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Monday, June 27, 2005
Not getting over it
The same-sex marriage bill may indeed pass this week, but who says the Tories are going to move past it? In fact, in the current issue of the Western Standard, senior writer Terry O'Neill asks the very important question, what will the Conservatives do once same-sex marriage is law? Will they go so far as to actually fight to have it repealed? After all, it's one thing to oppose the granting of a "right" in the first place. It's a touch more extreme a position to actually advocate stripping people of those "rights". Are the Tories really willing to go that far?
In a word: Yes.
The Tories say they plan to continue to campaign against same-sex marriage until they successfully repeal it. To people who love the Tories but hate their same-sex stance, and wish they'd get over it already, that's bad news. But the Conservatives know that same-sex is their winningest issue in a long time.
No matter how we personally feel about same-sex marriage, polls show that Canadians are, at best, ambivalent about it. Just a slim majority are against, but you can bet that they're going to be the sort that will be more likely to walk five miles through a snowstorm to get to the polls to make their voices heard. Most of the 48 per cent that favour gay marriage are likely doing it in the spirit of "yeah, I guess it's only fair." But will it swing their vote? Outside of progressive hotbeds—the Annex, Edmonton Centre, etc.— I think not. And those folks are just as likely to pick one of the other three federal parties that back same-sex marriage as they are the Liberals (I'm counting the Greens, here).
As our resident traditional marriage pit bull, Ted Byfield, put it in a recent column, the Liberals have finally emerged from the bubble they've been living in and realized they're on the wrong side of this issue, politically:
If an Ottawa rally held last month is any indication . . .The RCMP put the size of the crowd at 15,000, making it the biggest demonstration on Parliament Hill in living memory. Moreover, it included not only Protestant and Catholic Christians, but Jews, Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus in the hundreds.
Yet what no doubt really shook the Liberal MPs was this: the two national newspapers ignored the whole event, one of them even covering pro-gay rallies of one or two hundred people elsewhere in the country that same weekend. In short, Martin must have been deluded by the pro-gay media into totally underestimating the lethal potential of the gay-marriage issue. It will hit the Liberals much harder than he imagined, especially in the heavily ethnic urban constituencies upon which they so urgently depend.
When even 40 Liberals are against it, it's clear that this is an issue that Grits really don't want to face when knocking on doors in the next campaign. That's why, as even the staunchest same-sex supporters can see, Paul Martin is so desperate to ram this bill through before his deal with the NDP ends and he's back to facing an election threat again. You don't hear him defending it tooth and nail, the way you did in February, talking tough about it being a human right. He's backed off. He thought he had a winning issue and what he's got on his hands now is a piece of political dynamite.
In the meantime, Stephen Harper knows that this issue opens up whole new constituencies for his party. Check the meeting with 35,000 Muslims this weekend. Most of them will be voting Conservative next time around thanks to this issue. Conservative Muslims voting en masse for the party that is supposedly aligned ideologically with George W. Bush? That never would have seemed possible this time last year. Now add Italians, Greeks, Portugese—all the ethnic groups that have been Liberal since they immigrated here, are now back in play.
The Tories are in the business of getting elected—not "getting over" things. They've found their winning issue. Passage or no passage, they're going to exploit this issue for as long as they can. Bet on it.
Posted by Kevin Libin on June 27, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Looks like the Conservatives are going to have to find themselves a collective pair of 'brass ones' and an ability to shrug off negative attacks. They will need singularity, courage, and some positive reasons to Protect marriage, not simply reasons to oppose same-sex.
Interesting that the 'progresssives' are in support of the same-sex 'rights'. Try a little experiment: do a search on homosexual and lifespan. One site I visited said that only 2% of homosexuals live past age 65. This is AFTER factoring OUT AIDS and STD's.
