Demografficks
I was thinking the other day about Gay politicians, the reaction to Gay politicians, and the Gay vote and it occurred to me - there is no Gay vote. I mean, assuming the New Conservative party is where the majority of Gay politicians are hanging these days (and let's face it - it has the most Members and that same Gay percentage of them are bound to be as Gay there as anywhere else with a Gay percentage), it hardly stands to reason that lots and lots of Gays don't also vote New Conservative.
In fact, if you really stop and think about it, why wouldn't MOST Gays vote New Conservative. Afterall, anything left of New Conservative (or "everything else", as it were) is pretty much socialism - if you ask a New Conservative, anyway. And Gay men don't have wives and kids holding them back in a Libertarian free-for-all. In fact, if they're in a relationship, they've got double the man power with no drag on their energy.
In other words, Gay men probably benefit most by lower taxes and fewer government services. If ANYBODY should vote New Conservative (and don't get me wrong - I think NO ONE should) it's Gay men.
Lesbians, enh. Not so much. Or at all, I guess. Although who knows. Who cares. Gawd, lesbians. Nothing but trouble.
So yeah, I'm not a REAL demographer, but I'm guessing a really high percentage of Gay men vote New Conservative. I mean, why wouldn't they? Even I probably would, if I were a gay man. And the whole anti-social aspect of the New Conservative party and government would affect so few Gay men - in reality - that, like most of us, they probably weigh the good with the bad and then vote for the party they figure best represents them - financially.
I mean, once you've got the right to get married (uh... yeah... you go guys...) - you've pretty much nailed it in terms of social progress. Where the hell to go from there? Yup. That's right. Straight to establishment values and the New Conservatives and INCOME SPLITTING!! WHOO-EE!
Meanwhile, I'm a middle-aged woman, separated, with three kids, and an insecure low-paying job with little to no benefits because I was a stay-at-home wife and mother for about a decade. I don't own a house or a car.
I vote NDP.
I mean - c'mon.
Now, admittedly, I don't know many women at the moment who vote New Conservative, but obviously, lots of women do, so what I'm getting at here is this: Are there really voting blocs in this country based on big broad categories like gender, economic class, sexual orientation - even... inmate status? Because I don't think there are. I think there is no Gay vote, no women vote, no prisoner vote. I think all that's been lost to the sands of time and more often than not, people vote for candidates in their riding based on a combination of whether or not they identify with the Party leader as an actual humanoid and whether or not they hear at least... say... one they like about that Party's financial platform.
I highly doubt most voting decisions these days are based on sociology. It's all "Show Me The Money" or "NEXT!"
In any case, if I'm right, it does represent a kind of acceptance/assumption that socially, things won't change much no matter who's in charge. And I guess what worries me most about having a New Conservative government - again - is that I'm not sure we can trust in that acceptance/assumption. I may be paranoid, but I don't think we can. To my mind, there is evidence of a broad-based attempt by the New Conservatives to take us back to a simpler time - for them - and reverse a lot of the social progress made by a series of Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments over the years I've been alive - mostly stuff that has happened as a result of Feminists demanding it.
I could be wrong. It'll be interesting, though, how far Stephen Harper is willing to push voters on Afghanistan, our arm of the American War on Terror. Because he really truly deeply believes in the War on Terror - I think - and it'll be interesting if he goes for votes by downplaying that commitment - in hopes of getting his majority government and continuing his social makeover of, for instance, the Canadian justice system.
On the other hand, Gays may really care - a lot - about the right to marry and vote en masse against their personal financial interests for a party other than the New Conservatives in order to ensure that it not get a majority and reverse that decision. And women may suddenly decide they care - a lot - about having the right to choose and do the same thing lest abortion end up re-criminalized. Married heterosexual men d'un certain age may decide, too, that it's nice not to have to worry about money while you worry about your chances of getting the Big C or having the Big H and mark their Xs where the New Conservative Party candidate ain't - putting their vote with universal, publicly funded healthcare.
Albertans might - out of the blue - wake up and smell the sour gas and ask themselves how they got there and is it worth it, and... Okay... I'm dreamin' in technicolour now. But maybe now that Alberta is in charge of its own immigration it will attract a smarter class of people and THEY will recognize the need for voters to keep a vigilant eye on social progress.
