Are social conservatives a spent force? No, says EFC vice-president

A recent article in the NatPo by Charles Lewis looked at the role of social conservatives in the current federal election: Social conservatives watch campaign from sidelines. The three most common bugaboos, gays, guns and procreation were brought up. An academic from Queen’s University was tapped to agree with discouraged activist Link Byfield who said social conservatives are “…now just seen as eccentric.”

Some are, some aren’t Mr. Byfield.

Queen’s University political science professor James Farley:

..social conservatives are a spent political force because those who have stuck with the Tories have decided to concentrate on winning and then hope for very minor changes. He noted last year the Conservatives did not include abortion as part of a foreign aid package.

“They have decided to be team players,” he said.

Other social conservatives have simply withdrawn from national politics and will now work at the community level, he said.

“That’s really unhealthy for the country as a whole when you have a group that withdraws from the political process.”

Some social conservatives are team players, some aren’t.
While social conservatives may not be playing a vocally domininant role in the current federal election, the silence of single issue leaders isn’t a bad thing for those of us who tend to listen. To believe social conservatives are a spent force is a mistake, especially if there is re-grouping at municipal levels. The pet issues  of a zealous few will be back on the national stage soon enough.

That having been settled ;^) the Lewis column prompted this from the social conservative leader of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: Don’t dismiss the so-cons.

Okay. We won’t. EFC vice-president Don Hutchinson identifies as a social conservative and a theocon, while leading a national group which crosses a wide political spectrum. (Added -Interesting the assumption is made by Hutchinson that evangelicals are so-cons)
Hutchinson rightly takes Lewis to task for picking up the big three so-con causes.

Not all social conservatives are the same. It’s worth emphasizing that the term “social conservative” is spelled with a lower case “c,” not the upper case “C” of the Conservative Party. Social conservatism is much broader than any one political party.

If social conservatives were interested only in an active debate about abortion or gay marriage, then it is true, as noted by Lewis, that we would be disappointed by the current campaign: No major party has distinguished itself on these issues. But that doesn’t mean these issues are not in play.

I’d interject that religiously motivated socons have themselves to blame for the rest of us believing these issues are all they care about.
Moving on.
Being the lawyer he is, Hutchinson provides some examples of issues in which Canadian social conservatives are actively lobbying parliament. This statement below is not varifiable because the caucus, run by Rod Bruinrooge is quite secretive and the group proudly doesn’t publish it’s MP membership.

In the last Parliament, there were more MPs in the non-partisan Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus than in either the Bloc Québécois or the NDP.

Maybe there are and maybe there aren’t.  The statement is not independently verifiable.
If social conservationism is naunced, then individual positions taken in the Bruinrooge led caucus most likely are also. Collective goals and end-game are in play as long as the caucus exists.
Socons are active elsewhere:

Take a good look at the activists and politicians who are involved in policy concerning the protection of children. Read over the list of witnesses before Commons and Senate committees in regard to raising the age of consent to sexual activity with an adult from age 14 to 16 in 2008 and you’ll see so-cons. Consider those advocating for the law that now requires internet service providers to report child porn being transmitted or hosted on their platforms and you’ll see so-cons.

While these initiatives took place under the Conservative government of the last five years, so-con influence extends back further. The 1993 introduction of child-pornography crimes into the Criminal Code and the 2004 introduction of laws against human trafficking crimes both were sparked by so-cons.

Cut across party lines and examine the faces standing with Senators and MPs in support of all-party reports about poverty in Canada, issued in 2009 and 2010 respectively, and you’ll see the presence of so-cons again. Poverty and homelessness aren’t typically identified as socially conservative issues in the media. But we don’t let the media define us.

The media does define, (them/us) and media platforms are available for self-definition.
I’m not sure who Hutchinon is picking bones with, the reporter, professor or fellow social activist. The fact social conservatives were involved in the example above merely proves Hutchinson’s point (and mine) that socons can involve themselves in a wide variety of issues. Just like moderates. Or liberals. Or insert label and tribe of choice.  But then Hutchinson deviates and goes off about theocons (a division of socons).

For some commentators, the term so-cons isn’t adequately marginalizing. So instead, they call us “theo-cons” -theological conservatives -who are guided in our policy and political efforts by our religious beliefs. Theo-cons have been presented by some as strange and scary. Yet Statistics Canada informs that in 2001 (the last long-form census) 84% of Canadians self-identified as having a personal religious affiliation, with 77% self-identifying as Christian and 12% as Evangelical. And it would be foolish to think that the views of these people aren’t, in some way, guided by their religious convictions. Check your neighbour to your left and your right, because we “theo-cons” walk among you.

I must have missed something. Nowhere in the Lewis piece did I see the term theocon. I did see mention of two social conservative MP’s (Epp, Bruinrooge) who fall under the definition Hutchinson himself provides. And who btw, plugged a very bad and redundant private members bill.

Theocon is political jargon and has a broader meaning than what Don Hutchinson used.

I don’t think all social conservatives are religious right, but social conservatives make up the religious right. There are theological conservatives who may or may not involve themselves in the political arena and there a theological conservativsts who are by definition politically engaged. As far as I can tell (and I stand to be corrected) the political label came about in the US in discussion between the differences between neo-cons, paleo-cons and theo-cons.

Ask a BDBO reader to define theocon and I suspect the majority of readers would immediately say US religious right, with an awareness Canada also has a vocal religious right. Readers might add someone who embraces the belief in dominionism and who seek to role back the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Readers, care to add?

Hutchinson then goes on to plug a EFC survey on voting patterns of Canadian evangelicals before ending with an illustration leading to the conclusion William Wilberforce was a theocon.

By the way, William Wilberforce, the abolitionist, was a theo-con. And, like Wilberforce, contemporary theo-cons are committed, not eccentric. And we’re not a spent force yet.

It is discomforting to see an executive member of the EFC embrace what is a modern political label with little regard for the broader connotations in the public understanding.
I expect the EFC to have social conservatives proudly within it’s membership. Theocons?
Not so much. They’d be more comforatble inn Charles McVety’s Evangelical Council to trumpet the 7 Mountain mandate and work for laws based on their religion views with the goal their beliefs be imposed on all Canadians.

Defensiveness over labels and embracing of what seems to be becoming less of an ambiguous label leaves me cold, the theocons in the religious right do not play well in a democratic and pluralistic society.

Not all social conservatives are evangelical. Not all evangelicals are social conservatives. Not all social conservatives are theocons. Are all theocons social conservatives?

I do agree somewhat with Mr. Hutchinson’s  odd column, while social conservative (socio-economic religious leaders of the religious right (theocons) are keeping a low profile this election, they have not gone anywhere, expect perhaps to re-group. Dismissing theocons is detrimental, confronting, educating about, exposing and marginalizing their agendas is not.

What’s a universally understood definition of theocon?