Canada's Religious Right Galvanized by Gay Marriage

[Gabu]

Something tells me that article was written by an American...

If a coherent "religious right" even exists in Canada, it certainly doesn't have much of any influence, and any article about it is giving it more credit than it deserves.

[Gabu]

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Stephen Harper has the slimmest minority ever in the history of Canada.  If he decides to emulate Bush, you can bet that Canadians will throw him out at the first opportunity.

The only reason he was elected in the first place was because Canadians basically consider the Conservative party the only viable alternative to the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party was in the midst of that big sponsorship scandal.  Trust me when I say that Stephen Harper did not become prime minister because he was Stephen Harper.

[Gabu]

44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ

That sounds too high.

I'm curious what that even means.  Doesn't one "commit oneself to Christ" just by becoming Christian?  So wouldn't that simply mean that 44% of Canadians are Christian (which is way too low)?

[Gabu]

it's still a pointless figure.

I'd say so.  If the pollster actually went up to people and said "have you committed yourself to Christ?" and expected a yes/no answer, the question is so vague and dumb that any information taken from it is probably useless.

By the way, on this topic as a whole, regarding the figure that some 3 million Canadians are evangelicals, it should be noted that, while this figure looks large, it only represents roughly 10% of the population.  Compare this to America, where the number is closer to 25%.

[Gabu]

Didn't the old Reform party and the Canadian Alliance contain some real wing-nuts though? I remember hearing that some of them were proposing a national referendum on restricting abortion, and several of their MPs got in trouble for making homophobic or racist comments.

The Canadian Alliance actually did even have an evangelical young-earth Christian as its leader in 2000, a Mr. Stockwell Day, whom you've probably heard of.  He promptly went down in flames (despite him chanting ad nauseam the line "it's within our grasp") as the Liberal Party got its third straight majority government.  He wasn't the leader of the party for much longer thereafter.  Throughout the campaign both his evangelism and his young-earth creationist views were big issues, and he was hounded endlessly for them.

Of course there are going to be fruitcakes elected in the very conservative sections of Canada, but winning in only those sections will bring you nowhere near the reins of power here - quite unlike America, where it can give you a large chunk of what you need to win nationwide.