Just last month, several Supreme Court justices questioned why the federal government was dragging the court into the debate over same-sex marriage. A legitimate question indeed, and one deserving of a franker answer than that given to the court by the government’s lawyers.

The unvarnished truth is that contemporary politicians hate dealing with issues such as abortion, reproductive rights, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. We hate dealing with them because most of us don’t know how to handle such issues without unleashing all kinds of misunderstandings and political trouble.

Such matters raise complex ethical questions, the discussion of which brings deeply held moral values to the surface and out into the open.

For as much as 70 per cent of the Canadian population, these values are rooted in religious traditions and in diverse and competing convictions that most politicians are not equipped to discuss or bring to bear on public policy.

Canadian politicians think the most expedient way of avoiding responsibility for such issues is to hand them to the courts. This may be done directly by “reference,” as in the same-sex marriage case, or indirectly, by declining to legislate at all (as in the case of abortion), or by passing statutes that deliberately fail to specify legislative intent, thereby requiring the courts to fill in the blanks.

To encourage Canadian legislators to deal more honestly and directly with morality laden issues, we must legitimize the discussion of such issues, including their religious dimensions, in Parliament. Currently, MPs (including the Prime Minister and cabinet) are constrained by an unwritten taboo that says: We don’t talk in Parliament or on public platforms about our own personal religious convictions or those of our constituents, except in vague generalities. This taboo is based in part on the separation of church and state – a concept not recognized by our Constitution but often cited nonetheless. It is increasingly invoked, not simply as a rationale for keeping the institutions of religion separate from those of the state (a good idea) but also as grounds for keeping even the acknowledgment of religious values out of the parliamentary and political arenas altogether (a bad idea).

An example: When the federal government organized the memorial service for the victims of the 1998 Swissair crash off the coast of Nova Scotia, and the 2001 memorial service on Parliament Hill for the victims of 9/11, the Prime Minister’s Office gave instructions that the services were to have no explicit religious content (Christian prayers). This taboo is reinforced by the liberal doctrine of multiculturalism that says Canada accepts all cultures and religions as equally legitimate and valuable, and that, in the name of tolerance, public policy cannot be particularly influenced by the teachings of any one. That doctrine meant that when Ottawa, having been criticized for banning religious expression from its 9/11 service, sponsored a “religious service” the next day under the auspices of the Ottawa Inter-Faith Council, it gave equal time not only to representatives of the major faith communities but to the Raelians, a group that teaches that we are descended from aliens.

How can we legitimize the discussion of religious values and perspectives in Parliament? How can we say that it’s acceptable on occasion to bring the spiritual dimension of life into the discussion of public policy issues?

Here are three suggestions:

The democratic approach: If one’s MP is a small-d democrat, show him or her the polls. Not political polls on voting intentions, but religious polls done by professional pollsters for media clients and academic researchers. Such polls show that a majority of Canadians
nationally (more than 70 per cent in some constituencies) profess to hold explicitly religious values, to hold them more deeply than they hold many of their political convictions, and that these values (even when not shared by our media and political elites) are nevertheless an integral part of how many Canadians live their daily lives and make important decisions.

The MP who wants to represent his or her constituents in Parliament will see the wisdom of including the deeply held values of those constituents in political discussion. The fact that those views may be diverse or even contradictory does not make consideration of them in the political arena unacceptable.

The eminent-persons approach: Suppose an MP is more elitist than democrat – a member, say, of the governing party. Legitimizing the discussion may require the help of some eminent person whose opinions the MP respects. I know of an enlightening conference held last year at St. Jerome University in Waterloo, Ont., on The Hidden Spirituality of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. It examined evidence that Mr. Trudeau, who’d studied with the Jesuits at Collège Jean de Brébeuf, had a deep interest in “Christian personalism” as taught by several Catholic theologians, and this influenced Mr. Trudeau’s views on human rights as eventually incorporated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The serpents-and-doves approach: The discussion of spiritual values and their application to public policy won’t be accepted in Parliament or the political arena until spokespersons for faith communities learn to express their convictions wisely and non-threateningly. Christians in particular should read again Jesus’s explicit instructions to his earliest disciples: “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” He even instructed the disciples to stay away from people who did not share their faith (Samaritans and Gentiles), until they learned how to live by this rule.

Secular politicians are afraid to open the door, even a crack, to religious discussion in the political arena because they fear unleashing a flood of ill-considered, ill-tempered, and contradictory statements, animosities and positions, accompanied by shrill demands that such positions be imposed on others whether or not they subscribe to them. Historical and contemporary examples more than justify such fears.

How can people with deep religious convictions conduct themselves less threateningly, and therefore more effectively, at the interface of faith and politics? By learning from past mistakes and studying positive examples. Consider the very first resolution on the abolition of slavery introduced in England's House of Lords on April 7, 1788. The man behind that resolution was William Wilberforce, a committed Christian.

In 18th-century England, the House of Lords, not the Commons, was the dominant parliamentary chamber, and many of its members profited from the use of slave labour in the colonies. To raise the subject of slavery, particularly to challenge it on moral grounds, was equivalent to raising the abortion issue in our Parliament.

Had Wilberforce denounced slavery as an abomination and demanded its immediate abolition, he would have alienated his potential allies. Fortunately, he had a friend, the young prime minister William Pitt, who sympathized with Wilberforce’s objective even though he didn’t share his Christian convictions. Pitt, wise as a serpent when it came to understanding Parliament, convinced Wilberforce that, before Parliament could come to grips with slavery, it would first be necessary to legitimize the discussion. Hence the innocuous wording of that first resolution laying the issue before the Lords: That this House will, early in the next session, proceed to take into consideration the circumstances of the slave trade.

Can’t you just hear the howls of righteous indignation from the more zealous abolitionists? Early next session? Take into consideration? We want action on slavery now! Yet this harmless strategy legitimized the discussion and led to slavery’s abolition throughout the British Empire.

It is possible and desirable to discuss issues with moral and religious dimensions in Parliament today. But it will involve greater respect for democracy, the help of eminent persons, and a new commitment on the part of faith-oriented Canadians.

This article was published on Nov. 2 in the Globe and Mail and is reprinted here with the author’s permission.

Preston Manning, a former leader of the opposition, is a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute and Canada West Foundation. In the upcoming Spring term, he will be teaching a fourth-year Political Science seminar course at University of Toronto entitled “Public Policy and the Genetic Revolution.”