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Long's Coming up short

Michael Coren Toronto Sun June 1, 2000

Reprinted with permission from the author

A most extraordinary amount of media space was given over to Tom Long and his people last week when they complained they were the victims of a hate campaign by a group of social conservatives.

The group in question is gathered around an organization called Campaign Life Coalition, a pro-life body that fights for the rights of the unborn, the dying, the family and the handicapped.

Reporters from the National Post in particular had surprisingly easy access to Tom Long's major handlers who explained they had been unfairly attacked by an "anti-gay Web site" and were in danger from people who used "a language of hate."

Hard to know whether to laugh, laugh loud or laugh loudest.

Here's the background. The Web site pointed out that Tom Long's campaign is led, and to a large extent staffed, by people who are extremely liberal on the subjects of abortion, homosexuality and family values. That, of course, is their right. And it is our right to know about it, if we are to have a voice in the democratic process Long and his people constantly proclaim.

One leader of Long's team, for example, was formerly co-chair of a radical homosexual group that spent much of its time condemning the Reform party. Surely a moral and political dilemma for Long, who now wants to lead that same party. Hardly hateful to make this known.

A second leading member of Long's inner cabinet is also homosexual. Again, his right. And our right to know how he feels about same-sex benefits, homosexual marriage and so on.

On a separate matter, the leader of Long's campaign, Leslie Noble, has described herself as a social libertarian and announced there is "no place in a modern conservative party" for what she referred to as "the religious right."

She made these remarks, by the way, to me, at a seminal conference of conservatives at which she became engaged in arguments with Christian believers with whom she disagreed.

It is not an offence to inform the people of Canada of these things. In fact, it is a fundamental responsibility.

But here is where it gets really interesting.

I wrote a column about the apparent hypocrisy of the Long campaign some weeks ago. The LifeSite Web site, actually part of the pro-life Interim Publishing group, ran a similar story around the same time. It took Long and his people three weeks to feel so terribly hurt.

Opinion has it that in spite of the enormous amount of money given to Long's campaign the man is actually doing badly, is signing up very few members and needs to get his name in the papers.

His advisers are products of seminars and campaigns run by the Republican party in the United States, where phenomena known as "negative opponent spin" and "victim production" pushes are commonplace.

Long is trying to associate Preston Manning and Stockwell Day with the so-called "homophobes" who are attacking him.

There is a simple way to test this out. Simply go to http://www.lifesite.net and look at what is written. Hatred, venom?

Goodness me, I assumed I'd gone to the wrong place. If this is hatred, Tom Long is a New Democrat.

Odd how hatred is so often in the eye of the beholder. An anti-homosexual is no longer someone who doesn't like homosexuals, but someone whom homosexuals dislike.

A politician's sexuality is his/her own business and people should never be outed. But if someone's sexuality, or their religion for that matter, informs their political views, it is a very different matter.

As for hatred, Tom Long has said how his hero is Mike Harris and how he would implement the Ontario Premier's policies throughout Canada. Harris made a public remark alleging that welfare mothers spend their money on beer. A far more "hateful" comment, in my view, than anything on the Web site in question.

Indeed, some would argue that Long and his people, in their development and promotion of Harris' Common Sense Revolution, have evinced hatred for the poor, for the under-privileged, for the labour movement.

I'd say not. I would say, however, that a dying campaign is becoming increasingly intolerant of contrary opinion and is resorting to some pretty foolish tactics. Short on accuracy, however Long on money.

Time to say goodnight, Tom.

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