Stockwell Day and Stephen Harper Debate Over Who is the Most Homophobic

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

I think some of the best moments in politics over the past decade are the leadership races of the Reform, Alliance and now Conservative party.

The Reformers will complain about how the opposition paints them as racist, homophobic or religious fanatics, but frankly what they do to each other, defies anything the opposition could come up with.

The 2000 leadership campaign for the new Alliance Party became a holy war.

In early May, the Campaign Life Coalition's Website described a Tom Long win as a "disaster," identifying two prominent members of his inner circle as "self-proclaimed homosexuals. Long condemned the Coalition's comments, as did the other candidates ... Then, on 3 June, Families for Day similarly attacked Long's organization for employing homosexuals. Stung by the viciousness of Day's social conservative supporters, Long gave his support to Manning.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a game of hard ball politics was going on. Days before the final vote, MPs Deborah Grey and Eric Lowther accused Day's team of using threats and intimidation to win the nomination. They pointed particularly to a letter written by Dr. Ted Morton, a Day supporter and political scientist at the University of Calgary, sent to Lowther. In the letter, Morton urged Lowther not to criticize Day or to let himself be "used by Preston and his advisers as a tool for their surrogate negative attacks on Stock" as it would not be in his [Lowther's] interests: It's no secret that there are more than a few ex-Tories/now Alliance who want to take a run at you for the Calgary Centre nomination. If Stock wins—which he will—he (and Jason [Kenney]) will be in a position to protect you against a nomination challenge. Alliance MPs Diane Ablonczy, Peter Goldrick, Bob Mills , and others similarly suggested members of the Day camp had threatened them. MP Deborah Grey said she was "heartsick." (1)

And they were already exploiting religion for political gain:

All of the candidates in the race professed strong Christian beliefs, while both Manning and Day are devout evangelicals. There is no reason on the surface, therefore, to expect that evangelical or fundamentalist Christians should have supported Day any more vigorously than they did Manning. But Day cultivated this community's support more aggressively than Manning .... Within the religious community, Families for Day was no doubt his strongest supporter. Created by Ron Beyer (head of the Calgary-based Canadian Family Action Coalition) and Garry Rohr .. Families for Day organized an E-mail campaign to sign up new members. Beyer claimed the organization signed up at least 6,000 new party members who voted for Day on the first ballot—approximately the margin of Day's lead over Manning, if correct. (2)

This prompted Manning's team to refer to Stockwell Day's team as a "cult", comparing Day to Jim Jones.

So when a new leadership race took place in 2002, after Day's caucus mutinied, Canadians who follow politics braced themselves for another holy showdown. And this one got even uglier. As journalist Kevin Michael Grace set the stage:

One thing is for certain. This is going to be a dirty campaign--perhaps even nastier than in 2000, when the Tom Long campaign was accused of being a homosexual coven and Mr. Day was compared to mass murderer Jim Jones. And despite Mr. Harper's promise to avoid personal attacks--a promise made also by Mr. Day--it was his campaign that drew first blood. (3)

The "first blood" was a dismissal of Day's announcement that he would be running again, having learned a lesson. Harper's campaign spokesperson, John Collison called his launch a "non-event," and said that he had "pretty much worn out his media welcome" and "Stock Day...is not the deepest policy thinker."

He apparently had underestimated his opponent and the fact that he had a past that could be used against him. Collison was a former radio shock jock, who had been fired from his job at a Winnipeg radio station for his relentless attacks on two gay politicians. He referred to it as a freedom of speech issue, and indeed the CRTC had repeatedly warned him (4) about his anti-gay rhetoric. But I think it was more of libelous situation, and one of his victims did sue and was awarded a cash settlement.

So far as shock jocks go, the fact that they call themselves "shock jocks", means that we can expect the outrageous, so I don't think they should really be censored. Personal attacks are something else.

However, Day used this opportunity to paint Stephen Harper as homophobic.

