Woe Canada

Well, friends, it was only a matter of time.  Another piece of American cultural garbage is headed north to infect the Great White Land.  As Chris Hedges reports in The Nation, the poisonous seeds of the Christian Right are making inroads in Canada and threatening to besmirch what would be our social democratic refuge should things turn too dark here. 

Harper, who heads a minority government, is a member of the East Gate Alliance Church, part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a denomination with 400,000 members that believes in the literal word of the Bible, faith-healing and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. Women cannot be ordained in his church, homosexuality is a sin and abortion is murder. Canada, however, is unused to public displays of faith, and Harper has had to tread more lightly than George Bush. But many fear the prime minister is taking a cue from the Bush Administration and slowly mobilizing Canada's 3.5 million evangelicals--along with the 44 percent of Canadians who say they have committed themselves to Christ--as a power base. Harper has spent the past three years methodically knitting a coalition of social conservatives and evangelicals that looks ominously similar to the American model.

Canadians tepidly put the Conservative Party, led by the Bush clone Stephen Harper, in power this year after Liberal Party was beset with scandals and stagnation.  I have been assured by some in Canada that their country remains faithfully liberal and will boot out the Cons as soon as they try any funny business or the Liberals regain their balance.  I wish I could say I was as confident. Once it starts, the cancer of the Christian Right is hard to stop. 

And they're moving in.

Unfortunately for Canada, Harper has a lot of American help. James Dobson has set up a Canadian branch of his Focus on the Family three blocks from the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. The organization, called the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, provides political expertise to and otherwise supports Harper's allies in the bid to turn Canada into an Americanized Christian state. Dobson, who rails against Canada's defense of gay rights and legalization of same-sex marriage, buys radio time in Canada to attack the nation's tolerance of gays and calls for legislation to roll back these measures. The proliferation of new Christian groups is dizzying, with organizations such as the National House of Prayer, the Institute for Canadian Values and the Canada Family Action Coalition, whose mission is "to see Judeo-Christian moral principles restored in Canada," publishing election guides, working with sympathetic legislators and mobilizing Canadian evangelicals in local and national campaigns. These groups turn frequently to American Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, who came to Canada two years ago for an "Emergency Pastors Briefing" to rally 400 evangelical ministers against a bill before Parliament that included a provision making it a hate crime to denounce homosexuals.

Seriously, the "Institute on Marriage and Family?"  I know that Peterson Toscano likes to jokingly refer to Dobson's organization "Focus on the Faggot," but now they've stopped being even modestly opaque about it. 

Unfortunately for Big Daddy, they are slipping through his fingers faster than he can catch them.  The South African legislature yesterday legalized same-sex marriage, the fifth country to do so, and the first in what I suspect might be a big wave in the next couple of years.  You have to hand it to the RSA; it took them awhile to get the whole democracy thing figured out, but they understand something about it the United States doesn't:  basic civil rights aren't subject to a popular vote.