Mike Harris’ conservative Party will win next spring’s Ontario provincial election. Remember you read it first in this humble scribe’s column. (I should warn you that I was the guy who predicted that I would never lose my hair.)

Do you know what’s going to win the day for Harris? The “same-sex” issue.

Harris cleverly trotted the issue out in a recent by-election in the rural riding of Victoria-Haliburton. The conservative candidate ran a heavy advertising campaign criticizing the NDP’s policy of endorsing same-sex benefits. (Also strongly supported by the Liberal Party.)

The Tories won this previously Liberal stronghold by over 2000 votes. In the next election, Bob Rae will learn that Victoria-Haliburton is more representative of Ontario than a downtown Toronto riding with its large number of homosexuals and lesbians. Poor Bob will learn that they can’t taxi the H & Ls to rural ridings to vote on election day.

Sharon McCrae, the defeated Liberal candidate, was a staunch pro-lifer. But when you’re in a party which is just another ideological wing of the NDP, having to explain that, personally, she didn’t favour same-sex benefits but her party did, was not very sellable. The alleged 50% that the Liberals enjoy in the Gallup poll doesn’t mean much if voters focus on an issue. Ask former Prime Minister David Peterson for confirmation.

The same-sex issue, which the NDP proudly claim as one of their five priorities, is the bomb that will reduce the party to a seat in the visitor’s gallery at Queen’s Park.

Nowhere have I detected more repugnance at what is laughingly called “same-sex spousal benefits.” This is a term that should be added to a rapidly growing list of misnomers such as “Therapeutic Abortion,” “Choice,” “Sexual Orientation,” and “Dying with Dignity.”

If “same-sex” legislation is given the go-ahead (and it looks like the NDP is prepared to do so) we are crawling into a sinkhole of gargantuan proportions. It is not a civil rights issue. It is rather an economic, moral and health issue. Who is going to pay for this? The Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights in Ontario? The Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere? I don’t see their cheque books coming out. In Canada we are paying close to 50% of our gross income to taxes. This legislation should take care of a big hunk of the remaining 50%.

A married husband (or wife) who works should be able to pay his non-working spouse a salary for providing daycare for their children and claim it as a tax deduction. Why? That’s what homosexual partners who raise children will be able to do. Why can’t maiden aunts, bachelors and widows living together suddenly announce (for income tax purposes) that they’re homosexuals and lesbians and also get in on the tax break? Is the NDP going to conduct a bedroom search to make sure it’s true? Will homosexual and lesbian couples demand exclusion from paying educational taxes on the grounds (truthful) that they don’t fill up the schools – why should they pay for them? I could fill up this page with bad scenarios over the bill that the Marxist NDP government can’t see.

A pox on the Ontario government, Ontario Hydro, Canada Post, Sears and even the Toronto Sun who have already caved in and are providing “same-sex” benefits. A host of others are getting ready to cave in to such pressure from groups that gave you “Queer Nation” and “Act Up.” Nice to know who your masters are.

I hope Harris remembers me when he gets elected. And when he’s Premier of Ontario – out of loving gratitude – I wouldn’t mind the Attorney General’s job. I got a list of people I want to take care of.

Lorrie Goldstein in the Toronto Sun summed it up beautifully in a column:
“…They (the homosexuals and the politically correct) want to teach that the family is oppressive, that chastity is outdated, that morality is relative, that values are mutable and your moral responsibility to your partner, whatever his or her sexuality, stops when you wear or demand that they wear a condom.”

That should be on the masthead of your paper, Lorrie.