The Greatest Game Ever Played

Montreal 6, Carolina 5 (20T)

Wow. What a wild one that one was.

Yesterday, the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes played what was probably the finest hockey game in a while- and the finest I’ve ever seen- in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal Series. In a game that featured more drama and cliffhangers than a Hollywood blockbuster, the Canadiens overcame a blown three-goal deficit to win 6-5 on Michael Ryder’s double-overtime goal, taking a 2-0 series lead over a Hurricanes team that is quickly unravelling.

“We stuck with the same plan, we kept believing,” Canadiens centre Mike Ribeiro told ESPN. “It was a great game to watch, I’m sure, for everyone.”

He probably couldn’t have said it better. After the Canadiens staked out a 3-0 lead in the first period off some erratic play by Carolina starting goaltender Martin Gerber, the Hurricanes found their “on” switch in the second period. Gerber- who allowed three goals on 13 shots- was pulled from the game in favour of former first-round draft pick Cam Ward, but it was the previously dormant Carolina forwards who put Carolina back in the game. 1:42 into the second with the Hurricanes buzzing around the net of Canadiens goaltender Cristobal Huet, Matt Cullen’s centering pass got a lucky bounce of Huet’s misplaced stick to cut the Montreal lead to 3-1. After that goal, the Hurricanes were virtually unstoppable; continually buzzing along the ice with the Canadiens repeatedly in footraces they had no chance of winning. It comes as no surprise that with the increasing pressure- and a span of 3:05 worth of Montreal penalties- that Carolina’s Rod Brind’amour found the back of the net halfway through the second period to cut the deficit to 3-2. Brind’amour’s goal was similar to Cullen’s goal in that it was on the doorstep, being a redirected centering pass past a helpless Huet, who now looked extremely vulnerable down low. It was a fabulous display of hockey, with the Hurricanes displaying the run-and-gun form that brought them to within a point of the top-ranked Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference.

The Hurricanes sustained their form in the third period, scoring 33 seconds in the third period off yet another redirected centering pass, this time off the stick of Ray Whitney. 42 seconds later Brind’amour again found the back of the net with a nifty wraparound that handcuffed Huet that catapulted Carolina to its first lead of the game and of the series. The Hurricanes’ goals- coming only after 1:15 of the third period- both also came on the powerplay, with Montreal’s Alexander Perezhoghin and Francois Bouillion both in the box from two late second-period penalties, causing the CBC’s Don Cherry after the third to criticize the Habs, telling them “they should be ashamed of themselves” for taking the penalties and essentially handing the game to the Hurricanes. While I think the Habs didn’t help their situation here with their penalties, they literally had no answer for the continued Carolina pressure. The Hurricanes just seemed to race up the ice unopposed with the Canadiens continually in a hopeless pursuit, and when the ’Canes were on their game- as they were in the second and early in the third- their passing game was in a deadly synchronicity. This is what allowed them to exploit Huet’s weakness in covering the bottom of the net, because each of those centering passes were dead on to the stick of a hungry Carolina player.

However, time would not be on the Hurricanes’ side. They still had 18:45 of the third to kill, and as the third wore on, it became apparent that the Hurricanes’ footrace wouldn’t hold up for long. The Canadiens- having realized that their penalty trouble gave Carolina the room to operate- realized that with five players on the ice they might be able to set up an impregnable wall that could stop the Carolina rushes before they got dangerous. They played a poise and composure that CBC play-by-play announcer Jim Hughson noted was just like their coach, Bob Gainey, which contrasted with the frantic pace the Hurricanes were by now desperate to keep up. The Canadiens’ poise and patience wore on the Hurricanes, as well as Carolina’s refusal to dump the puck into the Montreal zone, as Carolina’s roaring attack was stopped time and time again at the Montreal blueline like barbarians trying to scale the Great Wall of China. The Canadiens would later turn their defence into offence, springing loose Alexei Kovalev and Richard Zednik who scored 36 seconds apart halfway through the third to hand Montreal back the lead at 5-4. Both goals came off bad angles near the goal line over Ward’s left shoulder, “goal scorer’s goals” as TSN’s Jay Onrait called them. Suddenly, a game in which Carolina looked in control suddenly became a topsy-turvy mess, with a Canadiens team that wasn’t supposed to be winning somehow in the lead.

