Some People Disagree With You. Get Over It.

I was on telly on Tuesday morning, appearing live for my first time ever, and discussing something rather more controversial than Roman combat techniques,* this being same-sex marriage. It was terrifying, and I wasn’t very good, but I don’t think it was a disaster, and I’ll surely get better.

And, barring that moment before the first question where I thought ‘what if I freeze?’ and the sleepless night beforehand, I enjoyed it. The telly certainly added the proverbial ten pounds, though, distributing it evenly around my head. I clearly need a haircut.

Thankfully my Stonewall counterpart was as reasonable as he was likeable, and avoided the clichéd attacks on religion that have become so tedious in the current climate. I've gotten rather tired lately of hearing people say 'You only say that because you're Catholic.'

It's often not true, it's something other people couldn't possibly know, it's based on an unfounded assumption of unadulterated and utterly impartial rationality on the part of the person saying it, and frankly, even if it were true, so what? After all, unless people are saying that Catholics shouldn't be allowed play a part in the political process, what's their point?

Playing a part in the political process...

When Catholic Voices was established, I was delighted. I was tired of people misrepresenting the Church, and fed up with lazy media myths being propagated by Pavlovian dogs who drool on hearing anything bad about religion.

Christians should play a full and active part in political debate, just like everybody else, and I believe they should do so honestly and openly. We all have to live together, and we need to figure out a way of doing this, and I really think we can only figure this out in a way that'll work if we all put our cards on the table.

Obviously, I didn't apply to join Catholic Voices the first year as it was London-centred at that point, but did the second time out once the net was thrown further afield. The mock-interview in the interview was to be on Same-Sex Marriage, and my heart sank when I realised this. Although I had several serious concerns about SSM being introduced, the thought of arguing against it just felt mean.

The night before the interview I rang a very close friend who has been heavily involved in gender/sexuality-related politics ever since her first year in university. Her record of walking the walk rather than just talking the talk clearly marked her out as an ideal person to consult on this.

(She's also thoughtful, wise, kind, genuinely open-minded, fiercely intelligent, and somebody for whom I'd run through walls. She is, in short, one of the very best people I've ever known, and someone I love very deeply.)

She was okay with me getting involved and doing this; I'm not saying was was entirely comfortable with it, but she was okay with it. She disagrees with me, but she knows full well that there's not a homophobic bone in my body and can see that my concerns about what's on the table aren't coming from a bad place, instead being rooted in deeply-held convictions about the good of society as a whole and the rights of everyone.

I think that may be what’s most upset me about those lazily convinced that only homophobia or bigotry can explain opposition to marriage being redefined. If you think that, it's pretty obvious that you don't know me, and it might be worth looking in the mirror and asking yourself a simple question: 'what were you doing to campaign for this change two or three or four years ago?' 

Two years ago this wasn't on the political radar. It was at most an irrelevance and a distraction from the real issues affecting gay people in Britain: homophobic bullying, say, or the heartbreaking problems that face gay people if, getting old, they end up in nursing homes, and find themselves having to go back in the closet just to get some peace . Those things matter.

Anybody who wasn't campaigning for same-sex marriage before the ConDems plonked it onto the political agenda last Autumn was evidently none too bothered by the status quo, and should just admit it.

They may have changed their mind since, which is fine, but nobody should be getting indignant about others not having done so unless they’ve worked to change things. And I mean ‘worked'. I don't mean smug little pleasantries over coffee or dinner or drinks with friends. That’s just patting oneself on the back for being 'liberal'.

What's interesting about this is that I've found that my friend’s attitude isn't unusual among those who've actually tried to make a difference. While I’ve disagreed with several same-sex marriage advocates on air, we’ve also agreed on huge amounts while talking among ourselves, not least our conviction that grown-ups can disagree about this.

The problem is where inflammatory language is used, and it's been used on both sides; most of those sanctimonious keyboard warriors hurling around accusations of bigotry are folk who were warming a couch two years ago.

So, where do I stand?

What do I think? In the first place I think that gay people should have exactly the same rights as everybody else -- it's really as simple as that. 

I also believe, however, that words have meanings, institutions have purposes, different situations need to be dealt with in different ways, and that the right of conscience may be -- excepting the right to life -- the most important right we have.

It baffles me to see people wading into this dispute without knowing how UK law defines marriage, or grasping that weddings and marriages are different things, or understanding the differences in law between marriages and civil partnerships.

