Keep Social Conservatism Out of Politics

Pablo Mhanna-Sandoval Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 30, 2017

Andrew Scheer, a proud social conservative, is elected leader of the Conservative Party of Canada | Photo credit: Mark Blinch/Reuters

It seems Justin Trudeau’s 2019 job just got a whole lot easier.

As expected, the Conservative Leadership Race ended with, as the Beaverton cleverly put it, the victory of a man that could’ve easily been passed off as a stock photo of a generic white guy. It’s why all of the race’s buildup and hype remains a mystery for many. Indeed, the room full of conservative candidates, their families and delegates were getting impatient, as was the Twittersphere following #CPCldr. Perhaps it was a planned move by the convention’s organizers, hoping to spice up the bowl of artificially flavoured vanilla pudding that was the final hours of the race.

What did surprise — or rather disappoint — was the dragging-on of campaigns better stamped out right off the bat. The optics wouldn’t have been nearly as bad. Unfortunately, it took Conservative delegates ten rounds to vote out a xenophobic dog whistler, twelve to boot a man that equated gay marriage with socialism and still ended up choosing Andrew “Bland-Mashed-Potatoes” Scheer as Harper’s successor.

Besides not “believing” in same-sex marriage, as it were some sort of unicorn hiding out in urban gay villages, Mr. Scheer is also proud of his voting record against a woman’s right to choose, supporting this past month’s March for Life.

For a 38-year-old, his social views are a throwback to an entirely different generation. But hey, we shouldn’t be too surprised, considering Sam Oosterhoff exists.

And therein lies another symptom of the same problem. Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives are troubled with an internal struggle, with Patrick Brown clamping down on a social conservative resurgence of sorts, keeping true to his goal of shedding the bad rep of his counterparts.

Perhaps Canada was naive in believing that the days of social conservatism holding sway in federal politics were over. Perhaps we rested on our progressive laurels for a tad too long, entrusting the movement to the smson of a former prime minister, known for his hair, his repeatedly touted Feminism® and his seemingly endless bromances with similarly mediocrely progressive world leaders.

Faults aside, Trudeau still has a good chance of sweeping the 2019 election, albeit less decisively than his first success, this due in large part to the Conservatives’ inability to understand a simple concept: social conservatism is best practiced very, very far from the public sphere of politics.

If you don’t “believe” in marriage equality, don’t accept an invitation to a gay wedding. If you don’t “believe” transgenders, purse your lips when you walk by one, head back home and complain to your miserable family about the hateful fear you felt walking down the street. If you’d like your child to pick up your religious values, instill them a home. If you think sex-ed is going too far, pull out your children of the classes in question and act surprised when they later believe “pulling out” is a legitimate form of contraception. If you don’t believe in a woman’s right to choose, ask yourself: 1. “Am I woman?” and 2. “Am I getting an abortion?” If the answer to at least one of those questions is “no,” there’s your answer to whether or not you should let the issue sway your political views.

These debates have closed. Any attempt to go back on them is simply begging “woke” Progressive® Liberals to make hay out of it, something they did not hesitate to do, just a day later.

Want to debate immigration policy? I’m there. Social programs? Ditto. Foreign policy? Yes, please. Fiscal policy? Give me a couple of hours to do my research and I’m yours. Social policies? Let’s just agree to disagree and let our elected officials work on the issues that affect us all.