Posted by: Republicanuk | 2005-06-28 9:01:09 AM
"Conservative Muslims voting en masse for the party that is supposedly aligned ideologically with George W. Bush"
I can hardly believe this is being presented as a GOOD thing. Does it give no one pause that the Conservatives would choose a course that gets them the enthusiastic approval of the same ideological group that's out to destroy Western civilization? How far should this pandering to extremist Muslims go? Would promising to make homosexuality punishable by death be OK, too, if it increased the vote count?
Personally, if the Consevatives choose to pursue this issue in any significant way after the bill is passed, I'll be leaving the party or at least be working hard to make sure Harper's replaced. I suspect a large chunk of the libertarian Conservative membership would do the same. But don't worry, there are more than enough bin Laden fans out there to make up for the loss.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-06-28 9:12:10 AM
Mark, don't let the door hit you on your way out. Your horrid generalization on Muslims would be for more hindrance than help in the Conservative cause. Do you actually KNOW any Muslims? And how does Muslim suddenly morph into 'extremist Muslims.' The Conservatives need to pursue this issue on behalf of all religions, Christian, Jew, Muslim, et al who believe in (traditional) marriage.
Note: who else finds it ridiculous that we have to denote "traditional" before marriage so everyone knows we're talking about that silly old man-woman thing.
Posted by: Ham | 2005-06-28 9:27:39 AM
So the all the Muslim group that opposes same sex marriage are extremists?? Geez the libs have been at us forever not to racial profile Muslims because of 9/11, but you choose to do just that to make a point. Sounds like sour grapes to me.
What Harper will do is give Canadians a chance to have their say on this issue which up to now hasnt happened. Dont go thinking that Martin actually cares about gay marriage either. He pushed himself into a corner on this one to hang onto power. I wouldnt be celebrating this victory just yet.
Posted by: MikeP | 2005-06-28 9:32:29 AM
Ham: I didn't make any generalization about Muslims. The original post by Kevin specifically identified the converts to the Conservative party as "conservative Muslims" and pointed out the incredible irony of them supporting the George Bush party of the north. If it were moderate Muslims we were supposed to be happy about attracting, I'd have been less alarmed.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-06-28 9:38:32 AM
OBL after calling the West to Islam (possibly conservatives only option consideing Christianity appears to be an empty vessel) says...
"(2) The second thing we call you to, is to stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.
(a) We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest."
Canada's Muslim population seems set to grow to 1.4 million by 2017 and bring Canada "the religion of Unification of God, sincerity, the best of manners, righteousness, mercy, honour, purity, and piety." Sounds like fertile ground for Mr. H. However, numbers from the 2000 election showed that 70% of non-European immigrants voted Liberal in Ontario. And 54% of Ontario's Catholics also bent their ballots for the Libs. Ontario, unlike the West, is ~30% Catholic. All PM's since PET, with the exception of Kimmy, have been Catholic. Bush won the Catholic vote from Kerry, a Catholic. In Ohio, the Catholic vote put Bush in the Whitehouse in 2004. 64% of Ohio Catholics voted for Prop. 1, "Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state..." Is Harper barking up the wrong tree? The Sailer strategy, gettin' out the white vote, worked for Bush 43 and his pappy Bush 41. In particular, Harper should be focusing on the white Catholic vote in Ontario.
Forget the Jews, by and large. They march to a different agenda.
Charles Silberman: "American Jews are committed to cultural tolerance because of their belief – one firmly rooted in history – that Jews are safe only in a society acceptant of a wide range of attitudes and behaviors, as well as a diversity of religious and ethnic groups. It is this belief, for example, not approval of homosexuality, that leads an overwhelming majority of American Jews to endorse 'gay rights' and to take a liberal stance on most other so-called 'social' issues."
Posted by: DJ | 2005-06-28 11:44:18 AM
Holy cow are you guys out of it today.
Firstly, I never said there was an "incredible irony" in Muslims voting for Harper anymore than there's an irony in Italians, Greeks, etc. voting for him. Most Muslims are not out to "destroy Western civilization," but a whole lot of them are staunchly pro-Palestinian and anti-Bush (there's a difference between a conservative muslim and a fundamentalist one). Last election they swallowed the left-wing line that Harper was a Wolfowitz in sheep's clothing. One of the reasons the Liberals stayed out of Iraq was because they knew that politically it would aggravate many of their ethnic constituencies. Carolyn Parrish isn't fanatically anti-Israel because she hates Jews. She acts that way because she there are a tonne of Muslims in Mississauga. She's playing to her base.
