Why should social conservatives be quiet?
The problem with social conservatives, leading pundits agree, is that they are socially conservative. If only they would see the folly in this, and be something else — something, that is, other than what they are. Or at any rate, if they won’t be “cured,” can’t they at least shut up about it?
Until such time, the pundits concur, they must be shunned, silenced, expelled from the company of other conservatives. For they have committed the cardinal sin of openly expressing their convictions, and as such put at risk the perennial Conservative ambition of convincing the public that they haven’t any.
This old standby — Why Can’t a So-Con Be More Like a Pundit? — has been given fresh life by events on the Ontario political scene, notably the discomfort of some conservatives, and Conservatives, with the Liberal government’s recently unveiled sexual education curriculum.
To be sure, this has been expressed in some infelicitous ways — “What’s Next … Safe Animal Sex?” was one of the signs at an anti-curriculum rally outside the provincial legislature on Tuesday — and not only by members of the ghastly public. Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton was called out for suggesting that “it’s not the premier of Ontario’s job, especially Kathleen Wynne, to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children,” while fellow Conservative Rick Nicholls somehow took the controversy as an opportunity to reveal to a waiting world that he doesn’t believe in evolution, with predictable — and richly deserved — results.
But it’s clear these irresistible fools were not what was really on the pundits’ collective mind. Brainless public remarks might be the symptom, but social conservatism was the disease. Bad enough these people will not let the abortion issue drop, but now here they are getting all worked up about teaching anal sex to 12-year-olds.
Fair enough. Nothing wrong with disagreement. If we think the socons’ fears about the curriculum are wrong or exaggerated — as it happens, I think they are — it’s part of our job to say so. Yet what is equally clear from much of the commentary is that the pundits’ complaint has less to do with the substance of what the so-cons are saying than the fact they are saying it.
I don’t mean to suggest they don’t disagree with the so-cons — they clearly do — but the sin of which they accuse them is not the sin of error, but the sin of sincerity. By saying what they truly believe about a matter of great ethical importance to them, the so-cons are putting their consciences ahead of political expediency. I repeat, this is meant as a criticism.
“Tory MPPs are plunging their party into a culture war,” fumed the Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson. And that’s wrong not so much because they are wrong, but because “Conservatives lose when they focus on social conservatism and win when they focus on economic conservatism.”
“Unless it is abandoned,” he went on, “this Tory folly will ensure Liberal election victories for many years to come.”
By contrast, the example of Stephen Harper was approvingly and repeatedly cited. “Mr. Harper has won three federal elections,” pundit Ibbitson enthused, “by prohibiting debate on abortion or other socialconservative hot buttons.”
My Postmedia colleague Michael Den Tandt agreed. “Stephen Harper’s long political journey, from Reform Party theorist to sixth-longestserving Canadian prime minister, would not have happened… without first turning his back on the evangelicals in his base.” The “successful formula” was that evinced by “his iron-fisted clampdown on B.C. Conservative MP Mark Warawa’s 2013 effort to ignite a national debate about sex-selective abortion.”
Now it’s entirely possible that my colleagues are right — right, not just in their aversion to social conservatism on its merits, but also in their apparent conviction, common to most pundits, that the position they think is right is also the politically winning position. They’re wholly entitled to think that, as they are also entitled to think that winning should be the priority.
I’m just not clear why they insist the so-cons should adopt the same priority. Perhaps it is the duty of a party leader, as they suggest, to enforce “iron-fisted” party discipline on dissenters, to the point not merely of whipping votes but “prohibiting debate.” But why is it the duty of journalists to help them? When did we enlist as party whips?
Me, I think so-cons should be socons. Or at least, I think they have a right to be: not only to think what they wish, but if they think it is important and right, to say it out loud, and to try to persuade others to believe it as well. Indeed, for members of Parliament, I might almost say it was their obligation: for there it is not only a matter of being true to themselves, but of representing their constituents.
That doesn’t mean they should say plainly idiotic things, make detestable insinuations or statements at odds with established facts. But that is a very different thing than merely being at odds with received opinion or upsetting the party whip. It isn’t radicalism that is objectionable in politics, for radicalism is often more thoughtful and well-considered than moderatism. It is extremism.
But lots of social conservatives aren’t extremists. I might disagree with them on a lot of issues, but if so my aim should be to try to persuade them to a different point of view: not tell them to shut up. They have a right to their opinions, a right to be different, however disquieting it may be to uptight party grandees and squeamish members of the press.
Let the so-cons sing out a joyful chant: We’re here, we’re square, get used to it.