By Gudrun Schultz
OTTAWA, Ontario, June 16, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Larry Spencer, one-time MP for the Canadian Alliance and ousted from the party over comments on homosexuality, has been named interim National President of the Christian Heritage Party, a pro-life, pro-family federal party founded on Christian principles.
Mr. Spencer’s re-entrance into federal politics coincides with the release of his new book, Sacrificed? Truth Or Politics. The self-published memoirs tell the story of Spencer’s painful exit from the Alliance party in 2003, under the direction of then-party leader Stephen Harper, after a media uproar followed Spencer’s politically-incorrect statements on the legality of homosexual activity.
During an intenseÂmedia interview, Spencer conceded he would likely support a hypothetical motion to reinsert homosexual activity into the criminal code, clarifying that he “wouldn’t want homosexuals to ever go to jail as a result of their choice to engage in homosexual acts. I wouldn’t even suggest that there be a penalty.”
Spencer’s comments were pounced on by the media, coming as they did on the eve of the merge between the Progressive Conservative and Alliance parties. In response, Stephen Harper swiftly ousted him from caucus and placed him under a gag order on the issue. Spencer suggests the Alliance leadership was “panic-stricken” over a possible threat to the proposed party union.
In his memoirs, which he says were written to counter the gag order that never allowed him to defend himself, Spencer says his words were expanded and distorted by the media, which he blames for laying him “on the cross of political death.”
What he told the reporter, he said, was simple historical fact. “I had simply discussed what I had observed over my adult life of the advancement of the gay movement,” he wrote. “How could reciting the facts of history be so problematic?”
“Controversy often surrounds the so-called moral issues facing a society. This is certainly true in our day. In our quest for personal rights and freedoms, the full ramifications of our decisions and actions are often ignored or even denied. Abortion, promiscuity, divorce, gambling, profanity, drug use and sexual preference issues, as well as many others, are temptingly left up to the exercise of personal choice or preference without regard to the long-term impacts rendered upon ourselves, or others.”
See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:
Conservative Party Dealings with Social Conservative Larry Spencer Finally Revealed
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/04020501.html
Statement of Position of MP Larry Spencer by His Executive Assistant Larry Birkbeck
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/feb/040205b.html