If Muslims end up voting for a party that has demonstrated itself to be more anti-terror and pro-democracy than the current gang in Ottawa, then obviously they're not the fans of OBL that you think they are. The Tories aren't pandering to Muslims with their anti-same-sex marriage stance. They're pandering to all conservatives of all faiths across the country. This is an issue that will make new Conservatives out of Liberal Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and more. That's why it's a winner for Harper and he'll run with it as long as he can.
Posted by: Kevin Libin | 2005-06-28 12:08:12 PM
"Interesting that the 'progresssives' are in support of the same-sex 'rights'. Try a little experiment: do a search on homosexual and lifespan. One site I visited said that only 2% of homosexuals live past age 65. This is AFTER factoring OUT AIDS and STD's."
I did just that & found that the stats you're quoting come from . . .
“The Homosexual Lifespan” presented by Paul Cameron, William L. Playfair & Stephen Wellum at the 1993 EPA Conference, in Arlington, Virginia.
"Cameron's paper is junk on its face. Here is the abstract: “To estimate the homosexual lifespan, 6,211 obituaries from 16 homosexual journals over 12 years were compared to obituaries from 2 conventional newspapers. Non-homosexual newspapers' obituaries were similar to US averages for longevity. For the 6,087 homosexual deaths, the median age of death if AIDS was the cause was 39 irrespective of whether or not the individual had a long time sexual partner [LTSP]; 1% died old (i.e., aged 65 or older). For the 690 who died of non-AIDS causes, the median age of death was 42 (41.5 for those 252 with a LTSP and 43 for those 438 without] and <9% died old. The 120 lesbians registered a median age of death of 44.5 (24% died old) and exhibited high rates of violent death and cancer as compared to women-in-general.”
"Even if the study was honestly done, older gays, who died in the U.S. in the 1980's, would be not be all that likely to be indicated as gay in mainline newspaper obituaries. They would also be far less likely, than younger gays, to be commemorated by obituaries in what Cameron calls "homosexual journals". These notices first started to be published in the 1980’s, to commemorate the AIDS deaths of people active in the gay community. Older gays were less likely to be visible in the community. Older gays were also less to catch AIDS. For those gays who passed through a period of sexual promiscuity, the period of promiscuity typically did not run further than from the late teens to the mid-thirties.
The family of many older gays may not even have known that the deceased was gay. If the family knew, many were ashamed. After all, the older gays who died in the 1980's were from a time when to be "out" did not mean to be known to the world to be gay. To be "out", in the old days, meant that you acknowledged yourself to be gay to a few other gay men. Laws actively punished sodomy, and “indecent acts” in private, with imprisonment. In the middle classes, at least, the possibility of blackmail loomed large, not to mention job loss or being shunned by your family and former friends. Finally, the family or loved one of an older gay might have accepted the older gay’s sexual identification, and they might not have minded the public knowing that the deceased was gay. But, it simply might not have occurred to the family or loved one to place a death notice in a gay publication. If the family members were of the same age group as the deceased, they might not even have known that such publications existed."
http://www.law.mcgill.ca/quid/archive/2003/03112509.html
Your poltical points would be easier to credit if you didn't back them up with nonsense.
Mont D. Law
Posted by: montdlaw | 2005-06-28 12:48:08 PM
Is there a conservative or moderate Islam, and if there is, is it any match for the fundies? The Bushies don't think so. That's why they're embracing fundies in the ME electoral process.