Of course, just how time was against the Hurricanes, so too was it against the Canadiens. With Peter Laviolette pulling Ward for the extra attacker unusually early at 18:06 of the third, Carolina’s Cory Stillman connected on a one-timer from just inside the left face-off circle to knot the score at 5. Just before Stillman’s goal, the CBC’s Harry Neale commented that Laviolette “had to take a chance to get a chance”, and Laviolette’s gamble paid off. The Hurricanes were re-energized heading to overtime, looking to run-and-gun Montreal into submission.

It very nearly worked. The Hurricanes came out flying to start the overtime period, racking up a 7-1 shot advantage halfway through the period. Their best chance of the period came when Craig Adams almost jammed the puck around Huet’s left pad, but Huet- learning from his mistakes against Brind’amour and Whitney- got his skate on the puck in time, prevent Adams from converting a goal he knew from his reaction afterwards he should have had. However, the Hurricanes stunted their momentum with two penalties before the ten-minute mark of the overtime period, and the one shot Montreal did have was very nearly the one that ended the game. This shot came on the Canadiens’ second power play of the overtime period eight minutes with Michael Ribeiro almost jamming the puck past the skate of Ward, who quickly smothered the puck to prevent a second chance.

If there was a turning point in the hockey game- besides Ryder’s overtime winner and the 3-0 Montreal first period lead- it would have been Carolina’s inability to wrap up the game following Tomas Plekanec’s interference call on Cullen. The Hurricanes’ power play, which had been phenomenal all game, suddenly couldn’t get any shots past Huet, with barely any coming from in close. They spent a good chunk of the power play setting up the shot instead of taking it, with the Hurricanes displaying none of the confidence that allowed them to storm to the lead to start the third. Predictably, the Canadiens killed off the penalty, and with it, any chance of a Carolina victory.

The death knell came in the second overtime period. The Hurricanes, for their part, generated some chances but most were tentative and easily stopped by Huet. The Canadiens- who probably had more energy since they didn’t play at full speed like the Hurricanes did- waited for their chances, and on a rush two minutes into the second overtime period, Saku Koivu, Christopher Higgins and Ryder set up a triangle that arched from behind the net to Ryder that ended the game. The tic-tac-toe passing play was extremely quick and caught me (and probably Ward) off-guard, sending the Hurricanes into a hole and the Canadiens ready to fill it up.

Looking at the game, it was easy to see why the Hurricanes lost. Montreal displayed in Game 1 that it had the horses to run with the Hurricanes’ gunners and the ability to shut them down, and showed in Game 2 that if they needed to run with the Hurricanes they could. They also showed patience and composure, refusing to give up when momentum clearly swung Carolina’s way, playing a smart positional game that allowed them to contain the Hurricanes and ensure that if things did get wild, they wouldn’t get away. The Hurricanes, by contrast, refused to come up with any counter to Montreal’s wall, insisting on ramming into defenders when the Canadiens wouldn’t give an inch. The Hurricanes made it easy for them to be coached against, since all the Canadiens needed to do was set themselves up at the blueline and they would be able to stop the Carolina rushes, since Carolina wouldn’t dump the puck in behind them. They had to rely on power plays to generate chances because that opened up the ice for their attack, and while the Hurricanes were able to hit their groove in spurts, they played without any of the confidence and poise the Canadiens had. They seemed like a racecar driver who always has his foot on the pedal, unable or unwilling to let their foot off even if it means hitting a wall.

