In the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage in Canada, one of the most noticeable aspects was the new prominence of evangelical Christian activism. Evangelical campaigns and protests spurred media headlines like “The Rising Clout of Canada’s Religious Right”(McDonald 2006) and “Gay Marriage Galvanizes Canada’s Christian Right”(Mason 2006). The election of a national Conservative government in 2006 further increased speculation that evangelicals, though unsuccessful in preventing same-sex marriage, were a growing political force in Canada. The context of George W. Bush’s well-known evangelicalism and the power of the American religious right led many Canadians to wonder if Canada was developing its own brand of American-style evangelical activism.

However, the evangelical presence in Canada is broader, more longstanding, and more nuanced than many realize. While Canadian evangelicals did become more prominent in the mid-2000s, this was due to the unusual political opportunities and circumstances of the same-sex marriage debate. Canadian evangelicals have been politically active since the 1980s, but much of this activism has been shaped and constrained by institutional and other factors–factors that did not necessarily apply to the special case of same-sex marriage. Thus, I suggest that, while the mobilization around same-sex marriage clearly constituted a major surge for evangelicals, it does not necessarily represent a new and permanent level of activism.