At this point, the Collison affair becomes murky and somewhat bizarre .... a profile of Mr. Collison by Peter O'Neil appeared in the Vancouver Sun ... "Ex-shock jock an aide to Alliance leadership hopeful: former radio host was fired after being accused of abusive treatment toward gays." ... Although Stockwell Day spokesman Eric Duhaime denies it explicitly (as does Mr. O'Neil), it is widely supposed that a Day supporter fed the Collison material to the Sun. It is also widely believed that Day supporters forced Mr. Harper to accept Mr. Collison's resignation after they indicated that unless he did, Mr. Day would not guarantee to support Mr. Harper if the latter won the leadership contest. It is further widely believed that Day supporters boasted that they had exposed Mr. Harper for harbouring a homophobe." (3)

This prompted Harper supporter, Lorne Gunter to remind us that it was Day supporters that had outed Tom Long staffers as homosexual. Also that "Some of the leaders of those pro-family groups are now working for the Day campaign, and one of Day's senior strategists is a gay libertarian from Quebec, yet there is not a peep from these former family lobbyists."

"A gay libertarian from Quebec"? Say it ain't so.

I think when a leadership race comes down to which candidate is the most homophobic, your party has a problem. Both men would prove time and again that it was a race to the bottom.

Not long after winning the leadership, Harper attacked MP Svend Robinson, an openly gay man, with the comment: “I am sure the picture of the honourable member of the NDP is posted in much more wonderful places than just police stations.”(Hansard No. 013, October 23, 2002)

When Day was leader of the Opposition he refused to send condolences to the Palestinian people on the death of President Yassir Arafat because party insider and former George Bush speechwriter, David Frum, claimed that Arafat had died of AIDS.

In a November 16 email to his Conservative colleagues Mr. Day stated: "Some of you have asked why I have not released a statement of condolence or sympathy. As you know, there are two sides to the Arafat story. You pick...." He then included in the email an article by David Frum, former speech writer for George W. Bush, indulging in unfounded speculation about the cause of Arafat’s death. Frum suggested that Arafat’s symptoms “sounded AIDS-like.” (5)

I think for Stephen Harper's new Fox News North, they should reenact some of these past leadership campaigns. They might actually get people to watch the show, if they can bill it as a sitcom.

Sources:

1. Requiem for a Lightweight: Stockwell Day and Image Politics, By Trevor Harrison, Black Rose Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-55164-206-9, Pg. 63

2. Harrison, 2002, Pg. 52-53

3. Strange Alliances, By Kevin Michael Grace, Report Newsmagazine, February 04, 2002

4. In Canada, Free Speech Has Its Restrictions: Government Limits Discourse That Some May Find Offensive, By Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post Foreign Service, December 12, 1999

5. The Man Who Walks with Dinosaurs: The return of Stockwell Day, who now implies that people with AIDS deserve no sympathy, By Murray Dobbin, The Tyee, December 1, 2004

The Religious Right is Reviving Their "Good Old Boys Platform"

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

One of my favourite episodes of All in the Family was when Archie Bunker realized how narrow thinking could manifest itself. After going into one of his usual tirades, he was approached to attend a meeting of like-minded good old Americans, only to have them don white sheets and propose a cross burning at his son-in-law's home, because of a letter he had written to the editor of the New York Times. This was Archie's spiritual awakening and it was so well done.



Many people mistakenly believe that the Moral Majority/Religious Right came about after Roe vs Wade, when abortion became legal, but that is not true. It was formed to fight against the end of segregation. In a sermon by Rabbi Caryn Broitman:

Evangelicals withdrew from politics for most of the last century until the rise of the religious right in the late 70’s. This rise was not in response to Roe v Wade, as their organizers would have us believe but in response to a civil rights issue, namely the Supreme Court decision that ruled that institutions that practiced segregation would forfeit their tax exempt status. This decision led to the withdrawal of tax-exempt status for Bob Jones University, who among other things, did not admit Blacks, and when they did, had a policy against interracial dating.

It was race, as well as the desire to maintain control over evangelical institutions, and not abortion, that led to the establishment of the religious right, as historian Randall Balmer has documented. In fact, the first candidate the religious right supported was Ronald Reagan, who had signed into law an abortion rights bill as governor of California. When Reagan was elected, his administration argued, not surprisingly, on behalf of Bob Jones University to the Supreme Court in 1982 to keep their tax-exempt status despite their racially discriminatory policies. (1)

And Ronald Reagan ran on a platform opposing the Civil Rights movement.