"Bin Ladenism grew from contemporary Islamic fundamentalism, and only the fundamentalists can defeat bin Ladenism. Muslim "moderates" can't defeat bin Ladenism since they don't speak to the same audience with the same language and passions. Pro-American dictators also cannot defeat bin Ladenism since they have been an important part of the equation that gave us bin Ladenism. Many American liberals and neoconservatives think that you somehow get to have Thomas Jefferson in the Middle East without first having Martin Luther. The fundamentalists—not the "moderates" who are already too evolved—will produce the Muslim Martin Luther. The "moderates" are essentially like us, which is to say they are more or less irrelevant. They are not part of the Muslim mainstream. They are not competitive in most Middle Eastern intellectual circles, which are increasingly dominated by fundamentalists." Why else is Rummy negotiating with the Iraqi insurgents? The question remains, "Will it work?"
Blair's war support did not alienate Muslim voters to any large degree. Galloway's constituency was the exception. No, JC's eye was on Quebec and the the election of Charest.
If new Cons are to be made it won't be in any number amongst Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus or Quebecers. Forget the big tent nonsense and focus on the Italians, Ukrainians, Poles and Greeks, in Ontario, largely Catholic and overwhelmingly in oppostion to SSM.
Posted by: DJ | 2005-06-28 1:19:48 PM
I guess I am unlear about what Kevin is trying to say about appealing to "conservative Muslims". So let me just say that I have no use for a Conservative party leadership that could look at Canada today, with the disastrous state of our medical system, with new government intrusion into the child care arena, with constant infringements on free speech and property rights, with a military in shambles -- to name just a few issues that have real, pressing, and negative effects on our lives -- and decide to spend a moment on attempting to repeal a law that guarantees equal civil marriage protections for gay couples.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-06-28 5:42:31 PM
Mark, marriage has had a specific meaning for a long, long time in this country. Gay couples are already protected in terms of tax law, anti-discrimination laws, etc. Since we live in a country where anyone is free to coin any term or word they want to, instead of usurping someone else's traditions why don't SSM supporters start their own glorious tradition? Could it possibly be that they don't because in doing so they would only affect themselves, and not others?
If it's not a real, pressing or inmportant issue, why should there be a rush to pass this legislation against the express wishes of so many Canadians who aren't gay? Is unwillingness to change a word at the insistance of a small minority really that big an injustice? Do you think that self-dramatics might possibly be catered to a bit too much these days?
Posted by: EBD | 2005-06-28 6:01:34 PM
EBD: I didn't say it was not a real or pressing issue to provide equal legal protections to gay relationships. I didn't put it as quite so high a priority as some proponents, but it's definitely a real issue. And repealing it would simply be wrong (unless it's to be replaced with "civil unions" conferring the exact same protections as marriage, in which the effort would be a waste of time better spent on substantive issues).
As for "usurping traditions," you misunderstand what the bill does and, IMHO, what governments are for. Governments are there to protect its citizens' RIGHTS, not their traditions. Traditions are for families, religions, and cultural groups to initiate and maintain. Bill C-38 does nothing to prevent the practice of existing traditions. It merely gives equal protection to those starting new traditions of their own.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-06-28 7:29:10 PM
"Traditions are for families, religions, and cultural groups"
Marriage is a tradition, in case you hadn't noticed. It's not a right! These people are not starting traditions of their own - they're corrupting the traditions that were already in place.
RG
Posted by: RightGirl | 2005-06-28 7:34:10 PM
Marriage is BOTH a religious and cultural tradition AND a legal arrangement. The bill just passed affects only the legal aspects, specifically leaving it up to individuals and churches whether they want to participate in or recognize it as a culturally or religiously legitimate arrangement.
Posted by: Mark Wickens | 2005-06-28 7:46:37 PM
The Liberals were smart in pushing the SSM bill through before the election, as they are attempting to get the Conservatives to fall right into their hands.
I don't think it will work though because:
a)those who support SSM will be divided b/w Liberals and NDP
b)many more Canadians than the Liberals think oppose SSM.
Although I continue to support the Conservatives, I agree that they should be just as passionately defending the Supreme Court Private Healthcare ruling, free speech and democratic reform!
Posted by: Charlotte | 2005-06-28 8:08:49 PM
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