This isn’t to say that the Canadiens didn’t win the game deservedly- they did. Many teams would have folded under the pressure of the Hurricanes, but the Canadiens didn’t relent, choosing to wait until the Hurricanes gave them the chance to respond. The result was a splendid victory that puts a stranglehold on the series, which now shifts back to Montreal. The Canadiens played like a Stanley Cup winner, and, dare I say it, they may have just proven themselves capable of taking the silverware home in June, a relief for long-suffering Canadiens fans who have now had to endure their longest drought without the Cup. In the process, they played in one of the NHL’s finest games in a while- if not ever- with the fact that Montreal was in it being a worthy honour for a team as rich in history as the Canadiens. Carolina and Montreal represented the clash of the old (Canadiens) and the new (Hurricanes), with both putting on a show that won’t be repeated for a while. In the process, Montreal showed why they’re the winningest team in NHL history playing with a championship-level poise that left Carolina in the dust. In the meantime, Carolina have shown themselves as mere pretenders, being a team that may look like a winner but, when faced against a real winner, they wilt like a weed, and they only have themselves to blame.

-DG

Hi hi, hi ho, it's off to the playoffs we go! (whistles) Hi ho, hi ho, hi ho hi ho!

Buffalo 3, Toronto 2 (SO)

It’s ugly, but we’ll take it.

The Buffalo Sabres found themselves clinching a playoff berth today after defeating the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 in a shootout, snapping a 1-7-1 slide that saw them fall from within a point of catching the Northwest Division-leading Ottawa Senators to their current position, still firmly in fourth and nine points back.

“It was a relief to get that one point and clinch a playoff spot,” Buffalo goaltender Martin Biron told ESPN. “Even though this last stretch was a bad one, the biggest stretch of the year is coming up in three weeks. That's really important.”

The Sabres were the first to get out of the gate, ringing up a 7-2 shot advantage on the Leafs midway through the first and appearing to get two goals by the time the period was half done. Derek Roy scored his 16th goal of the season after redirecting an errant Ales Kotalik shot that had gone off the boards into the net past Toronto goaltender Jean-Sebastein Aubin, but a goal was nullified later in the period after Adam Mair was shoved into Aubin forcing the puck in with him (the referees had ruled they had called the play dead at that point). The missed goal was only one in a series of questionable calls during the game on both sides, from penalties that shouldn’t have been called (Chris Drury’s trip) to ones that should have (Ian White was once tripped with no call, and there was the Darcy Tucker knee-on-knee hit on Jochen Hecht that had Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff infuriated, although the play that started it was haphazard- Mike Grier did hit Tucker first, so it’s not like the Sabres were off the hook).

The first period ended 1-0, as the life the Sabres had was shorn from some erratic and frankly too eager play that Buffalo had been known for all season. Buffalo managed to show a fury of life on the power-play midway through the second- resulting in Maxim Afinogenov’s 20th goal of the season- but let the game start to slip away when Toronto’s John Pohl- a call-up- scored to cut the lead to 2-1. Buffalo’s flopping and flailing ways- continued into the third, where Matt Stajan capitalized on some brutal defensive work to tie the game up at two, giving Toronto a life they shouldn’t have had. The Sabres shouldn’t allow games to be this close when they claim to be a playoff contender, and, if they want to go far in the playoffs, they need find a way to develop the killer instinct. Of course, to their credit, the Leafs were also showing a lack of execution, as they had multiple chances but failed to convert (a common complaint this season about the Maple Leafs). It should also be noted that Biron stood on his head and that will be an asset come playoff time, but Buffalo can’t **only** rely on its goaltender if it wants to succeed.

In overtime, Buffalo outplayed the Leafs but barely, garnering the overtime’s best chance when Daniel Briere stood all alone jamming the puck at the impregnable Aubin. Since overtime solved nothing the teams went to the shootout, where Afinogenov potted the only goal and Biron stood on his head to deny Mats Sundin and Tucker. Alexei Ponikarovsky- not known for his stickhandling- tried to deke out Biron but only met his right pad, with the puck stopped on the goal line (this was reviewed but the decision stood). The result gave Buffalo its first playoff berth since 2001, which is about time.

The game was endemic of both teams’ seasons. Toronto proved time and again it had the talent to be a top-level team but also showed it lacked the execution and the management to get there (there’s no reason why Ponikarovsky- who had never scored in the shootout- should have been picked for the shootout, because he was bound to fail, which he did). Buffalo, meanwhile, was erratic and haphazard, being the kind of team that may not overwhelm anyone but still finds a way to succeed in the end. I’m not yet convinced that my Sabres are Stanley Cup material yet- since they need a game-breaker to stop their over-reliance on goaltending- but, with three weeks to go before the post-season, there’s still time to gel to post-season form. When they do, this’ll be a team that’ll be fun to watch and impossible to stop, as they’ve got enough youthful energy to keep pounding away at teams relentlessly. It’s about time- I’ve been waiting for this moment for far too long.

