Martin on Hit List Church Groups Target Wrong Guy
As if Winnipeg MP Pat Martin didn't have enough political monkeys on his back. Now some national coalition of church groups is threatening to kick him in the teeth during the next federal election because of his stance on gay marriage. Martin (Winnipeg Centre) is one of 30 MPs who made the coalition's hit list in Ottawa yesterday. The church groups want the MPs to reverse their support for gay marriage, or else. "It pisses me off that this has become such a focus point, frankly, for these groups," said an angry Martin, who was in Duncan, B.C., yesterday for an NDP caucus retreat. "Who do these people think they are?" A bunch of people with a lot of extra time on their hands, I guess. The coalition says Parliament has no right to change the definition of marriage. So they're targeting those in support of gay unions by trying to defeat them in the next election. QUIET SUPPORTER I wonder if they'd be courageous enough to field a slate of candidates themselves? Martin hasn't exactly been shouting from the rooftops in his support for same-sex marriage. More of a quiet supporter on this one, really. The only reason the church groups are going after him (he's the only Manitoba MP on the hit-list) is because he's in a swing riding which he only won by about 1,800 votes in the last election. They're going after him because he's beatable. How brave. "They've identified me as someone in a vulnerable position and they think that they can browbeat me into getting on board with them to save my job," said Martin, who's Catholic. "Well that's just not going to happen." Martin says he can't understand why the church groups are spending so much time and energy on an issue that has no effect on heterosexual couples whatsoever. "If you're opposed to same-sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex," said Martin. "Marry somebody of the opposite sex and everybody will be happy." Now that's good advice -- anytime. Really, though, if you want to mobilize on an issue, pick something that actually affects people -- poverty, violent crimes, the deplorable conditions of First Nations communities. Whatever. There's no shortage of real problems out there. The irony is that these church groups are kind of going after the wrong guy. Martin is one of these guys who fights for the very issues church groups are supposed to be concerned with. The former union rep is a lot of things but he's no enemy of the downtrodden. His fight is against poverty, economic and social inequality and all of the things that have traditionally been important to church groups. That's his gig. And it's probably why he's so furious that he made the church group's hit-list. I can't blame him. | 
