Losing Control, Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights
Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights, Between the Lines, 2010
Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights is one of the first accounts of the modern social conservative (religious right) movement in Canada. It examines the movement as an insurgency of evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who since the 1970s have gradually lost control of the moral agenda of the nation. Losing Control chronicles the rise of the social conservative movement as a response to the transformation of Canada from a Christian nation in which Judeo-Christian values were indisputably “Canadian values” into a secular state increasingly defined by the principle of separation of church and state and the primacy of human of rights and equality. It tells the tale of an evangelical counter-revolution, an anti-reform movement that abhorred and sought to defeat radical new forces for social change, especially the feminist and pro-choice movements, gay liberation and the movement for same-sex equality rights, and the atheism of secular humanism.
Losing Control recounts social conservatives’ engagement to defeat the godless secularists, advocates of sexual immorality and moral relativism, politicians who promote immorality and anti-family policies, and unaccountable, activist judges and human rights commissions armed with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It examines several facets of social conservative activism: their opposition to decriminalization of abortion and to reproductive rights and the mounting of their own militant pro-life movement; their attempts to secure more stringent state regulation of consenting sexual activity, pornography and prostitution; their virulent opposition to human rights legislation prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians and to the legal recognition of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage; their campaigns, in the name of parents’ rights to re-establish the indoctrination of children with Judeo-Christian moral values as the mandate of public schools, as well as their militant opposition to any morally neutral presentations of homosexuality and same-sex relationships and to the establishment of anti-homophobia programs.
Losing Control sheds a bright light on a dark side of Canadian politics, examining the enormous political influence that social conservatism has had on the various political parties of the right and within the federal Liberal Party. It raises disturbing questions about the alliance between the organized social conservative movement and the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper, chronicling the role that social conservatism plays in the advancement of Harper’s stated agenda to transform Canada into a conservative country. Losing Control concludes with a cautionary recounting of the religious crusade by social conservatives to take back Canada, to regain control of the moral and policy agendas of the Canadian state. It explores the movement’s long-term strategy to bring an end to secularism and the age of rights and to restore Canada as a resolutely Christian nation predicated on the supremacy of God in which there is no separation of church and state or of faith and politics and where Judeo-Christian moral values are the only true “Canadian values.”
Losing Control Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- One: Social Conservatism and the Canadian State
- Two: The Right to Life and the Right to Choice
- Three: Regulating Sexuality and Social Order
- Four: Anti-Gay Activism in the Age of Rights
- Five: The Defence of Family and Marriage
- Six: Conflicting Rights and Clashing Values
- Seven: Faith, Politics, and the Transformation of Canada
- Notes
- Index
Praise for Losing Control
“Losing Control is a real contribution to our understanding of Canadian politics. We have precious little serious writing about evangelical Christian involvement in Canadian public life. This wide-ranging chronicle brings together a huge amount of material produced by religious conservatives across the country, covers an impressive array of issues, and presents the material accessibly in its historical and political context.”
— David Rayside, Professor, Political Science and Sexual Diversity Politics, University of Toronto
“Tom Warner maps out the moral conservative right-wing that queer liberation activists, feminists, and human rights activists have been up against. His meticulous tracing out of the networks of social conservatism from individual religious activists to those currently in positions of power in the Harper government allows us to see both the strengths and weaknesses of our enemies. This book provides critical analysis of the right-wing but also powerful ammunition that we need in our struggles today and in the future if we are to prevent the social conservatives from seizing the agenda.”
— Gary Kinsman, Professor, Sociology, Laurentian University, and co-author of The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation