Canada's Religious Right Galvanized by Gay Marriage

[Frodo]

Gay Marriage Galvanizes Canada’s Religious Right

By CHRISTOPHER MASON
Published: November 19, 2006

OTTAWA — It was a lonely time here in the capital for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada in the early days of the gay marriage debate in 2003.

Of the scattered conservative Christian groups opposed to extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, it was the only one with a full-time office in Ottawa to lobby politicians. “We were the only ones here,” said Janet Epp Buckingham, who was the group’s public policy director then.

But that was before the legislation passed in 2005 allowing gay marriage in Canada. And before the election early this year of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Conservative and an evangelical Christian who frequently caps his speeches with “God bless Canada.”

Today across the country, the gay marriage issue and Mr. Harper’s election have galvanized conservative Christian groups to enter politics like never before.

Before now, the Christian right was not a political force in this mostly secular, liberal country. But it is coalescing with new clout and credibility, similar to the evangelical Christian movement in the United States in the 1980s, though not nearly on the same scale.

Today, half a dozen organizations like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada work full time in Ottawa, four of which opened offices in the past year, all seeking to reverse the law allowing gay marriage.

They represent just some of the dozens of well-organized conservative Christian groups around the country and more than a hundred grass-roots campaigns focused on the issue. In recent months, religious groups have held rallies, signed petitions, drafted resolutions and stepped up their efforts to lobby politicians to overturn the law.

These Christian conservatives have been instilled with a sense of urgency in the expectation that Mr. Harper will follow through on a campaign promise, as early as the first week of December, to hold a vote in Parliament on whether to revisit the gay marriage debate.

[2952-0-0]

There is a religious right here???

[Gabu]

Something tells me that article was written by an American...

If a coherent "religious right" even exists in Canada, it certainly doesn't have much of any influence, and any article about it is giving it more credit than it deserves.

[Colin]

Something tells me that article was written by an American...

Most likely. Only about 5 Americans actually know what Canadian politics is like beside the usual, they're more liberal/they're communists.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Well you should thank God for that. Another good decision by the Canadian people.

[Rob]

If a coherent "religious right" even exists in Canada, it certainly doesn't have much of any influence, and any article about it is giving it more credit than it deserves.

There was an interesting article on this subject published in The Nation recently:

He [Harper] plans to pull Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol and expand military spending. He defended Israel's massive bombing of southern Lebanon, even as Israeli warplanes bombed a clearly marked UN observation post, killing a Canadian peacekeeper... He has slashed $1 billion in funding that assists the most vulnerable Canadians, including cuts in adult literacy programs, legal aid to gays and lesbians, and measures to assist unemployed youth, despite a near-record surplus of $13.2 billion for 2005-06... And he sneers at Canada's long tradition of antimilitarism and generous social services, once calling Canada "a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its...social services to mask its second-rate status."

But that is not the worst of it. The prime minister, who has begun, in very un-Canadian fashion, to close his speeches with the words "God Bless Canada," is also a born-again Christian. And Harper is rapidly building an alliance with the worst elements of the US Christian right.

But many fear the prime minister is taking a cue from the Bush Administration and slowly mobilizing Canada's 3.5 million evangelicals--along with the 44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ--as a power base. Harper has spent the past three years methodically knitting a coalition of social conservatives and evangelicals that looks ominously similar to the American model.

"While the Ottawa press corps has been preoccupied with Harper's ability to keep the most blooper-prone Christians in his caucus buttoned up, he has quietly but determinedly nurtured a coalition of evangelicals, Catholics, and conservative Jews that brought him to power and that will put every effort into ensuring that he stays there," wrote Marci McDonald in the October issue of the Canadian magazine Walrus.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Are they running against those activist legislators legislating from the legislature?

[Gabu]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Stephen Harper has the slimmest minority ever in the history of Canada.  If he decides to emulate Bush, you can bet that Canadians will throw him out at the first opportunity.

