Dustup

Babble on.

Three bloggers for whom I have the utmost respect (Jay Currie, Nick Packwood, and Sean McCormick in any order you'd like) have publicly declared they will be unable to vote for the CPC due to its SSM stance adopted recently at the Montreal policy convention.

"As prime minister, I will bring forward legislation that, while providing the same rights, benefits and obligations to all couples, will maintain the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman." Stephen Harper - March 18, 2005

As someone who disagrees with my own party's stance on this issue, but also disagrees with the Ditheral and Dipper positions; and as someone who is also committed to putting a CPC majority government into the House of Commons as quickly as possible, my fellow bloggers' stance disappoints me. I'm sure my stance disappoints them as well - sauce for the goose and all that. Fair enough.

Personally, I prefer the approach of these folks: work from within the party to push forward their strongly-held beliefs.

Bob Tarantino has a fairly comprehensive round-up for those interested in the history of this conflagration. After you've read that, I'd suggest you look at Debbye's take on the whole situation, and specifically this section:

I will state outright that I am annoyed that proponents keep pushing the notion that calling gay unions anything other than marriage is somehow an instance of "separate but equal" -- a barely disguised effort to connect this issue to the civil rights movement in the 60's -- but which displays either ignorance about or indifference to the institutionalized inequality of African-Americans in some states.

As those of us who were actually alive back then remember, "equal" was hardly a description of the public institutions and facilities made available to African-Americans who lived in states with Jim Crow laws (and in Northern urban areas.) There were also the matters of little or no police investigations into lynchings and the rapes of black women, being denied the right to vote, and being denied protection and due process under the law.

So unless it can be demonstrated that the designation "civil union" (or a more agreeable term) means fewer benefits, legal rights and protections, I am unconvinced that the failure to alter the ancient definition of marriage equals bigotry (nor can I deny there are some extremely homophobic voices raised against gays as well as gay marriage. That's the real pity and has clouded the debate somewhat.)

Given the fact that every major federal political party now officially endorses equal protection under the law, the real fight is now over a single word: marriage. I understand that the concept of 'equality' is worthy of a single-issue vote; I'm not sure if the semantics of 'civil marriage' is.

Babble off.

Update: Speaking of working for change from within the party, I'd also like to point out a recent addition to the Blogging Tories roll:

My name is Fred Litwin and I am a gay conservative living in Ottawa. This blog will report on a variety of conservative issues - while supporting gay marriage.

Welcome aboard Fred.