"I'm being very, very free here to talk with you against all advice probably that I should ever talk to any reporter [about] this," he said towards the end of the session, which is to say about 45 minutes too late.

Yet the man could not stop himself. "But you know I'm feeling very, very deprived ... of my rights in that I cannot say openly -- I dare not say it in the House of Commons, even -- the full extent of what I really believe on some of these issues," namely the decades- long conspiracy among gay activists to seduce young boys into the cause, the desirability of recriminalizing homosexuality, etc. On the subject of the love that dare not speak its name, he would bloody well dare.

I offer no theories on whether Mr. Spencer's was born with such feelings, or whether they may be attributed to an over-protective mother. Who knows? Perhaps he, too, was recruited on some playground by a Baptist activist. It does seem possible, however, for this particular orientation to be reversed, even at the member for Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre's late stage in life, to judge by his remarkable about-face the next day ("I retract the statement I made indicating I would support a bill to criminalize homosexuality .... I apologize for linking the homosexual community with pedophilia..." etc.)

There is a less facetious parallel between what we are obliged to call the "gay community" (no one simply is who they are any more in polite journalism: they are invariably described as members of a "community," as in the "black community," the "disabled community," and so on, as if to suggest a series of well-attended meetings) and the social conservatives, such as Mr. Spencer, who are so troubled by their existence. It is the experience of marginalization, and its associated behavioural responses.

Those of us who support the legal recognition of gay marriage, the current litmus test of mainstream society's acceptance of homosexuals, do so not only out of the traditional liberal belief in equal rights and social tolerance. It is, at least for some, also prompted by a desire to encourage homosexual acceptance of mainstream norms. The conservative case for gay marriage expresses itself in the hope that marriage may have the same civilizing effect on homosexuals that it does on heterosexuals, encouraging stable, monogamous relationships and the social values that go with them.

It is for just this reason that some scholars in the field of "queer theory" have denounced gay marriage as a plot to devalue the promiscuity they celebrate as a distinctive part of gay culture. And of course it is. The theory, which remains to be proved, is that promiscuity, in common with other, more flamboyant expressions of "gay culture," is not in fact something integral to being gay, but rather a reaction to society's historic marginalization of gays and gay sexuality, of which the most substantial remaining legacy is the refusal to extend legal recognition to gay unions. In short, if you want gays to join the mainstream, the first thing you have to do is let them in.

Well, we shall see. Meantime, let us apply the same thinking to social conservatives, another marginalized group that is obsessed with gay sex. Mainstream conservatives are properly concerned that Mr. Spencer's excesses, and similar eruptions over the years from others of the ilk, will tar the whole movement, just as it is trying to start fresh. For some, the lesson to be drawn is that social conservatives must be rigidly excluded from the new party (or, if you follow Joe Clark's fog-in-channel reasoning, that the new party must be rigidly excluded from the dwindling band of irredentists in the Progressive Conservative "mainstream").

This would be exactly the wrong response. If it is necessary for social conservatives to come to terms with homosexuality, at least as a matter of legal rights, it is equally necessary for the mainstream of the party to come to terms with social conservatives. Part of the reason such backwoods sentiments as emerged from Mr. Spencer's mouth have endured, impervious to changes in the wider world, is that for too long social conservatives have more or less been told to stay in the backwoods. The condescension that drips from Mr. Clark and others whenever social conservatives and social conservative issues are raised is telling.

For all the excitement the so-cons raise in the press, their "agenda" is decidedly, almost pathetically, limited. In Stephen Harper's apt formulation, "We will not ask the state to impose our values on others.

But we will demand that the state stop undermining those values." In other words, just don't make things worse for us. (Perhaps that's a little too neat. On occasion, the so-cons have had only themselves to blame, for failing to pick their fights well. So narrow was their focus on stopping gay marriage, for example, that they lost sight of the broader erosion in the legal status of marriage itself. But the point stands: the so-cons are fighting a rear-guard action, nothing more.)

It would cost mainstream conservatives little to show the so-cons some elementary courtesy, even a little respect. They are not asking for much: just to be listened to, or more precisely, heard.

Were they not in such utter despair of ever being in a position to influence the debate -- in conservative circles, let alone the country -- they might be less inclined to explore the wilder shores of Mr.

Spencer's imaginings. If you want the so-cons to join the mainstream, in other words, you have to let them in.