Posted on 05/05/2007 3:31:49 PM PDT by GMMAC
Why can May mix pulpit, Parliament?
If a Conservative politician had said what she said, the media would have pounced
Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Friday, May 04, 2007
"We have a moral obligation to our Lord and Father to ensure we don't destroy the creation that was given to us. Through the power of our Lord and Jesus Christ, we can meet this moral obligation."
Who said that, some pro-life zealot railing against abortion? Some Evangelical Christian who fails to recognize the separation of church and state? A Conservative politician with a hidden agenda to enslave us all with his traditional social values?
No. But you can bet that if a Conservative MP, no matter how low-profile or remotely located on the backbenches had said such a thing, in a church, regarding public policy, the usual sources such as the CBC and The Globe and Mail would have been all over it.
Instead, the speaker was Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, delivering a guest sermon last Sunday at a United Church in London, Ont., and barely a word has been printed about it.
Oh, sure, much has been made of May's comparison in the same address of Canada's Tory government to the Nazi-appeasing government of Britain's prewar prime minister Neville Chamberlain.
It's not as though her speech has been ignored.
But there is no doubt that had the speaker been Conservative leader and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, many commentators would have found his religious exaltations every bit as significant, perhaps more so.
With tears welling up in her eyes as she thought about how disappointed God must be at our treatment of the planet, May added, "This is a time for Christians to say we do believe in miracles, in the life-giving force. We're playing with the forces that led to creation ... we're nearing the edge of the life force and we're still playing around."
Now think of Stockwell Day, while he was leader of the Canadian Alliance (or now as Tory Public Safety minister, for that matter) saying anything close to that religious, anything nearly so exclusively Christian, and imagine the hue and cry.
A dangerous mix, we'd be told
There would be no end of ink spilled or video recorded denouncing his religious insensitivity. Evoking the Christian God in the name of public policy, we would be informed, is exclusive of Canadians of other faiths, or no faith at all.
Moreover, it is dangerous to mix faith and politics, we would hear over and over again.
We are so politically correct in this country -- usually -- that Jesus' name could not be spoken at memorial services to mark the crash of Swissair 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia or at the Parliament Hill ceremony to commemorate the terror attacks of 9/11.
Even when unelected persons called on God or Jesus to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage, the commenerati in Canada denounced them for attempting to impose their morality on the whole country.
So where, now, are the denunciations of May from the same sources?
And don't tell me this is different.
You may agree with May that global warming is a "moral obligation" that threatens us all, and disagree with the defenders of traditional marriage. But they believe just as fervently in the moral threat they see. If it is wrong for them to mix the pulpit and Parliament, it is equally wrong for May to do so.
Or, in reverse, if you are willing without shock or horror to let May use religion to support her stance, then you have to be equally willing to do the same for those who do so in defence of positions with which you disagree.
It's the double standard that's wrong.
Give May a free ride on her religiosity. That would be my preferred course. But then you have to be prepared to give everyone the same courtesy, including conservatives and Christians with views opposed to your own.
The Conservatives-as-Nazi-facilitators part of May's speech was ridiculous. She didn't say the Conservatives' rejection of the Kyoto accord was as bad as Chamberlain's cave-in to Hitler. She said it was "worse than" that, which is quite simply insupportably ludicrous.
And the apology she claimed to have issued Thursday was no apology at all. It is clear May does not regret what she said, only that it provoked a big controversy that has embarrassed her party.
"I did not compare Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to any current issue," May insisted. Instead, she explained, she had merely quoted British journalist George Monbiot doing so.
Oh right, I forgot, repeating a slur isn't the same thing as actually uttering a slur. And comparing Harper to Chamberlain is only intended to invite an indirect comparison between global warming and the Holocaust -- not a direct one -- so it's OK.
In the end, May didn't say she was sorry for what she said, only that she regretted "that the inflamed rhetoric around this issue has caused pain or offence." Then she blamed Harper for inflaming the rhetoric to cover up the negative reaction his government's green plan last week.
Insincere and conspiratorial; that's a good combination.
© The Edmonton Journal 2007
'justice is coming'
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