The attempt to reverse Canada’s decision to allow gay couples the same rights as straight ones just collapsed. The Tory prime minister, Stephen Harper, has declared the issue closed for good. I repeat: the Tory prime minister. David Frum must be weeping somewhere. Money quote:
Nova Scotia MP Gerald Keddy, one of the few Conservatives who last year voted in favour of the bill that redefined marriage to include gays and lesbians, said he firmly believes this is the last time the matter will come before Parliament.
But Mr. Keddy, who has been targeted for political attack by groups that object to his pro-same-sex stand, said those battles may not be over.
"I expect there will be a bit of that that will go on," he said.
"But we will march ahead and we will cross that bridge when we come to it," Mr. Keddy said.
In Britain, the new Tory leader actually boasts of gay equality as a political principle, celebrating civil partnerships in his annual speech to his party. Such partnerships are legally identical to civil marriage, and now a year old in the UK. Only America’s South really remains in bitter opposition – and the Republican party that is now increasingly a hostage of its own base. But this debate is now over in the West as a whole. Except in the heads of the far right. On this, as on so many other matters, they live now only in the bubble of their own delusions.
The Dish 