Canadian MP's Budget Vote May Decide Homosexual Marriage Issue
by Chad Groening
May 19, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Canadian pro-family activist says an important parliamentary vote today (May 19) could be the last realistic opportunity to head off government approval of homosexual marriage in Canada.
Brian Rushfeldt is co-founder and executive director of the Canada Family Action Coalition, which has been working hard to defeat the homosexual marriage bill in the Canadian Parliament. In recent weeks, the Liberal government that sponsored the bill has been teetering, which is why the activist says today's vote on the budget is extremely important.
"If the budget is defeated," Rushfeldt explains, "either the main budget or the amendment on the budget, then the government will fall. And of course, if the government falls, that's the end of any legislation that has not gone through the full process to become law."
If that happens, the family advocate says, "Bill C38 -- the [homosexual] marriage bill -- would be dead and gone, hopefully forever. So the vote on the budget really is a vote for marriage and a vote for fiscal confidence in Canada."
Rushfeldt is expecting the budget vote to be a close one, with a great deal riding on what the Independents decide to do. He says two Members of Parliament who traditional marriage supporters are depending on now are in what he considers to be "the turncoat phase."
One of these Canadian lawmakers left the Conservative Party, and the other left the Liberal Party, the activist points out. "Now both [are] Independents," he says, "and they hold the sway vote." The CFAC spokesman feels particularly strongly about former conservative Belinda Stronach, a Member of Parliament that he contends "prostituted herself to the Liberal Party of Canada."
Stronach's act, Rushfeldt says, "certainly showed her real colors -- the fact that she was never a Conservative in the first place and should never have been part of that party." The head of CFAC is not encouraged by the legislator's defection but recognizes that things could go either way. He says he expects the vote to come late on Thursday.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