There's really only ever been one argument I've experienced in favour of introducing same-sex marriage, this being that it would have symbolic value. Supposedly civil partnerships are seen as 'second-class marriages', and this isn't fair. I really don't think this approach holds together, not least because people don't look down on civil partnerships. Indeed, a recent nationwide poll found that most gay people aren't persuaded by the claims made by the likes of Stonewall on this front.

I can't understand same-sex marriage advocates insulting civil partnerships as they do. Civil Partnerships haven't been around for long, but even in the few years that they've existed they've been a huge success, giving same-sex couples the same legal rights and responsibilities as married ones. Many people even regard them as marriages, and if our language is to change that’s how the change should happen: organically, from below, rather than by government diktat from above.

All else aside, this would set a very dangerous precedent. Are people really happy to have government redefine language in order to bring about something they'd like, even if by doing so they grant government power to redefine language to bring about something they'd dislike? 

That part of the debate worries me immensely. Gay couples already call themselves married, and plenty of people describe them as such; the government isn't considering 'allowing same-sex couples to say that they're married', but is instead considering changing the law so that everybody shall be obliged to agree that same-sex couples are married. This is a very different thing, and it will affect everybody.

I have issues too with how undemocratic this whole project is. In the UK in general the long-established parliamentary process for changing laws, especially important ones – identifying a problem, then a green paper followed by a white paper then finally legislation – has been utterly pushed aside in what looks like a clear attempt to railroad something though parliament. Something, it’s worth adding, that was wholly absent from the manifestos of all three parties in the 2010 election.

As for Scotland, if we look at the SNP Manifesto, all we’ll see is the following innocuous sentence:

‘We recognise the range of views on the questions of same-sex marriage and registration of civil partnership. We will therefore begin a process of consultation and discussion on these issues.’

I don't think governments should even think of changing something so important without a clear popular mandate to do so, and I don’t think vague manifesto commitments to consult on things count as binding pledges to legislate, leaving aside how in the 2011 election, the Scots weren’t given the option of voting for a credible party that wasn't proposing to consult on these matters!**

What difference would it make?

I think there'll be long-term consequences for society in general, of course: we can scarcely abandon the idea that it's a good idea to have a public institution dedicated to upholding the principle that every child should grow up with the love of a mother and of a father without there being some impact. That said, I wouldn't rush to speculate on what these long-term consequences would be. I prefer to leave dystopian fantasies to the dystopian fantasists.

More immediately, there will be very serious repercussions on religious freedom, all of which shall work themselves out through case law. Timothy Radcliffe pointed out some months ago that it's not so much that the Catholic Church is opposed to same-sex marriage, as that it believes it to be impossible. Britains’ other main religious bodies would likewise be unable to accept the proposed innovation. Among the most likely repercussions would be...

1. There's a good chance that church weddings will become a thing of the past, as the ECtHR says countries cannot facilitate same-sex marriage selectively: if marriage is to be open to all couples it must be open to all couples in the same way, and as most churches, mosques, and synagogues won't be able to offer same-sex marriage ceremonies, the likelihood is that they'll have to stop registering marriages altogether.

Government assurances on this are worthless, based as they are on the fallacy that UK law recognises things called 'civil marriage' and 'religious marriage'. It doesn’t. It recognises just one thing, called ‘marriage’, which is entered into through ‘marriage ceremonies’ – or weddings, if you like – which can be religious or civil in nature. It’s one room with two doors.

2. Churches and other religious bodies might well find themselves barred from manifesting their faith on this issue; the English consultation proposes guaranteeing the churches’ right to teach what marriage should be, but that's hardly the issue. The churches are very clear on what marriage is, and the right to teach that won't be protected; indeed, traditional church teaching would become utterly contrary to UK law.

This would have practical consequences for education, catechesis, and even things such as marriage counselling and the hiring out of church properties, as well as in connection with hate speech legislation. Lest that seem hysterical, we need but look at the Canadian experience over recent years.

3. In England, if not Scotland, a key effect would be the serious undermining of the Church of England, with whatever knock-on effects that would have on the UK constitution. To introduce same-sex marriage in England would entail changing or removing the licence from the official Anglican prayerbook, setting the Church of England on the road to disestablishment.

Naturally, this would have consequences for the monarchy, and thus the whole constitutional settlement. These might be good things, but I think all grown-ups should be able to agree that they should be enacted on their own terms, and not as mere side-effects.

