"Canadian conservative politician Garnett Genuis defends ‘preserving’ gay ‘marriage’"

"Alberta Conservative MP Garnett Genuis is promoting a pro-homosexual strategy for the Conservative Party that critics says is fundamentally harmful to families and the pro-family movement.

Genuis, who has a strong pro-life voting record and is well regarded by many social conservatives, is advising the party to ignore the distinction between homosexual and heterosexual couples and be 'pro-family' without defining the nature of the family.

Genuis also asserts the Tory caucus is largely in favour of homosexual 'marriage,' although he did not respond to a request from LifeSiteNews to confirm his own position.

In general, our Conservative MPs would support preserving the civil institution of marriage of all couples, heterosexual and homosexual couples,” Genuis told CTV’s Evan Solomon.

'People might have within their own faith traditions, they might say my religious definition of marriage in this context is something different, but certainly in the context of state recognition I don’t think you would find disagreement on that,' added the Catholic father of four.

Conservatives can be a 'pro-family party in a pluralistic society,' Genuis wrote recently in the National Post.

'Our national conversations should focus more on strengthening marriage and family than on debating definitions. Our pluralistic society obviously contains within it different concepts of what marriage and family are,' he noted.

'And we can, in a pluralistic society, still contend that family is the cornerstone of a strong society, without prescribing a single template. We can be a pro-family party in a pluralistic society.'...

It’s notable Genuis is pushing this idea in the context of the early days of a Conservative Party leadership race in which the highly charged issue of same-sex 'marriage' is front and center.

Leadership hopeful Richard Décarie touched off a media firestorm when he said being 'gay' is a choice, prompting some prominent Tories to call for his disqualification on the grounds of alleged bigotry. Décarie proposes that the party return to its pre-2016 internal policy position of supporting the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

After delegates voted in Vancouver in 2016 to remove the Conservative Party's internal policy position that it supports the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, the party has been officially neutral on the issue of same-sex 'marriage.'"