-DG

Toronto loses another one

Today marked the funeral of Scarborough native Kevin Persaud, run down and killed last Monday near Canmore Park where Persaud was at a friend's house. The Toronto Police believe that Persaud was pursued by his attackers- whose relationship to Persaud, as of yet, is not known- and killed following an altercation that night. An 18-year-old and a 17-year-old, both males, have been charged with the attack.

Now, if this is the first time you've heard of Persaud, you won't be the only one. The story itself appeared with a small photo on the third page of The Toronto Star (date: March 12, 2006), with a much larger picture at the top devoted to the story behind the death of American Tom Fox, a member of the Christian peacekeeping group that was abducted by the Swords of the Righteous Brigade. Persaud's story was much more noticeable than Fox's, but it was still not front-page material, only being known to those who bothered to open the paper past the frontpage.

This contrasts with the treatment of the murder of Jane Creba. You know her- the 15-year-old girl who was gunned down by a stray bullet after a shootout between gangs at Yonge & Dundas Square in downtown Toronto on Boxing Day, 2005. Her story was frontpage news and garnred nationwide attention as proof that Toronto's gun problem- which hit 52 victims in 2005- was at the boiling point and something needed to be done. Days afterward Paul Martin- who at the time was running for re-election- proposed a ban on handguns, and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and Toronto Mayor David Miller called for tougher gun and sentencing laws. Her memorial on January 26, 2006, one month afterward, received widespread media attention, with the weepy ceremony making the 6 o'clock news. We saw stills of the happy girl being presented while Creba's favourite song- James Blunt's "You're Beautiful"- played in the background. It was gripping stuff, sure, but at the same time it was sickening.

You see, the first thing that shot to my head when thinking of the differences between the Creba case and the Persaud case is that Creba is a 15-year-old Caucasian girl and Persaud is- I believe- African-Canadian. Yeah, I hate to play the race card too, but it sickens me that Creba's funeral and memorial got the play that it did and that the memorials of the other gun victims that year- almost all of which were visible minorities- got little or no play at all, with their names barely being a footnote in contrast to the well-known Creba. Remember Ali Mohamud Ali and Loyan Mohammed Ahmed? No? Well, they were the two youths killed outside of The Phoenix nightclub last June shortly after it closed. The killings themselves received a lot of play in the paper as people suddenly became frightened over the violence, but the victims' funerals and memorials were bypassed with nary a mention in the press. In fact, McGuinty, Miller and Martin did nothing in the aftermath, with the only person actually doing something was Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory, who visited the homes of the victims to send his condolensces. Several days later, the whole ordeal was forgotten, much like the names of the victims shortly after they were killed.

This is not to marginalize the death of Creba- by all means, what happened to her was tragic. However, it's disgusting to think that the media seemed to only care about Creba and not about Persaud, Ali or Ahmed, all of whom were visible minorities and all of whom received far less press than she did. It's like we seem- almost- to "expect" the minorities to get into trouble, but when it comes to a Caucasian, the alarm bells ring and the community reacts as if we've all lost a family member. Sure, the reaction to Creba's shooting is justified, but Persaud, Ali and Ahmed are just as much "family" as she was. It sickens me to think that in a supposedly liberal and tolerant country like Canada people like Persaud can be marginalized like they are now.