For example, Catholics are technically third-class citizens in Britain, the only people explicitly banned from marrying into the line of succession. In a constitutional sense, we're inferior to Scientologists, Atheists, Mormons, and Muslims. Obviously, all those groups are constitutionally inferior to Anglicans, in that you have to be an Anglican to be head of state, but only Catholics are explicitly barred from being in the line of succession or even marriage to people in the line of succession. I'm okay with this: that symbolic imbalance isn’t so devastating in practice that the British constitutional settlement should be unwoven to suit me and my mates. 

There's an important question there. Is it right to impose real practical limitations on the rights of some people in order to give a merely cosmetic right to others?  

And all this for... what?

The right for same-sex couples to call themselves married in law would be utterly cosmetic, even more so than for the right of the occasional Catholic to marry into the line of succession. What would be gained, in reality, other than the right to use a certain word on legal documents? Would there be added respect because of this?

Those who want to call civil partnerships 'marriages' already do so. Others may well resent being compelled to do so. Indeed, a March ICM poll found that only a third of people believe that if same-sex marriages are introduced, schools should teach that they're the same as marriages as we understand them; this poll reported higher levels of support for same-sex marriage than any other polls on the subject back in the Spring.

Civil partnerships are not second-class marriages, and are not seen as such, but for lots of people, same-sex marriages would be just that. They'd be 'not really' marriages. Do we really want that? Does anyone want to engender such resentment and such a condescending attitude to gay people? I know I don’t.



_______________________________________________________________________________
* Although, frankly, in the right circles this can rouse some rather heated tempers.
** Yes, I know the Conservatives didn't propose this, but then in Scotland they're hardly a major party. Curiously, the Lib Dems are the only party that promised legislation rather than a consultation. They just twelve of their seventeen seats.

Britain's 'muddled' document on proposed gay marriage

It’s increasingly difficult to avoid the same-sex marriage debate in the British media, now that the government’s consultation on the redefinition of marriage has been launched.

A muddled document, to say the least, the consultation confuses marriage with marriage ceremonies, treats civil and religious marriages as though they’re legally distinct institutions rather than being exactly the same thing, avoids the question of how marriage is currently defined in law, and openly admits that the practical consequences of redefinition should be left up to the courts.

The very concept of such a consultation is itself highly irregular; parliamentary practice normally involves the drafting of a green paper to explore the possibility of changing the law, followed by a white paper putting forward government policy and inviting further comment, eventually leading – perhaps – to legislation.

In contrast to the usual process, the government seems to be trying to railroad through parliament a policy spectacularly absent from the electoral manifestos of both governing parties. The consultation really only addresses how this policy could be implemented, effectively disregarding the question of whether such a radical change in law and custom is desirable, practicable, or wise.

The consultation’s first two questions, asking whether marriage should be opened up to same-sex couples, are evidently intended merely to provide a veneer of legitimacy. The document stresses that those questions are asked only out of interest, and Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat equalities minister, has given a “cast-iron guarantee” that marriage will be legally redefined by 2015, regardless of popular opinion.

Popular opinion seems to be divided on the topic, to judge by the widely differing results of three recent polls, with one firm – ComRes – having found that 70 per cent of people believe that marriage should continue to be defined as the union of a man and a woman. There’s certainly no great enthusiasm for the proposed change.

It is notable that ICM, which found the highest support for legalising same-sex marriage, also found that the vast majority of people – 78 per cent – believed the issue should most definitely not be a parliamentary priority. ICM also observed a widespread unwillingness for schools to be allowed teach that same-sex marriage is identical to marriage between a man and a woman.

Divisive

So divisive a debate has naturally become almost ubiquitous in the media; I’ve discussed the matter on the radio myself, the first time with the feminist and lesbian journalist Julie Bindel, the gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, and the LGBT activist Marc Delacour.

Part of the challenge in such discussions, I’ve learned, is to resist the urge to focus so much on “winning” that we fail to listen and truly engage with what others say. Julie Bindel, in particular, said something upon which I’ve since reflected quite deeply, given how acrimonious and polarised the general debate has become.

“Civil partnership provides what every single couple in the world is looking for in terms of legal protection and the right of next-of-kin, and I would extend that to brother-sister, two sisters, two best friends. I signed a civil partnership agreement with my partner ... we didn’t do it because we needed anyone to see that we have a good, stable, happy relationship.”

She argues that the State should abandon the marriage business altogether, because while it should protect committed couples – something it can do through a modified version of the civil partnership scheme – it has no business approving or withholding approval of people’s private relationships; if committed couples wish to have their unions religiously solemnized, that is their own business and no concern of the State.

