In the Post, Matt Gurney tries to equate Del Mastro’s attack on Trudeau’s private religious life with Liberals trying to get Harper to say clearly, publicly that certain issues such as abortion rights and the death penalty.
Mr. Del Mastro's attack on Mr. Trudeau is premised upon the fact that the latter is personally pro-life, though he does not believe he has the moral authority to legislate away a woman's right to choose, even though he believes she shouldn't choose abortion. That is an entirely defensible, entirely logical position for Mr. Trudeau to take. It's practically identical, in fact, to the Prime Minister's stance on capital punishment (and probably abortion, too, for that matter). And yet, so far, there have been no calls from David McGuinty demanding, if his fellow Liberal is truly pro-choice, he introduce a bill to prohibit abortion.
No it isn’t. In Trudeau’s case, he’s being accused of not basing his political stances on his religion. The Liberals charge that the Harper party does allow their personal religious based values determine which legislation they will push, what Bills they will bring forward, what political decisions they will make.
Since we have separation of church and state in this country, Trudeau is acting as he should separating his religious beliefs from his political actions and statements. Many of Harper’s MPs, however, make it very clear in public statements that their religious beliefs drive them in making decisions that could affect an entire nation of mixed beliefs.
When deciding to shut down safe injection sites, Clement attempted to defend his reason by saying "I believe I'm on the side of compassion and on the side of the angels." B.C. won the right to keep the sites open because the Court determined that facts on one side far outweighed vague, moral objections on the other.
Brad Trost bragged about how the religious Pro-Life Association helped kill funding to Planned Parenthood.
People like Darrel Reid have held high level positions of influence within harper’s tight, inner circle.
Reid was once the president of the evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family Canada. He promoted conservative Christian family values, while actively campaigning against issues such as divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage. As president of Focus On The Family Canada, Reid described his role as mobilizing Christians in Canada to infuse their religion with their political beliefs.
Harper’s party has many members – including steve himself and Mr. Law ‘n Order family values guy Toews – have links to organizations established under the umbrella of the Council for National Policy (CNP), an American group that the New York Times calls a “club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country which has“funnelled billions of dollars to right-wing Christian activists.
It is politicians’ private business which religious organizations they belong to except when the goal of those organizations is to actively “infuse their religion with their political beliefs,” as Reid prompts members to do.
So calling on harper to be clear on his intentions when it comes to religious based morality issues such as abortion or same sex marriage is not out of line, especially when his MPs have already tried back door ways of re-introducing legislation touching on those things.
In 2005, there was a vote to re-open debate on legalization of same-sex marriage and two Conservative private members’ bills that could have re-opened the abortion debate. That both failed means little, especially since harper had a minority at the time. It is very telling though that the very controlling harper allowed those issues to be brought forward by his own MPs at all.
You cannot equate attacks on Trudeau’s correct actions of separating church and state with attacks on the words and actions of members who seek to form laws and legislation based on their personal religious views.
The first is indeed an attack on the private person. The second is vigilance in defense of democracy.
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