This, however, is just treading water- the problem- gangs- is much bigger and larger than a few random shootings, and what's worse is that nothing as of yet has been done about it except talk. The politicians have talked widely about how they want to get tough on gangs, but the only person with the fortitude to do anything is Curtis Silwa, the head of the "street vigilante" group The Guardian Angels, a volunteer organization that uses laws allowing for citizen's arrests to target and combat street gangs. The Angels are, effectively, an outreach program, and while I don't like the idea of- in effect- a "legal gang" running around the streets of Toronto, it is refreshing to know that someone wants to do something. Of course, lost in all this is the real problem behind the gangs: a culture of marginalization, poverty and no opportunities. Just looking at Toronto's housing costs alone will tell you that: the lowest rents are in the neighbourhood of $700/month for a single person, and combined with food and travel costs, there's not a lot left over if the person works a minimum wage job, which most immigrants have been sadly forced into. Furthermore, just look at Jane & Finch, the high-crime neighbourhood that's close to my University, York University. A walkthrough of the area reveals literally a dump, with shanty apartments, a mall and no community centre of any kind in the vicinity. I take a look at Jane & Finch and think, "no wonder there's a lot of crime here- there's nothing to do and everything about this place says 'poor'. What else are the residents going to do?" All this talk certainly won't make the area look any nicer, nor will it help the decrepit lot many of the residents have.

In the meantime, I'm going to take a moment to dedicate this space to all of Toronto's murder victims, including Kevin Persaud, Jane Creba, Loyan Mohammed Ahmed and Ali Mohamud Ali. You will all be missed, equally.

-DG

Left vs. Right vs. Who Really Cares?

George W. Bush. What hasn’t been written or said about the man? We all pretty much know he’s the President of the United States of America and that he recently won re-election to the White House, without any question regarding his victory. We also know that despite his re-election- by just 3% over the very weak Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry- Bush has managed to polarize not just the US but also of the world.

Now, before you roll your eyes and think “oh no, not another Bush-bashing wannabe who’ll just spout everything that Michael Moore and his cronies did”, this is not another Bush-bashing piece. In fact, there won’t be any Bush-bashing in this segment whatsoever. I wouldn’t have voted for him if I had the chance (being that I’m Canadian, I can’t), but that’s a personal matter. No, what I want to talk about is that polarization, and, despite joining the chorus of worried individuals who see the negative effects of polarization, I hope to maybe shed a new light on the subject. If I don’t, well, at least I’m getting this off my chest.

You see, ever since Bush came to power, the political world has been gripped by fear- to quote the New Californian Republic people, it’s “vote for me or the terrorists will win”, or “vote for me or gay rights will go down the toilet”, or- a line used frequently by Liberal leader Paul Martin in last summer’s Canadian election campaign- “vote for me or society as we know it will go down the toilet”; and, largely it works- fear motivates people, because politicians know that if you’re afraid of “the other guy” you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that they don’t win. That sentiment led Canadians to vote back the Liberals but without a majority, because it’s “anything but those American-loving Conservatives”, and the Americans to turn out in record numbers to vote in the 2004 elections. Bush- the target of many people’s rage- may have won out, but that’s because he at least came off as a leader, unlike the all-talk-no-walk “I have a plan” Kerry, and, perhaps, because his “the terrorists will win” message worked better than Kerry’s “society-as-we-know-it will crumble if he wins” message. Whatever the case, 2004 was wrapped up in such anxious rhetoric that even if none of the candidates’ messages had any teeth, people were still afraid nonetheless.

To be fair, it’s not like fear hasn’t been used before- it’s a useful propaganda tool, with probably the greatest recent example being the “us-versus-them” message used to recruit for the war effort against Germany in World War II. Even when fear isn’t the main instrument, election campaigns still have it in their bag of tricks- “if you vote for him, you will get X more years of unaccountability, which you won’t get from me”, a trick Dalton McGuinty used to near perfection in ousting the Ontario Tories from power in late 2003. However, in today’s day and age, fear becomes the only selling point, with the idea that unless you’re picking a side you can’t accomplish anything at all. Reason has all but left the discussion- it doesn’t matter if something doesn’t make sense, as long as it fits in with the pre-conceived ideologies then it’s okay.

