who's opposed to legalizing SSM in the United States - that of Jennifer Roback Morse.
Her last article for the National Review is here
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/morse200405200926.asp
Her website and a recent interview are here
http://www.marriagerevolution.citymaker.com
http://www.worldmag.com/displayarticle.cfm?id=10227
Posted by: Clement Ng | 2005-02-09 10:03:04 AM
Either "libertarianism" means nothing anymore, or Ms. Morse is simply wrong in identifying herself as one.
As to the National Review article, even on its own terms (which I disagree with completely), it doesn't prove the point it claims to. As I read it her argument is:
1. Marriage is not about legal contracts or love.
2. SSM advocates seem to think it is about these.
3. Therefore, we shouldn't let gay people get married.
If #3 isn't a non sequitur, I don't know what is. Should we start prohibiting straight marriage, too? Because in #2 you could certainly substitute "most heterosexuals" for "SSM advocates". And what about gay marriage proponents who agree that marriage is all about self-sacrifice and raising children? Are they to be denied marriage because other SSM advocates diagree?
If her point is that the only entity that should be called a marriage by the government consists of children being raised by a biological mother and father who will remain together regardless of their own unhappiness, then she should say that -- and defend it.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-02-09 12:07:48 PM
Jay,
The crux of the matter can be found in the following sentence of yours:
"[I]f the right goes down the socon road, even on the moderate shoulder, it will have very little coherent intellectual ammunition with which to dismantle the structures of Trudeaupia"
What does dismantling Trudeaupia mean? If you ask social conservatives, I'm sure their answers will have more to do with banning abortion than with privatizing health care. I'm sure there are so-cons who fret about the Right going down the libertarian road and thus lacking the coherent intellectual ammunition to dismantle what they see as Trudeaupia.
In short, yes in an ideal world libertarians could simply run on a purely libertarian platform and take power with it. But as a practical matter libertarians, just like everyone else, must accept that no party with a shot at forming the government will adopt their undiluted philosophy. In particular, the CPC will probably end up as a mix of moderate libertarianism and moderate social conservatism.
Moreover, I don't think that moderate social conservatism and libertarianism are necessarily incompatible. In fact, even libertarian positions like opposing C-250, taxpayer funding of abortions or the rise of antidiscrimination law are viewed by most people as so-con positions. I also don't believe that libertarianism by itself can guide us on every and each policy issue. If I said that gay marriage (or, I should add, opposition to it) is not about rights but about identity politics, it is not because I have declined from doing a rights analysis. I have done such an analysis and found that gay marriage and civil unions are equally acceptable from a libertarian standpoint. I also don't think that restricting late-term abortions is inherently un-libertarian. If born babies have rights, it does not seem right to say that almost-born, late-ferm foetuses have no rights and can be aborted at will under any circumstances.
Posted by: Laurent | 2005-02-09 12:37:39 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.