Vancouver Sun reporter Peter O’Neil wrote in a recent article on the next move by social conservatives in the same-sex “marriage” debate, which includes a call by some for a royal commission on marriage and family, that they are captive to the Conservative party: They “have no electoral option, and the threat of simply sitting on their hands in the next election will only weaken their cause.” Christian Heritage Party leader Ron Gray answers that in one-fifth of the ridings where his party runs candidates, pro-life and pro-family voters “do have an electoral option.” No doubt that the pro-life contingent within the Liberal caucus would point out that, at least in their ridings, social conservatives can (and do) buck conventional wisdom and vote Liberal.
O’Neil is right, though, to highlight that threatening to abstain from voting in the next election does nothing to help the pro-life and pro-family cause. It would be better for such voters to become involved in nomination meetings to help elect socially conservative candidates in all parties or to help the CHP field candidates in not one-fifth, but all ridings across the country. Self-disenfranchisement cannot be a viable long-term political strategy to end the abominations of abortion and same-sex “marriage” – and who knows what else down the road. As Tom Wappell told The Interim last month, the only hope to reverse these trends is to elect a pro-life, pro-marriage majority to Parliament.
The implication of O’Neil’s story is that after the same-sex “marriage” vote, social conservatives are defeated. That’s not true – unless we defeat ourselves and betray the vulnerable by giving up. We do so by not working to ensure pro-life and pro-family candidates win nomination meetings and then get elected to Ottawa. Now is hardly the time to disengage from politics. More than ever, Canada needs social conservatives to restore moral sanity to our public square.