The effects of this have been rather damaging. The right and the left, long the fringes of political thought, have become the mainstream, leaving people such as myself (normally classified as “centrist” but I don’t believe a label really suits my way of thinking) a dying breed. Ideas that could once be mixed- God and fornication, atheism and the death penalty, equal representation and fiscal restraint, etc.- are now once again separated, with many believing that if you believe in one, you can’t believe in the other. No longer do we have such a thing as a “cafeteria Catholic” who may believe firmly in God but also believes in gay marriage, or abortion or pre-marital sex, or the atheist who is an anti-abortionist and fiscally rightist. It’s always “if you believe in God you’re anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage and anti-pre-marital sex” (funny how those three things always seem to go in tandem, don’t you think?), or “if you believe in equal rights and abortion, you’ve got to have something against God.” We’ve become so obsessed with categorization that labels become badges of honour or words of intense scorn, with things like “bleeding heart liberal”, “bleeding heart conservative” (or, put it more simply, “liberal” and “conservative”), “Christian”, “Republican”, “Democrat”, “socialist”, “atheist”, and “libertarian” being overused, and to such a point where the people using the terms don’t even understand what they really mean (for starters, whoever said that “liberal” and “conservative” were political ideologies really needs to give their heads a shake- “liberal” just means “open-minded”, and “conservative” means “staying the same”. Nowhere does any of that translate to political beliefs). Never can anyone ever take bits and pieces of an idea or set of ideas and merge them with another- you’re either in “this group” or “that group”, and “if you don’t fight, they’ll change everything you’ve ever known”. True individuality- let alone tolerance and reason- have gone out the window, and it’s truly appalling.

I mean, is it wrong to go to Church yet still believe in pre-marital sex? Or to abstain yet find it incomprehensible to believe in a God? Or to believe in equal opportunity yet saying “we really need to cut taxes right about now”? Or to simply say that “well, we could really use X service, but we can’t afford it, so it has to go”? Where has the truly left-leaning Christian gone, the one who preached tolerance and the belief that if “you too believed in God your life will be better”? Have they all gone to the right or are their voices just muffled under the oppressive boot of the so-called “religious right”? Nothing clearer regarding the polarization of the world comes to my mind than the “Christian versus the world” idea, and it’s the one I know the most about and the one that probably also sickens me the most.

I’ll be honest, it bothers me when I hear- for the lack of a better word- some Christians say things like “homosexuality is a lie” or that “pre-marital sex is wrong” and then use twisted logic- using mostly what debaters call “selective reasoning” and “appeals to authority”- to back up their statements. I could go all day arguing against their sentiments, but this won’t be the place to do it. No, what really bugs me the most is these Christians’ belief that somehow, some way my way of life is completely wrong and that only their view of the world is right. As we’ve all come to know, we’re all unique, and, by extension, so too is our values and our morals. No two people are going to have exactly the same morals, so to fit a “one-size-fits-all” dichotomy is something I find to be completely irresponsible. Live your lives the way you want to, but at least have the decency to let me live mine the way I want to.

However, at the same time, it also bothers me to hear, time and time again, repeated attacks against Christians and Christianity itself, with the mostly ignorant attitude that the religion itself is inherently wrong and that it and its members “all” believe the same things and are out to “convert the world” into a single moral mind frame (usually rightist), when nothing could be further from the truth. It’s true that some Christians “do” have that kind of intolerant attitude, and, believe me I think that’s reprehensible. However, that far from describes ALL Christians, or even Christianity itself. Most Christians I have come across are actually fairly tolerant and believe at their core the same things that many people do anyway- respect, tolerance and equality of all, and are actually quite nice people. In fact, there are those- such as myself- who classify themselves as Christian but don’t necessarily agree with everything the Church tells them, based largely on semantics. In fact, it may surprise a lot of people, but I actually think Christianity is a leftist religion, because at its core it preaches tolerance, respect and equality, which are hallmarks of the left. It is true that, in a modern interpretation (mostly, and I emphasize, created by men), some forms of Christianity (not all) have developed some rightist qualities, like pro-life, but to categorize it as rightist because of a few fringe values I believe is wrong, with the erroneous categorization coming as a result of the Church’s own poor portrayal of their religion (this I realized at World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto, which was all about love and respect and not about something like pro-life). To be a Christian, one simply has to have a faith in Jesus Christ, God, Mary and the Holy Spirit, and to follow the quite logical Golden Rule- “do unto others as you would unto them” (Matthew 7:12). That’s it. One can add other beliefs if they like or follow any other kind of established Christian Codes like Catholicism, but as long as the above basics are covered, then that’s all one needs to be a Christian. Besides, no matter what way you go on any kind of debate, I’m sure that Jesus Himself would preach respect and tolerance, and certainly would not approve of the forceful evangelicalism that many of today’s Christian leaders profess. My main point is that Christianity isn’t about pro-life and pro-abstinence- it’s about love, respect, equality and tolerance. Wouldn’t you agree that’s what we should all be about anyway?

