Friday, April 21, 2006

Jerry Falwell's Canadian Lieutenant

Would you buy a used car from this man?

Charles Mcvety President, Canada Christian College and the Canada Family Action Coalition is probably best known for cyber-squatting on pro gay marriage Liberal MPs names and re-directing them to his own rabidly anti-gay marriage site.

He was vocally disappointed with Harper's hands off policy on gay marriage but it appears the boys have kissed and made up as he is now acting as point man defending the government's decision to tear up the Federal/Provincial deal on childcare.

Mcvety's position seems fairly simple, expanded daycare would give more women the opportunity to enter or re-enter the workforce. Women in workforce bad.

This combined with a visceral aversion to the public sector and the sincere belief that the government wants to somehow indoctrinate their children in soviet style institutional daycare.

Conservative Christians have always been part of the public dialogue on political and social issues in Canada and fair enough. Being an engaged citizen isn't just for liberals. But Mcvety represents a very new, very American style strain of right wing Evangelical Christianity that we haven't really seen in Canada before. He hangs out with people like Falwell and Ralph Reed and has been heavily funded by far right evangelical groups like Focus on the Family.

He spouts the same victim message as the American Christian Right about Christianity and Christians being under attack. His examples invariably involve Christians being made to stop attacking someone else.

"The term marriage is a Judeo Christian term that comes from the bible and to do this, desecrates it in a way that is outrageous." - Charles Mcvety, June 2003

This would seem to indicate that he believes that no other religious tradition has marriage - not real marriage anyway. How enlightened.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Mcvety's position seems fairly simple, expanded daycare would give more women the opportunity to enter or re-enter the workforce. Women in workforce bad."

Or perhaps he sees the fact that children are better off being taken care of by their own parents, and not a child raising "professional". When did it become out of style to want children to be raised by their parents and not shuffled aside to the local daycare centre?

"But Mcvety represents a very new, very American style strain of right wing Evangelical Christianity that we haven't really seen in Canada before."

What does this mean? Basically you are throwing together three words that you don't like: American, and Evangelical Christianity. It is not un-Canadian to be an Evangelical Christian. I am just as Canadian as you are!

"He spouts the same victim message as the American Christian Right about Christianity and Christians being under attack"

What is your post about again?

If I had posted on my blog (if I had one) about how we should fear, for example, Scott Brison because of his lifestyle, would I be accused of attacking homosexuality?

Cliff said...

Parents who choose to put their kids in daycare aren't raising their kids?

Parents who use daycare are 'shuffling aside' their kids?

You seem to have a lot of contempt for Canadian parents who choose to use daycare.

I clearly stated that it is appropriate for conservative Christians to participate in the national dialogue. I'm certainly not suggesting censoring Mr Mcvetey, simply knowing who he is.

Mr Mcvety chooses to take money from Focus On The Family, putting him in bed with far right American Evangelical Ralph Reed, in the news lately for his part in fleecing indian tribes with disgraced criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

He associates with Jerry Falwell who said after 9/11: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Suggesting Mainstream Canadian Evangelicals have anything in common with Mr Mcvetey and his American financiers is the real insult to Canadian Christians.

Canadian Christians I've known, tend to notice that the bible mentions poverty over two thousand times, homosexuality less than a dozen.

If you say we should fear Scott Brison 'because of his lifestyle', then yeah you would be attacking him for being gay. It doesn't really correspond though, I was attacking Mr Mcvetey for his statements, his actions and his associates, not his 'lifestyle'.

Why, do you have some dirt?

Anonymous said...

"Parents who choose to put their kids in daycare aren't raising their kids?

Look at it this way. If both parents are working 8-5 jobs, by the time you factor in commuting times (which is substantial in the bigger cities, which is where most of the daycare facilities are located) they are spending, at the most 4-5 hours a day with their children. Contrasted with a stay at home parent, well, it's quite stark.

Maybe "shuffling aside" can be taken the wrong way. Many parents have no other choice in the matter, i.e. single parents. BUT there are many who are unwilling to make the sacrifice of working fewer hours so that they can spend more time raising their children. Thus, in this situation (which is becoming increasingly common), the kids are being shuffled aside. It is quite unfortunate that children who could be spending time with mom or dad end up at daycare for 10 hours a day.

I guess that I just took issue with your statement about women in the workforce being bad. That isn't the point of the whole childcare debate, and although I am unfamiliar with Mcvety, I'm sure that is not his sentiment, especially since if it was, I am sure you would have linked to his statement.

What's with the aversion for Focus on the Family?

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