Essentially a variant on the French system, it’s a similar argument to ones I’ve heard put forward by libertarian friends.

France

In France, religious marriages have no legal standing whatsoever; only civil marriages are recognised in law. People get married by a civil authority such as a mayor, and then – if they so wish – have their legal marriage solemnized afterwards in a religious ceremony.

The obvious advantage of Julie Bindel’s proposed system is that it would establish an indisputable legal equivalence between same-sex couples and unions of men and women, whilst also preserving long-recognised rights to freedom of religion and conscience by restricting the term ‘marriage’ to religious institutions; nobody would be obliged to recognise same-sex civil partnerships as marriages as the law would not recognise them as such, and clerics would not be obliged to celebrate same-sex marriages as marriages would be exclusively religious affairs.

It’s a tempting idea, and one I think I might subscribe to, were it not for one crucial problem, leaving aside how those already wed in civil ceremonies might be unhappy with no longer being able to call themselves married!

Just as the redefinition of marriage is not a “gay issue”, neither is it a “religious” one. Marriage is a social good, the one institution we have that exists to promote the idea that children should grow up with the love of a mother and a father. I’m not convinced that it should only be for religious bodies to make that case.

Of course, in practice the abolition of marriage is on the cards in England anyway. Since the seventeenth century, parliament has recognised marriage as the union of a man and a woman, primarily for the purpose of bearing and rearing children; marriage differs from civil partnerships also by requiring vows and sexual consummation.

The government’s consultation proposes that marriage should henceforth be recognised as the union of any two consenting adults, makes no mention of children, says that vows should no longer be absolutely necessary, and effectively abolishes the need for consummation as always understood.

In other words, if marriage to be opened up to everybody, every distinctive feature of the institution would need to be changed, such that marriage, as currently understood, would no longer exist, being replaced by a new institution called “marriage” but functionally indistinguishable from civil partnership.

Like the baby brought before Solomon, it seems marriage cannot be shared without being torn apart.

 

 

-- Originally published in The Irish Catholic, 29 March 2012.

Cameron's radical social experiment on gay marriage

Scotland’s Cardinal Keith O’Brien made headlines last week when he wrote a Telegraph article describing government proposals to introduce same-sex marriage into UK law as “madness” and “a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”. The substance of his article was lost in the fury that erupted over his language, and hardly anyone seems to have noticed – or cared – that his argument wasn’t remotely faith-based.

Under the civil partnership scheme, he said, same-sex couples already have the same civil rights as married ones, such that redefining marriage would give them no tangible benefits; in no real sense, therefore, should this be seen as a debate over equality or about gay rights. This is a debate about the nature and value of marriage.

While its form may have varied across cultures, marriage – whether Christian or otherwise – has always and everywhere been understood as existing, in the Cardinal’s words, “in order to bring men and women together so that the children born of those unions will have a mother and a father.”

This timeless and universal conception of marriage has children at its heart; we cannot redefine marriage as “committed loving relationships between adults” unless we jettison its primary purpose, that being to provide a safe, stable, and balanced environment within which children can be born and reared.

Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat junior minister with responsibility for equality, has accepted that neither the State nor the Church “owns” marriage; in response, Cardinal O’Brien pointed out that “No Government has the moral authority to dismantle the universally understood meaning of marriage.”

The Government certainly has no electoral mandate for such a radical change; proposals to redefine marriage were conspicuously absent from the manifestos of both Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties in the 2010 election, and were accordingly absent from the agreed programme for government.

Betrayed

Such silence was hardly surprising. The 2004 Civil Partnership Act, giving committed same-sex couples the same rights the State had long given to married couples, had satisfied all reasonable demands for civil equality. If neither David Cameron nor Nick Clegg campaigned for same-sex marriage in 2010, this was because there was no popular demand for such a thing.

Same-sex marriage was effectively absent from Britain’s political radar until last September’s Liberal Democrat conference, when Lynne Featherstone announced plans to introduce it; David Cameron echoed her at October’s Conservative conference, declaring, “I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.”

I’ve no idea how the Prime Minister kept a straight face while claiming that redefining a timeless social institution is in any way conservative, but it’s easy to see what motivated this revolutionary proposal.

It’s common knowledge that the Liberal Democrats felt betrayed by the Conservatives in the aftermath of last year’s electoral reform referendum. Although the coalition agreement allowed for Conservatives to campaign either way in the election, the Liberals felt their centrally co-ordinated campaign to block the Liberal attempt to make parliament more accurately reflect the will of the British people to be wholly contrary to the spirit of the coalition agreement.

