A Canadian Election on Gay Marriage?

There have been rumblings of an election fought on the issue of gay marriage, although Paul Martin seems wisely to be backing down from it now.

I think it would be a good move for the Conservatives to fight an election on the issue of gay marriage. They'd probably win. Look at what happened in the US: moral values came to the fore. Decima did a poll just before Christmas, and it showed 39 percent in favour, and 37 percent opposed. Within the margin of error. And how many of those 39 percent are like me, in favour of gay marriage but still opposed to making equality for gays a constitutional right?

COMPAS did a poll at the end of 2003 that showed a 63% majority opposed gay marriage, and a plurality also favoured a constitutional override, if necessary, to prevent it. COMPAS tagged it a “sleeper” issue that could have taken down the Liberals had it been made a campaign focus.

Worse for the Liberals, according to the polls and reports from constituency offices, those who are opposed are far more vociferous about it than those who are in favour. This affects volunteer efforts, hence can shift public opinion during a campaign. And it affects turnout. Exactly the calculus that Karl Rove relied upon for Bush last time out.

Worse still for the Liberals, this would put the election focus squarely on "moral values," on which, as Rove has shown, the left is vulnerable with the public. Gay marriage, and the stats on that, may be less significant than a general impression that the Liberals are less concerned with morality than the Conservatives--playing nicely into the Liberal record of corruption and scandal.

Worse still, the Liberals are seriously divided on the issue. They were historically the party of Catholics, and some of their own members are still fierce opponents of gay marriage. There'd be a strong fifth column, infighting, possibly defecting candidates, and a lot of Liberal constituency workers sitting on their hands.

Worse, the pro-gay marriage vote is split among three parties: the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc all support it. Only the Conservative oppose. If the support for gay marriage is 50-50, or even 45-55 against them, and the election is decided on that issue, that means a Conservative landslide.

The Conservatives would also, by making this the core issue, be making a good play for pulling the Catholics permanently over to their side. This has been crucial in the US in creating the "new Republican Majority," and it is potentially even more important in Canada--unlike the US, Canada is a 50% Catholic country, at least nominally. Cardinal Ambrozic of Toronto and Archbishop Henry of Calgary have both now publicly told Catholics to oppose the Liberal bill.

It could also pull a lot if more recent immigrants away from the Liberals and into the Conservative fold. Recent immigrants tend to be socially conservative, conservative on moral values, and it is anomalous that immigrants have tended to vote Liberal. This could crack that Liberal stronghold. During Martin's recent trip to India, Sikh head priest Joginder Singh Vedanti declared that Canada's proposed same-sex marriage legislation was an "idea that originated from sick minds'' and called for all Sikhs to oppose it.

On top of the great value of the immigrant vote and the immigrant volunteer armies--the Sikhs, for example, are extremely politically active--this could put the kibosh on the Liberals' traditional and very open smear that the Conservatives are somehow "racist." Winning the Tories an indeterminate number of additional votes among those concerned on this score.

The issue also plays well to Canada's innate conservatism. A constitutional right to gay marriage involves an obvious change. So the Conservatives get to look like the custodians of the status quo, and the Liberals like the wild-eyed radicals. This is a stick the Liberals have generally been able to beat the Conservatives with: "put them in power, and they'll change everything."

Man, if I were Stephen Harper, I'd be delighted if Martin handed me an election on the gay marriage issue. If an election comes soon on this issue, I’d expect a Conservative victory.