Politics is a funny business, where politicians often find themselves passionately defending positions in public that they privately admit are deeply flawed compromises. But the events of the past few months are setting a new high-water mark for doublethink at 24 Sussex Drive.
Paul Martin used same-sex marriage as a line in the sand in the last election. On the one side were bigots unfit for public office; on the other were those who held high the torch of human rights. Stephen Harper’s opposition to equality was proof he was too extreme to lead the country.
I don’t happen to disagree with that assessment of Mr. Harper’s suitability to lead. But as I’ve said before, I’ve been less than impressed by Mr. Martin’s consistency on the issue.
Now, with a vote on the issue looming in the House of Commons, a commitment to equality is no longer the engine and drive train of justice, but merely the passenger-operated climate controls and back-seat DVD player of justice. MPs who oppose same-sex marriage are no longer labelled “raging paleoconservatives” but — provided they’re Liberals — “valued colleagues”. Yet Martin is still happy to slag Harper for playing politics with the issue.
How does he do it? Do the Liberal-boosting and Conservative-bashing sides of his brain talk to each other any more, or does he live in a state of constant cognitive dissonance?
Jack Layton makes this point forcefully in a Toronto Star op-ed today:
After all, Martin spent a good part of June saying how vital it was to stop Harper’s attack on the Charter. He did not tell people that a third of the Liberals elected would agree with Harper. Martin now has an obligation to ensure Liberal MPs vote in accordance with the values he portrayed, wrongly, as theirs.
Within the Liberal caucus are MPs who call for the notwithstanding clause to be invoked, and who voted against including sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act. They have fought lesbian and gay equality for a decade.
During that time, a Liberal majority government did not see Charter rights as sacred. It consistently appealed court rulings on such basic issues as allowing pension rights to same-sex couples. Given this history and a caucus packed with MPs opposed to equality, Martin owes us more than hyperbole about human rights.
Incidentally, James Dobson of Focus on the Family is calling on (far) right-thinking Canadians to empty their wallets into the blazing fiscal furnace that powers Mr. Harper’s supporters in the evangelical right. If you think that deserves a little pushback, you might want to consider donating to the very good people at Canadians for Equal Marriage.