"With Reagan's outspoken opposition to the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Republican strategists knew that they would have to write off the black vote. But although 90 per cent of black voters cast their ballots for the democrats, only 30 percent of eligible black Americans voted. Republican ... strategist Paul Weyrich stated "I don't want everyone to vote ... our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. We have no moral responsibility to turn out our opposition." (2)

And when George W. Bush was running against John McCain for the leadership of the Republican party, one of the first places he visited was Bob Jones University. When McCain's team got wind of it they went public, stating that in his attempt to woo the Religious Right, he had spoken at a school that forbid interracial dating and were strongly anti-Catholic.

Bush fired back and told CNN, "I denounced the policy at Bob Jones", but transcripts of his speech showed that he did no such thing. (3)

However, inadvertently, the backlash resulted in the university changing it's policy in 2000:

Jones acknowledged that recent scrutiny of the school's policies was behind the decision. "This thing has gotten so out of hand," he said. "All of a sudden the university is at the center of a Republican presidential debate."The southern school adopted its ban on interracial dating in the 1950s ... BJU did not admit black students until the 1970s. The school lost its tax-exempt status in 1983 after a 13-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which said the school's policies violated federal law.The school had justified its ban on interracial dating by saying that God created people differently for a reason.George W. Bush spoke at the school prior to South Carolina's primary. Although other candidates have spoken at BJU over the years without incident, the appearance by Bush was portrayed by political foe John McCain as an endorsement of the school's extreme beliefs, including its prohibition on interracial dating and its anti-Catholic views. (4)

There are many reasons to be alarmed over the rise of the Religious Right in Canada. I had mentioned that since they have such strong backing from their American counterparts, they are a threat to our sovereignty. But there is another threat that is more profound. The legitimizing of bigotry.

The Religious Right/Moral Majority resulted with the founding of the Council for National Policy, where Stephen Harper delivered his now infamous speech.

The relationship between the Republican Party and the Religious Right started in earnest in 1981 with the creation of the powerful insider club known as the Council for National Policy (CNP). Excited by Reagan's election, Tim LaHaye of the Left Behind series, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Richard Viguerie, a wealthy Republican fundraiser, and other far-right conservatives decided to bring together the religious right, the small government/anti-tax right, and several extremely wealthy, like-minded businessmen such as Joseph Coors (whose company recently bought Molson) and Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt, rabid anti-Communists affiliated with the John Birch Society. (5)

They apparently approved of Stephen Harper three years before "W". He was one of them: A good old boy. In fact Paul Weyrich, mentioned above as a Reagan strategist, went to extraordinary lengths to help Harper get elected in 2006.

A top U.S. conservative commentator now says he authorized an e-mail warning right-wing American groups not to talk to Canadian journalists before the election for fear of scaring voters and damaging Stephen Harper's chances. Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation, told The Canadian Press last week that the widely distributed message was the product of an overzealous staff member of the research group. (6)

This group was founded on racism and only embraced issues like abortion after, when they realized that hatred was not palatable. But after visiting many (many, many, many) sites associated with this movement, their visceral attacks on the gay community and women are alarming. But what is also alarming is their veiled attacks on Muslims and their 'white supremacist' activities on campuses. Morton Blackwell, one of the founders of the Council for National Policy is behind a new group Youth for Western Civilization, and the renewal of an older group Young Americans for Freedom.

They launch campaigns like “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day” and run “Straight Power” demonstrations with signs that read “End Faggotry” and “Go Back in the Closet.” Similar campaigns are beginning to take place on Canadian campuses, where the subtext is often Muslims.

Sadly, many of the foot soldiers of the Religious Right would not condone this behaviour, and believe that they are only protesting abortion or same-sex marriage. Yet they may now be aligned with a movement that is so much more.

