Spain legalizes Gay Marriage

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Originally Posted by Dzinerbear

Maybe they were middle if you were in business, but if you were gay, were on welfare, were a teacher, worked in health care, or rented an apartment, they were hardly "middle."

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Canadians - I certainly defer to you guys about the corrections.

However, just to point out it is weird for many of us in the US to hear you complain about Canada under any main party government being rabidly anti-gay.

This sparked my interest enough to search Google on the topic of when Canada lifted its ban on gays serving opening in the military. Canada lifted its ban during Mulrooney's conservative government in 1992.

To outside observers, this is a prime example showing how the ruling party in Canada moves in the middle, particularly since that specific welcome change is cited as one of the country's prime examples of fair and equal treatment toward gays and lesbians.

Steve

Well... let me go to to Bush... may be we are next... who know? :francais:

Dresslock, the ban may indeed have been lifted by the Mulroney government, but it was done so out of potential legal ramifications. In addition you also have to comprehend that the Conservatives then are vastly different than the one's we have today. To begin with this party is a coalition of the ultra conservative party formerly known as the Alliance Party formerly the Reform Party... their past leaders include people who openly condemn gay's as being evil along with Jews... both Stockwell Day and Preston Manning have refered to those groups as the devil's spawn... Stephen Harper haa said he wants to make homosexuality criminal.. that is not moving anywhere to the middle.

He himself has made some stupid ass similiar remarks and some of his 'alliance' members have which has angered the amalgamated conservative members so their is also disunity within his own party. Unfortunately the old time members are few in numbers but it is a potential weak spot.

In addition, our court system is a lot different and technically speaking no government can refuse an order by the Queen... who in fact is our head of state... the military does not take its orders from the Prime Minister, but in legal terms from the Queen...

Until Mulroney your statement that all parties move to the middle might have held some validity, but it has long since changed to where the current Conservatives are considered extremely right wing. There is also a fundamental difference too, as even in the Mulroney era the conservatives didn't want to end national health, national education, and other national programs. Under Mulroney, the same government who by one act you claim went to middle of the road, also attempted to dismantle health care, attempted to separate the country by removing the centralist style of government we have, and which is what led to its ultimate downfall.

The whole scandal wouldn't have occurred if Mulroney hadn't fired up the separatists in Quebec by attempting to offer them sovereignty..

I think you are going to find that when the next federal election comes, that the issues aren't going to be the scandal but the idealogiical differences that come about. That is generally what our elections tend to do, bring out the issues and each time a political party up here has made things personal, which by the way has 99% of the time been the conservative party, they get their asses kicked unlike what happens in the USA.

Thanks for clearing that up, Ian, you obviously know your Canadian history better than I do.

Further to your points, I wanted to hit home the fact that Brian Mulroney was the leader of the Progressive Conversative party, which is a different animal that the Reform Party, which was an ultra conservative western party. In their beginnings the even talked about ghetooizing HIV-positive people. The party's "founder" and first leader was Preston Manning. As the party tried to get broader appealer and as their leader started losing popularity, they replaced him and changed eventually changed the party's name to the Alliance Party.

Later, the Alliance Party tried to move more towards center, but that was making them too much like the Progressive Convervatives. The PCs and the Alliance parties merged and elected a new leader Steven Harper, and they're now called: Conservative Party of Canada. So even though they have a name that is closer to the Progressive Conservative party, they are still largely made of old Alliance/Reform Party members. Most of the PC party was obliterated with Liberal Jean Chretien came to power over a decade ago.

Cheers
dzinerbear