Since then the Liberals have become far more discriminating in their willingness to support Conservative policies, forcing the Conservatives in turn to appease their newly obstructive junior partners.

The Liberal Democrats must have proposed the introduction of same-sex marriage in the hope of being able to brandish such a change as a totemic victory to restore the faith of their many disillusioned voters. This proposal would have been a bitter pill for many Conservatives, but for others, close to the Prime Minister, it would have offered a way of helping banish their popular image as “the Nasty Party”.

Even allowing for internal dissent, this surely looked like an easy win, but the Government seems to have miscalculated popular feelings on such a radical social experiment.

Complexity

Already the Coalition for Marriage’s petition that the Government preserve the legal definition of marriage looks set to receive more signatures than any other petition since the modern e-petition system was established. What’s more, a Catholic Voices-commissioned ComRes poll published last week found that more than two thirds of British people continue to believe marriage, defined in the traditional way, should be promoted by the state.

UKIP, that lost tribe of Conservatism, now publicly oppose the redefinition of marriage, and though a tiny minority party they could easily do serious damage to the Conservatives’ prospects in the next election, given the winner-takes-all nature of the voting system the Conservatives fought so hard to retain last year.

In marginal constituencies, the loss of a few hundred votes on the right could easily lead to dozens of Conservative seats falling to the Liberals or Labour.

The Government also seems to have given no thought to the complexity of their proposal: redefining marriage would require the amendment on hundreds of pieces of legislation, not least – arcane though this may seem – the 1662 act licensing the Anglican prayer book.

People too easily forget that the Church of England is in many respects an arm of the British state, and it is Parliament that speaks when the 1662 prayer book identifies marriage as a union of man and woman, all marriages being unlawful unless in accord with what “God’s Law doth allow”.

Does the Conservative party really want to interfere in Anglican services, given how this could be a decisive step towards the disestablishment of the Church of England? But how could it avoid doing so, if doing otherwise would entail allowing the established Church to contradict the State?

Lynne Featherstone claims that religious bodies wouldn’t be compelled to celebrate same-sex marriages, but – mistaking weddings for marriages – this misses the point. The law would still require religious people to accept same-sex unions as marriages, and those who refused to accept such unions as marriages could be found guilty of hate speech.

In a recent Tablet column, Timothy Radcliffe, former Master of the Dominicans, wrote warmly of the blessings gay people bring the world, but began by saying, “The Catholic Church does not oppose gay marriage. It considers it to be impossible.” If marriage is redefined in order to institute same-sex marriage, such statements could be construed as section 5 public order offences.

Cardinal O’Brien’s language may have been inflammatory, but he made some important points, not least by asking what would happen, were marriage to be legally redefined, to those who hold and teach that marriage can only mean and has only ever meant the union of a man and a woman.

I don’t think David Cameron wants to define ordinary mainstream Christian teaching as hate speech or to criminalise ordinary teachers, priests, and parents. I suspect he’s not thought this through.

 

 

-- Originally published in The Irish Catholic, 15 March 2012

On Misunderstanding the Arguments Against Same-Sex Marriage

There's a blog of which I'm fond which is currently running a hugely disheartening post, setting forth the arguments -- as the blog's author understands them -- against same-sex marriage.

It's a puzzling post, and a disappointing one, cluttered by at least two substantial asides and marked by a complete failure to engage with what's being said by those who are speaking up in defence of marriage.

That may well be our fault. Our arguments shouldn't be so easily misunderstood, or misconstrued, or misrepresented. We may have to make the case all the more clearly.

I agree with the author an immense amount of the time, not least by virtue of likewise being politically centre-left, ardently europhile, and a big fan of both Germany and dogs. I'd very much like to meet him in person, as I think he'd be fun, interesting, and thoughtful; he comes across that way. I've also -- one distressing and I think deeply unfair episode aside -- long thought him an absolute model of how people should conduct themselves on the internet, and have directed people to his blog many a time for guidance in that regard.

Not this time. Having at one point thought same-sex marriage wouldn't be that big a deal, I've come to change my mind on this, and I'm astounded by this caricature of views such as mine, not to mention flagrantly wrong and deeply offensive claims that all arguments against same-sex marriage being legalised come down to homophobia.

