MP Monte Solberg is getting some blowback on his blog post last night referring to the Prime Minister as Paul Martin Luther King. Bias alert, I think MP Solberg's blog is great, he is funny and outspoken. This time it cost him.
Here is what he wrote last night:
...Never mind that Canada/US relations may have reached their lowest point since we burned down the White House. That's not important. The real issue is that Mr Paul Martin Luther King is going to defend the Charter from those barbarians who would strip away the "right" to same sex marriage and return us to those backward times of, say, last Tuesday when only opposite sex couples could marry. Those were the days when knuckle draggers like Paul Mart....oh never mind. That's in the past now. He didn't understand about the fundamental human right thing. He was ignorant. Actually he was where a third of his own caucus is today. I guess they hadn't heard that Paul Martin Luther King has now decided that same sex marriage is a fundamental human right that is protected by the Charter. It was all along. We just didn't know about it until PMLK proclaimed it from the mountain top. Let freedom ring.
Here is a link to the Canadian Press story:
...The Conservatives have been playing games with the same-sex issue for some time, said Martin aide Scott Reid, adding that he found the references to Martin Luther King in the article "astonishing."
"I think it's a paid advertisement for the extremism of the Conservative party," Reid said.
"I think a lot of people regard Rev. King as a hero.
"They also regard the Charter as fundamental to our rights and freedoms, and they'll find these comments difficult to square with a party that wants to present itself as centrist and moderate."
In the article MP Solberg responds to the PMO:
...He said the reference was "obviously tongue-in-cheek, and this is satire, which is open to misunderstanding."
Satire aside, same-sex marriage is not a rights issue, Solberg maintained.
"Marriage is a social institution that, over a period of time, became one that is so important that at one point government came to recognize it officially," he said.
"(Governments) saw the value and great social benefits of marriage. But it's not a Charter right, no."
And expands on it further in his latest post:
...Not only do they have thin skins they are outrageous hypocrits. It was Martin that accused the Conservative Party of wanting to conceal our agenda. Yes the same Paul Martin who was telling the Americans that he wanted to mate with them on missile defence, only to turn them down at the last moment and then deny everything. Yeesh, you gotta admit they have a lot of gall.
...the Libs are spinning it that I was suggesting that Martin Luther King was a knuckle dragger. Oh brother, these guys really are the sucky babies we thought they were.
On the other hand, nothing like a little controversy to raise MP Solberg's profile. Probably not in the way he wanted to however. We will see if this ends his blogging days.
