OTTAWA, May 27, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Globe and Mail columnist Gloria Galloway, in a column today, described new pro-family candidates running in ridings for the federal Conservative Party as “Christian activists,” because of their positions on same-sex marriage.
Naming the new candidates from several ridings across Canada – including Andrew House in Halifax, Rakesh Khosla in Halifax West, Paul Francis in Sackville-Eastern Shore, Darrel Reid in Richmond, B.C., Cindy Silver in North Vancouver, and Dr. Rondo Thomas in Ajax – Galloway described their successes as a “political penetration” by socially conservative Christians.
Cindy Silver, the former executive director of the Christian Legal Fellowship who now works at the federal Justice Department, described being labeled a Christian candidate “a form of discrimination. That’s putting them in a class of people and ascribing to them the characteristics of that class without ever giving them a chance to stand on their own merits,” she said.
Conservative MP John Reynolds, who oversaw the party’s nomination process, said that the success of social conservatives is because Canada is a democracy. “I don’t believe in appointments and neither does our party,” he said. Reynolds also was incensed at the implication that the Conservative Party was a haven for religious fanatics. “There were three dozen Liberals who voted with us on the same-sex thing,” Reynolds said. “Nobody is going after them and saying, ‘Look at these far-right Christians that got into the Liberal Party.’”
If those who write about Christian zealots taking over the party were to “insert the word Jew everywhere you’ve put Christian, do you think they would let you print it?” Reynolds added. “I doubt it.”
Tristan Emmanuel, executive director of Equipping Christians for the Public Square Centre said, “It’s time we stopped apologizing and started defending who we are.” Emmanuel backed the nominations of House, Khosla and Francis on the east coast. “The evangelical community in Canada, by and large, and socially conservative Catholics, are saying we have been far too heavenly minded and thus we have been of no earthly value for far too long, on too many fronts.”
Emmanuel said that Christians are increasingly winning riding nominations “everywhere, especially in urban ridings and in Ontario.” He said there was a common misconception among Christians that “to be a genuine citizen of the nation we need to check our religion at the political door. And I’m saying no, that’s fundamentally flawed. You may participate in the public square as a religious individual and be not ashamed.”
Dr. Charles McVety, who vetted Dr. Rondo Thomas’s nomination in Ajax, agreed. “The distortion of the separation of church and state has driven people of faith out of leadership and this is very wrong,” Dr. McVety said.
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