The only reason he was elected in the first place was because Canadians basically consider the Conservative party the only viable alternative to the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party was in the midst of that big sponsorship scandal.  Trust me when I say that Stephen Harper did not become prime minister because he was Stephen Harper.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ

That sounds too high.

[Gabu]

44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ

That sounds too high.

I'm curious what that even means.  Doesn't one "commit oneself to Christ" just by becoming Christian?  So wouldn't that simply mean that 44% of Canadians are Christian (which is way too low)?

[Platypus]

Canadians: This is what happens when you elect John Howard...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ

That sounds too high.

I'm curious what that even means.  Doesn't one "commit oneself to Christ" just by becoming Christian?  So wouldn't that simply mean that 44% of Canadians are Christian (which is way too low)?

I suppose it could apply to mainline Christians too but only sounds like something evangelicals and fundies would say. In that sense, the number does seem realistic, but it's still a pointless figure.

[Gabu]

it's still a pointless figure.

I'd say so.  If the pollster actually went up to people and said "have you committed yourself to Christ?" and expected a yes/no answer, the question is so vague and dumb that any information taken from it is probably useless.

By the way, on this topic as a whole, regarding the figure that some 3 million Canadians are evangelicals, it should be noted that, while this figure looks large, it only represents roughly 10% of the population.  Compare this to America, where the number is closer to 25%.

[merseysider]

If a coherent "religious right" even exists in Canada, it certainly doesn't have much of any influence, and any article about it is giving it more credit than it deserves.

Didn't the old Reform party and the Canadian Alliance contain some real wing-nuts though? I remember hearing that some of them were proposing a national referendum on restricting abortion, and several of their MPs got in trouble for making homophobic or racist comments.

Also I presume many of these people have found their way into the new Tory Party?

[Gabu]

Didn't the old Reform party and the Canadian Alliance contain some real wing-nuts though? I remember hearing that some of them were proposing a national referendum on restricting abortion, and several of their MPs got in trouble for making homophobic or racist comments.

The Canadian Alliance actually did even have an evangelical young-earth Christian as its leader in 2000, a Mr. Stockwell Day, whom you've probably heard of.  He promptly went down in flames (despite him chanting ad nauseam the line "it's within our grasp") as the Liberal Party got its third straight majority government.  He wasn't the leader of the party for much longer thereafter.  Throughout the campaign both his evangelism and his young-earth creationist views were big issues, and he was hounded endlessly for them.

Of course there are going to be fruitcakes elected in the very conservative sections of Canada, but winning in only those sections will bring you nowhere near the reins of power here - quite unlike America, where it can give you a large chunk of what you need to win nationwide.

[Colin]

Didn't the old Reform party and the Canadian Alliance contain some real wing-nuts though? I remember hearing that some of them were proposing a national referendum on restricting abortion, and several of their MPs got in trouble for making homophobic or racist comments.

The Canadian Alliance actually did even have an evangelical young-earth Christian as its leader in 2000, a Mr. Stockwell Day, whom you've probably heard of.

Hey! I've heard of him.

He's one of the characters you can play as in Prime Minister Forever Canada.

[Storebought]

Didn't the old Reform party and the Canadian Alliance contain some real wing-nuts though? I remember hearing that some of them were proposing a national referendum on restricting abortion, and several of their MPs got in trouble for making homophobic or racist comments.

The Canadian Alliance actually did even have an evangelical young-earth Christian as its leader in 2000, a Mr. Stockwell Day, whom you've probably heard of.  He promptly went down in flames (despite him chanting ad nauseam the line "it's within our grasp") as the Liberal Party got its third straight majority government.  He wasn't the leader of the party for much longer thereafter.  Throughout the campaign both his evangelism and his young-earth creationist views were big issues, and he was hounded endlessly for them.

Of course there are going to be fruitcakes elected in the very conservative sections of Canada, but winning in only those sections will bring you nowhere near the reins of power here - quite unlike America, where it can give you a large chunk of what you need to win nationwide.

Yes, yes, we all know that the dependent populations of three cities elect the majority of Canadian MPs.