I personally disagree with their beliefs on these issues. And I happen to think they are very important issues and important parts of our party policy.

I recognize the need to be more inclusive and open to people of different viewpoints within the party. But I also know that we lose a lot of credibility when we sacrifice our policies to attract high-profile candidates.

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But I also know that we lose a lot of credibility when we sacrifice our policies to attract high-profile candidates.

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Ditto.

Failing that, as I've said before, if raising the bar with respect to representatives isn't an option, lowering it with regard to claims and expectations still is. In other words, if you can't get all representatives onside with a basic party belief, the party still has the option of dropping that belief. It's not a shrewd marketing ploy to say "We mostly support human rights", but at least it's consistent with what the representatives actually do. Mostly.

[ 07 July 2004: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]

The same holds true for political parties: you'll likely never see an organization with millions of members that tries to formulate a universal standard of how people should live being wholly sucessful. So to say that if you don't agree with a single facet of the party's multilateral platform you shouldn't be involved with it at all . . . well, if you forcibly hold to that you're going to see every major political party divide into fractions of itself.

Except, maybe, for the hardline right.

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and I really do feel that its wrong for laws/beliefs to be imoposed upon people when they are often far from unquestionably held as a case of right/wrong.

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Ironically, much of the dissent that this thread is about concerns beliefs being imposed on people. The question becomes "Which is better? For the NDP to 'force' a few candidates to vote for SSM, or to take the chance that the government could force millions of Canadians to be second class citizens under the law".