Sunday, May 29, 2005

Which Conservative MPs are not socons

A problem that has arisen in our count of socons within different parties within parliament is one of definition--who counts as a socon? With some, the identification is fairly easy, since they self-identify. Kevin Serviss, for example, is a Pentecostal minister and his acceptance speech at the Sudbury nomination meeted was greeted with cries of 'amen', 'that's right!', etc. (see here).

Campaign Life has published a record of parliamentary votes about the issues that they care about (here), and someone whose voting record is perfectly in accordance with Campaign Life's preferences is at least a possible socon.

It might be better, however, to remove those MPs whose record is not 'perfect'. Here are the Conservatives who in one way or another disappointed Campaign Life:

  1. Gerald Keddy, South Shore; voted for C-250 to include sexual orientation under hate speech; voted against M-83 to study the necessity of abortion; recently has voted for same-sex marriage

  2. Peter Mackay, Central Nova; voted for C-250; voted against M-83; voted for C-13 on reproductive technologies

  3. Loyola Hearn, St. John's South; voted for C-250

  4. James Moore, Port Moody-etc.; voted against M-83 (and recently for ssm)

  5. Bill Casey, North Nova.; voted against M-83

  6. Rahim Jaffer, Edmonton-Strathcona.; voted against M-83

  7. Inky Mark, Dauphin-etc.; voted against M-83

  8. Jim Prentice, Calgary-Centre.; (voted for ssm)
These Conservatives, we can perhaps assume, aren't socons. (Or can we? Hearn is disqualified for voting for C-250, which made hate-speech towards homosexuals illegal. But one might believe that homosexuality is morally wrong--a socon position--and still support such a law.)

(We shouldn't assume, however, that all the rest are. More on this later.)