This, of course, is not to say that the so-called “Christian right” is wrong and that only a leftist point of view is the way to go- far from it, actually. While some rightist Christians need to learn to respect others’ way of life, the left itself also needs to learn the same lessons, in particular with one of the biggest issues of today’s time, gay marriage. Now, I’m a supporter of the cause (even though I’m not gay), but I believe the way the left is going about implementing it the rightists has every right to complain. For example, earlier this year, when Canada tabled legislation that would legalize gay marriage, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler’s only reasoning behind the change was “it’s in the Charter, stupid”. To Cotler- exemplifying an attitude that is common on both sides of the political spectrum- anyone who doesn’t see gay marriage as a noble improvement must have something wrong with them. Denying people rights? How could they? Now, I don’t agree with the Christian right’s reasoning on the matter, but Cotler’s attitude is far from the right approach if he wants to convince the right to accept gay marriage. Yet the left- like the right- don’t seem to understand that the most successful of changes are gradual and usually involve compromises on both sides of the argument. Something like gay marriage- which would be a radical change for society to accept- is not something I believe that can be brought in now, at least not in its current form. What way it could be brought in, I don’t know (I think it’s really an argument over the use of the word “marriage”- very few people opposed to the idea also oppose the idea of extending gays and lesbians the same rights that heterosexual couples have- but right now that’s just a gander), but I certainly know that as long as the left adopts this “righteous” attitude about gay marriage they certainly won’t sell it. Much like the Christian right who insist that I change my lifestyle, insisting that they accept gay marriage- or any other leftist initiative that the right opposes- only creates more alienation and brings you no closer to resolving the issue, which is what should be happening anyway.

One last point before I conclude: there once was a time when politicians literally bent over backwards to appease just about everyone they could. A left-leaning politician would, say, tell a college audience that the politician intend on working hard to lower their tuitions, maybe even eliminating them entirely, while telling a Church congregation that is facing bankruptcy that the politician intends on preserving their Church and upholding their right to practice their faith in the nation. Very rarely- if ever- did a politician ever address the so-called “hot-button issues” such as abortion, because if they addressed it they would lose a significant number of votes, and, thus, most were content with simply letting their citizens decide for themselves how they wanted to live their lives. However, ever since George W. Bush, an ardent Christian, came to power in the US, ethics and morals have become the main political issues, making many believe it’s the politicians right to dictate the way that people live. This shift in thinking- away from the matters that really affect the nation, such as the economy- is a slippery slope that could have dire consequences in the future. Of course, the US has always been a little “morally upright” before (it just never became “front and centre” like it is now), but if politicians cannot be seen as representing everybody, then what will become of our democracies?

Perhaps I am a bit of a dreamer in thinking about a day where Christians and atheists could again hold hands together as one, and could at last put aside their differences and work together for this world. However, I don’t believe it is impossible. When September 11th occurred, the whole world stood together in arms, and for a week anyway we put aside our differences to collectively mourn, and decide that something just had to be done about the attacks. I don’t believe that we’ve gone about that the right way, but at least for that week anyway nothing else mattered. It may be sad that we needed a tragedy to realize all our petty problems are just that- petty- but if we are able to do it, why can’t we do it again? Fundamentally we are all the same, and we don’t need to be “a part of a group” to feel needed. Division just leads to tension, with polarization just breeding more polarization. It’s time that we as a society again become tolerant and accepting and quit dividing each other, for as long as believes they have to fight then that will be all they will do. We’re not “liberals” or “Christians” or “socialists” or “conservatives”- we’re humans, and it’s about time we realized that.

-DG