The Moral Majority was never a majority. A majority of Americans are unwilling to have Paul Weyrich or anybody else dictate to them what is moral and righteous in personal life. In 1992, when the morals police and gay bashers seemed in ascendancy at the Republican National Convention, the public response was so negative that George Bush had to spend the first couple of weeks of the campaign backpedaling. (7)

And as Rabbi Broitman points out:

The religious right has never represented all evangelicals, however, and in the last few years there has emerged an alternative voices in the evangelical community that have been suspect of the close alliance between evangelicals and one political party. As Evangelical leader David Gushee argues, “it is impossible both to represent the ‘Church’ and to function as a bloc within a national political party.” Religion is most faithful to its truth when it speaks from the margins of power, not the seat of power. (1)

It might be time for some members to start reassessing this political movement fueled by religious fervour, or they could find themselves, like Archie, in a room full of people wearing white sheets.

Sources:

1. Yom Kippur Sermon 5769: A critical analysis of the Jewish alliance with the Christian Right regarding Israel, By Rabbi Caryn Broitman, Yom Kippur 2008

2. Hard Right Turn: The New Face of Neo-Conservatism in Canada, Brooke Jeffrey, Harper-Collins, 1999, ISBN: 0-00 255762-2, Pg. 22)

3. The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception, By David Corn, Crown Publishers, 2003, ISBN: 1-4000-5066-9, Pg. 36-37

4. Bob Jones University Drops Interracial Dating Ban: Fundamentalist school finds itself thrust into Republican presidential debate. From Evangelical Press, Christianity Today, March 1, 2000

5. Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America, By Maude Barlow, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 0-7710-1088-5, Pg. 48

6. Harper's U.S. neocon booster changes his story, By Beth Gorham, Canadian Press, January 27, 2006

7. Corruption of the Jean Pool, By Calvin Trillin, Time Magazine, March 08, 1999

Stephen Harper's Homophobia Runs Long and Deep

"Same sex marriage is not a human right. ... undermining the traditional definition of marriage is an assault on multiculturalism and the practices in those communities." (Stephen Harper, Hansard, February 16, 2005)

Isn't it interesting that Stephen Harper made this about an assault on multiculturalism? I don't know what I find more offensive. The fact that he believes that equal marriage is not a human right, or that anyone with an ethnic background lacks tolerance.

One of the principles of neoconservatism demands that you find a wedge issue, add a bit of fear mongering and a healthy dose of religious fervour, and then beat it for all it's worth.

In 2005, Stephen Harper found his wedge issue in the debate on same-sex marriage and the passing of Bill C-38. And he had a lot of help.

Exploiting the Issue to Capture the Ethnic Vote

To the Reform Party under Preston Manning and Stephen Harper, the image of Canadians was extremely compartmentalized. Everyone fit into their own little box. Ethnics, Gays, Women, Jews, etc.

So when determining policy, they would pull out a box and frame that policy based on their stereotypical views of the people inside. Since they could already count on the undying support of the Christian fundamentalists, they had to take their message to one of the boxes.

A survey at the time had shown that 6% of Liberal supporters would leave the party over this issue, and despite the fact that there was no racial breakdown in the poll, Harper assumed that most non-whites would rally behind his party if it continued it's strong stand against homosexuality. He had been looking for an issue that would gain popularity with a voting sector that had up until then, been out of his grasp, and believed he'd found one.

I guess having a member of your party suggest that business owners should be allowed to demand that gays and ethnics move to the back of the store, if it meant that they could lose business; did not sit well with everyone.

According to an article in the Globe and Mail at the time:

Party officials concluded that the six-percentage-point drop for the Liberals was probably made up of small-c ethnic supporters, and decided at that point to begin running controversial newspaper ads opposing gay marriage. "We're the only ones who win under that calculation," said one Conservative member of Parliament, who asked not to be identified by name.

Struggling for years to find a way to crack into the immigrant voting marketplace, Mr. Harper and the party now believe they see a ready-made opportunity. Aside from the advertisements, which ask readers "Where do you draw the line?" the party leader began actively making his case at multicultural events, like at a Sikh meeting in Toronto a week ago. According to a senior party organizer, Conservatives believe they have potentially tapped into a well-spring of insecurity among ethnic groups, some of whose members feel the Liberal bill will force their
clergy to perform same-sex marriage.

