The BC Conservative party gets a big hug from the Vancouver Sun but it cannot escape the perception that it is an outdated evangelical soup of wingnuts. I guess it has to be so extreme, considering how conservative the BC Liberal party has become.
Another ex-Reformer to be attracted to the cause is Reed Elley, elected president of the Conservatives at their convention in Nanaimo Saturday. As MP for Nanaimo-Cowichan, Elley uttered one of the more controversial comments of the political era shaped by the Reform party and its successor, the Canadian Alliance.
“A gradual blurring of the sexes has occurred that gave young men growing up in many female-dominated, single-parent homes an identity crisis,” he declared during debate in 2000 on legislation extending rights to same-sex couples.“
This led to a rise in militant homosexuality, a coming out of the closet of gay men and women who also demanded equality. The things that had been considered improper went looking for a desperate legitimacy.”
Elley went on to say that the assault on traditional family values began with Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his decriminalization of homosexuality in 1968. “He and his cohorts passed omnibus legislation which legitimized behaviour which up until then had been considered outside the realm of normal.”
Whoa, big fella. Take that south of the border, will ya? We’re smarter than that.
BTW, Elley is not stepping down from his remarks.That’s why, like the federal Conservatives, the BC version has gone under the cone of silence. You can see why.
Given the opportunity to disavow those remarks later, Elley declined. “I presented my views on the breakdown of society as I saw it,” he told Peter O’Neil, Ottawa reporter for The Vancouver Sun. “I had deep concerns about the erosion of traditional values and I … still continue to stand up for traditional family values.”
Doubtless he still does. And the prospect of such an uninhibited expression of views from party members helps explain why the Conservatives closed their weekend policy discussions to the news media.
