Posted by National Post on 5/19/2004, 8:08 pm, in reply to "Martin's own words damn him" National Post Saturday, May 15, 2004 The Liberal Party of Canada would never dream of asking Canadians whether they'd be "more or less likely to vote for the Conservatives if you knew they had been taken over by Jews?" Or, say, "Muslims." Why, then, do the Liberals see nothing wrong with making evangelical Christians the subject of their scare-mongering? Earlier this month, the Liberals were discovered "push polling" against Christians in Ontario. Push polling is a technique for planting suggestions in the minds of voters under the guise of collecting their opinions. A pollster contracted by the Liberals was asking voters the sort of question cited above -- specifically, whether they would be "more or less likely to vote for the Conservatives if you knew they had been taken over by evangelical Christians?" Such leading questions are intended as much to plant the idea that such a "takeover" has already occurred as to solicit people's voting preferences. Despite protests from Christian organizations, such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC), and even from some of the Liberals' own faithful Christian backbench MPs, party officials denied the poll questions amounted to religious bigotry. Steven McKinnon, the Liberals' deputy national director, shrugged off the incident by saying there are Conservative candidates "that hold socially conservative views. We think it is entirely appropriate to ask Canadians how they feel about these views." That may well be. But the Liberals' pollster didn't ask how voters would react if persons with traditional moral views on same-sex marriage, abortion and family values seized the Conservative party. Respondents were asked specifically about a takeover by "evangelical Christians." Perhaps the bias against social conservatives and evangelical Christians is so pervasive in the upper reaches of the Liberal party that the two terms are used interchangeably there. Perhaps few in the party hierarchy are able any longer to see how the one categorization is politically defensible, while the other amounts to discrimination on the basis of creed. The poll was clearly an attempt to demonize evangelicals in order to scare voters away from the Conservative party -- to incite religious bias for partisan gain, as Claire Hoy recently wrote on the facing page. This is deplorable behaviour from the party that gave Canada its Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which forbids just such discrimination, and from the party that boasts it has done more than any other to foster tolerance, multiculturalism and respect for diversity in Canada. Some of the strongest criticism of the poll came from within the Liberals' own ranks. Toronto-area Liberal MP John McKay, parliamentary secretary to the finance minister and himself a devout Baptist, said the tactic was "antithetical to everything I believe as a Liberal." Still, Paul Martin, the Prime Minister, failed to take disciplinary action against the pollster or the party officials who defended him. Nor, to our knowledge, did Mr. Martin answer a letter of concern from Bruce Clemenger, the EFC president. Pro-life and socially conservative Liberal MPs claim unnamed party sources have assured them the targeting of Christians for political purposes will "go no further." That's not good enough. It has already gone too far. Mr. Martin, as party leader, must unequivocally denounce such prejudice, apologize for the fact it occurred in the name of his party and provide an undertaking that it never happens again. © National Post 2004
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