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Originally Posted by Okotokian
ok, lets examine your statement. In which role was he expressing his true feelings, and in which role was he lying?
How can a person say "This is what I believe" and then turn around and say "Oh, I don't believe that. I have my candidate hat on now". Sheesh... You get a TRUER picture of what a person actually believes when they don't have their "candidate hat" on.
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Here's the thing about religion and public office. You can be any religion you want just don't let it influence you in your duties as a public official.
We have had 9 Prime Ministers with 17 mandates given by Canadians who were Catholic and only one ran into to issues with the Vatican with his stance on Gay Marriage. That was Paul Martin. At no time did Martin allow his religious views interfer with what the country was asking for - with respect to gay marriages.
Personally, if the pastor had stood on his election platform saying he was against gay marriages, then I would have had a bigger problem with his attempts to use the office to form a public policy. He made his beliefs known while he was in his role as a pastor (and if his church doctrine says he has to follow their edicts, then he did the right thing - even if those who don't hold similar views agree). In his election campaign, he remained neutral on his beliefs - which he should have - as those should not appear to be motivating his role in public office.
As for Leech, I was actually surprised that I was hearing that finally a white, male was acknowledging he had an advantage over anyone else. White, male privilege is often swept under the carpet as non-existent and the only way to level out the playing fields is to acknowledge it exists and get on with it. I truly believe that what Leech was trying to say was he was at an advantage for being white as he saw it as a neutral position with respect to special interest groups - he couldn't be accused then of acting for the betterment of one special interest group over another by virtue of race. Sadly, his speech writers sucked at getting that across without sounding like he was a huge d*ckhead.
I think that the one thing Smith dropped the ball on with these guys is that she wasn't clear that as a politician, no matter what their personal beliefs were/are they are required to act for all their constituents on all subject matters.