By way of the Torontoist: fab Magazine, the free Toronto mag for the gay community, is running a postcard campaign on same-sex marriage.

One features a shirtless male model giving the reader the finger, and is meant for Stephen Harper; the other is the same model smiling and saying “Thank you, Paul Martin!”

All very nice. You do wonder where the other postcard is, though. You know: “Thank you, Jack Layton, for heading up a caucus where you’re actually expected to vote in support of human rights. Thank you for supporting us before this issue became an attractive wedge for driving potential Conservatives into the Liberal column.”

(And a more honest postcard to Martin might have been “What took you so goddamn long?”)

Now, fab’s been good to Jack in the past, even devoting a cover story to him in the run-up to the last election. But this repeats a pattern that’s seen all too often in community groups and social movements:

1. An issue is championed by the NDP, which makes common cause with an alliance of organizations.
2. The issue finally achieves some kind of salience.
3. The Liberals, having spent the previous several months or years deriding the NDP position as divisive and irresponsible, promptly adopt it, while the Conservatives (under whatever label happens to suit them this week) continue to oppose it.
4. And the alliance of organizations flocks to frame the issue as a Conservative vs. Liberal question.

Some of my colleagues gripe privately that it’s because said activist groups are dominated by Liberal party members, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. Activists are as vulnerable to media spin as anyone else. And with a national press that loves to cover clashes between two titans, it’s easy to get sucked into discussing issues in purely Liberal/Conservative terms.

So forgiveable… but not helpful. fab’s campaign does in fact send a message to Layton and the NDP: “why did you even bother?”

Not that the NDP (or any party) should be choosing its positions purely on the basis of political payoff rather than principle. But why force the party to see that inevitably as a tradeoff?