(However, not all were amused)

Mr. Harper drew criticism not only from within his own party, but from some of the very people he had hoped to attract. "Mr. Harper is ignorant about immigration issues, and his statement reflects that ignorance," said Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a grassroots group with a membership in the hundreds. "What he's saying is that people can only be gay if they're white Anglo-Saxons." (1)

And as suggested in the Globe, it did draw criticism from within his own party. In fact, CBC's the Current ran a segment:

The leader of the Conservative Party, Stephen Harper, has emphatically promised to preserve marriage as the right of heterosexual couples only. The party recently launched a series of anti-gay marriage ads aimed specifically at ethnic and urban voters. As a result, Harper now faces opposition from his own caucus about the ads and about the party's stance on same-sex unions.

The American Religious Right to the Rescue

During the 2005/2006 election campaign, same-sex marriage became the hot button issue for the Religious Right and ultimately the new Conservative party; as they tapped into the vast resources of the Religious Right.

American James Dobson, former head of 'Focus on Family' and one of the founding members of the Council for National Policy, added to Harper's success. CNP had already approved him for membership in 1999, and in 2000 threw their support behind George W. Bush. These guys don't fool around.

"OTTAWA – January 27, 2005 - On the heels of a US right-wing fundamentalist campaign devised to drive a wedge between Canadians, Canadians for Equal Marriage (CEM) are calling on Stephen Harper to publicly disassociate himself from the American effort.

The campaign, spearheaded by James Dobson, a well-known American evangelical leader with close ties to George W. Bush, is being broadcast on more than 130 Canadian radio stations. It urges Canadians to oppose same-sex marriage.“We already know where Mr. Harper stands on this issue, preferring ‘selective rights’ to enshrining this very fundamental right for all Canadians. Curiously, Mr. Dobson’s ads echo the same sentiments. " (2)

But instead of backing down, Harper himself went on Drew Marshall's Christian radio program, where he denounced the advocacy groups and assured Marshall that his governemnt would overturn Bill C-38.

And he even took it a little further when discussing the issue of homosexuality. He purposely mentioned his father's switch from the United Church to the Presbyterians, noting that Marshall’s evangelical audience would get his drift. What he was referring to was the 1988 decision by the United Church General Council to approve the ordination of homosexuals.

This confirmed concerns during the 2004 election campaign, as noted by a group of gay Christians:

Conservative leader Stephen Harper has dismissed sexual orientation as a "behaviour" and said he does not even recognize us as groups protected by the Charter. The Conservatives will not only override the Charter, they will appoint judges that ensure they'll never even have to. His candidates have described sexual orientation as "deviant", "unnatural", "repulsive" and as encompassing paedophilia. In two weeks, Stephen Harper could be Prime Minister of Canada. (3)

However, long before any of this took place. Stephen Harper's views on homosexuality were well known. He was a founding member of the Northern Foundation, a group that became the vanguard for the far right in Canada. They were concerned that Canada was losing it's Anglo, Judeau-Christian heritage, so were determined to put an end to homosexuality and abortion, two direct threats on the white race.

Their publication, the Northern Voice was always filled with visceral attacks on gays, and the Reform Party ran ads in their newsletters and periodicals.

In an attempt to appeal to moderate Canadians, he has toned down his rhetoric in public, but this party is still very opposed to gay rights. But in a sppech to the Civitas Society in 2003: Harper said his goal is a future ruled by socially conservative values and small government. Movement toward this goal must be “incremental”... he said.(4)

Sources:

1. Harper uses same-sex to tap into ethnic vote: By: Brian Laghi, Anthony Reinhart and Roy MacGregor, Globe and Mail, February 12, 2005

2. EQUAL MARRIAGE GROUP CALLS ON HARPER TO PUBLICLY ‘DRAW THE LINE’, Canadians For Equal Marriage, January 27, 2005

3. With a federal election fast approaching, this is a crucial time for LGBT equality in Canada! Christian Gays June 18, 2004

4. Harperstein, By: By Donald Gutstein, June 6, 2006