Give Bev Desjarlais the heave

Bev Desjarlais. NDP MP. Homophobe.

Why is she still in the NDP caucus?

Doesn’t the NDP claim to stand for human rights? No exceptions? No equivocations? Didn’t Jack and a few others celebrate yet another human rights triumph last night?

Don’t, please, hand me any guff about her alleged “crisis of conscience.” She voted against human rights. Period. And she’s staying in the caucus.

If the Conservatives discovered that one of their MPs was a member of CPC (ML), would anyone (for once) challenge Harper’s judgment in making him or her sit with Chuck Cadman? If Gilles Duceppe discovered that one of his sitting members was campaigning for federalism, wouldn’t he take decisive action that no one, given the context, could challenge?

Human rights. We’re all the same before the law. Gays and lesbians are first-class citizens, and they can’t be denied access where straight people can head right in. Marriage is a state-sanctioned institution: no colour bar, and now no “orientation” test. Whatever one thinks of that creaky institution, and the state’s continued involvement in what is no more than a quaint and oppressive mediaeval custom, everyone gets equal access. No separate water-fountains, no separate institutions for gays and straights.

Bev Desjarlais thinks otherwise. Her conscience tells her that gays and lesbians shouldn’t be treated equally before the law. Her conscience tells her that they are second-class citizens. Her conscience believes in “separate but equal.” Her conscience tells her that human rights are OK, “except for.”

Hey, no problem. Let her sit with Vic Toews. He’s got one of those consciences too. But she has no business, no business at all, sitting in the caucus of a party that claims to stand for human rights. And as long as she sits there, she raises questions about the firmness of the NDP’s commitment to them.

C’mon, Jack. Do the right thing.