Monday, December 04, 2006

Pathetic Conservatives

It took less than 24 hours for Conservative pundits and other furniture to find their first talking points about newly selected Liberal leader Stephane Dion. Apparently, Ezra thinks it's a bad thing that Mr. Dion happens to hold both Canadian and French citizenship.

Given the numbers of Canadians who came to this country from other lands, or whose parents did, I fail to see what Mr. Levant's complaint is. It's sort of like complaining about Ted Morton because he was born and raised in the United States. Frankly, I don't care about that - I'm interested in what the man represents.

It's a sad state of affairs when you have to criticize someone's ancestry because it is clear that he was born in Canada - and apparently grew up here.

Frankly, I don't think it matters - and it's a pathetic bit of classless sniping on the part of Conservative commentators like Levant.

Over in swamp pits of Lifesite, we find them whining about the same thing, and then throwing in a complaint about his apparent stances on SGM and abortion. I'm not surprised - Lifesite, like other "Conservative" organizations simply assume that social equality shouldn't include gay rights or women's health.

Oh yes, and just to throw a little more into the mix, Lifesite claims to have the leaked text of the Conservative motion to reopen the SGM marriage issue in parliament:

"That this house call on the government to introduce legislation to restore the traditional definition of marriage without affecting civil unions, and while respecting existing same sex marriages."


This is a much more absolute motion than I had expected - we'll see if it happens to be an "accurate leak" or not this coming week. (I suspect it's not far off the beam - and the fact that LifeSite was blathering about it on Dec 1 - 2 days after the announcement appeared that the issue was to be tabled, suggests that the wingnuts have a direct line into the PMO.

(Realistically, I do not expect this motion to pass - I don't think that most Canadians have a stomach for reopening this particular can of worms right now. I'm pretty sure that Harper's doing this so he can turn to his "base" and claim that he kept his promise. What it really demonstrates is how tied to the "religious fundamentalist base" Harper really is.)

Human rights and equality are not topics for "popular vote" moments. They are times when governments have to lead by governing intelligently.

3 comments:

Alison said...

szwvdnHi Grog
Re the gentle rebuke you left me at Creekside
The cross-dressing lego pic I used above my post on so-cons and the SGM debate was supposed to illustrate the so-con view of gays, not anyone else's. It certainly wasn't my intention to equate being gay with cross-dressing in the real world. Someone else already left you a comment to this effect but in case you didn't make it back, I thought I'd leave you a note here which you can now erase.
Somehow all this seemed a lot clearer when I posted it at 4:30 in the morning yesterday than it does now. ;-)

MgS said...

I understand, Alison. As I said on your blog - why perpetuate an incorrect stereotype - it only allows the nutjobs to think they're correct.

Anonymous said...

So what is wrong with having dual-citizenship? I happen, by reason of my birth, to hold both British and Canadian citizenship. According to "E. Lerant" that would preclude me from holding high office in Canada. Seems totally illogical to me.

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