Yes, I know that on his blog he says that it's discrimination rather than homophobia, but that explains nothing; discrimination is a term that denotes action, not what lies behind an action, and on Twitter it seems he's pretty clear on what lies behind opposition to legislation for same-sex marriage.

Summing up the arguments against the redefinition of marriage, someone earlier today said to him, 'It's simple: gays are an abomination. That's their only argument. The rest is window-dressing.'

The reply?

'Yes. Nail on head. Rest depends on how "reasonable" they're trying to appear.'

Sigh. We've reached a very bad point in our discourse when decent, sensible people are willing to condemn everyone who disagrees with them as homophobes and hypocrites.

Allowing for the fact that the civil partnership scheme gives same-sex couples equal rights to married ones in English law, it seems there are one or two areas where gay couples feel they are discriminated against in terms of not being allowed to marry, just as -- as Peter Tatchell and Nelson Jones argue -- straight couples are discriminated against in terms of not being allowed to enter into civil partnerships.

Though hardly tangible things, I've come to agree that these are valid concerns, as it happens, albeit not ones that it's beyond our wit to find ways to resolve.

Ways, I mean, that won't necessitate abolishing marriage as currently understood, that won't impose restrictions on already recognised rights to freedom of conscience, belief, and religion, and ways that won't require us as a society to abandon the only institution we have that exists to promote and protect the principle that ideally every child would be raised by his or her mother and father.

I'm currently wondering whether Julie Bindel has a point, and whether we might want to think in terms of something like the French system if we want to resolve this and ensure everyone feels fully equal in the eyes of the State. It seems I'm not the only one thinking along those lines. I don't think such concerns can be put down to homophobia. I think this is a 'gay' issue even less than it's a 'religious' one.

Anyway, to go back to the post that troubled me, what does the blogger regard as the arguments being deployed against the government's proposal to legislate for same-sex marriage?

1) This isn't civil marriage, it will be forced on churches
The government has expressly said that the proposed change relates to civil marriage and churches will not be forced to marry same sex couples (just as for example divorcees cannot marry in the Catholic Church: they set their own rules on this).

And onwards then into a lengthy digression about some dodgy reporting on the part of the Mail.

Ignore that, and focus on the key point -- which the blog, like the government consultation, passes over -- that there's no such thing in law as 'civil marriage', just as there's no such thing as 'religious marriage'. 

There is only 'marriage'. Anybody who tries to make out that there are two types of marriage in English law either doesn't understand what marriage is in English law, or doesn't care. I'll leave it to you to decide which category the Government falls into. This matters. We can't conduct an honest and reasonable discussion of whether marriage should be changed unless we recognise what marriage is.

Yes, there are religious marriage ceremonies and civil marriage ceremonies, but it's the ceremonies that are deemed religious or civil, not the marriages themselves. To assume that a marriage ceremony is the same thing as a marriage is to mistake a doorway for a room. This misunderstanding cuts to the heart of the Government's same-sex marriage consultation document.

I'm far from convinced by government claims that religious organisations would not be forced to celebrate same-sex marriage ceremonies, and not just because I don't trust this government, with its confusion of weddings and marriages and its pretense that there's a legal distinction between civil and religious marriages, and its questionable approach to university fees, the NHS, pension schemes, workers' rights, and the European Union.

Given that there's no legal distinction between religious and civil marriage, such that there is only one thing the law recognises as marriage, surely it would be unfair discrimination to limit the ways in which people could enter that institution on the grounds -- it would be argued -- of their sexuality?

I think it must have been with reference to this fact, rather than with reference to the substance of the European Court of Human Rights' recent Gas and Dubois ruling, that Neil Addison has been quoted as saying,

'Once same-sex marriage has been legalised then the partners to such a marriage are entitled to exactly the same rights as partners in a heterosexual marriage. This means that if same-sex marriage is legalised in the UK it will be illegal for the Government to prevent such marriages happening in religious premises.'

In any case, the government gives no assurance that the the conscience rights of people will be respected with regard to the question of whether or not they shall be compelled to accept that  same-sex unions can be marriages. The consultation is particularly slippery on this point, blurring words in section 2.12 in a decidedly worrying manner, taking us right into the heart of Orwell country.

It's only prudent to be concerned about that now; you cannot parry a blow after it has been struck.

2) This is an Attack on Tradition
So was the ending of slavery, giving women the vote, decriminalising homosexuality and any number of other positive legislative changes that conservatives fought tooth and nail against.  This is the weakest of arguments: society changes and tradition per se cannot be a valid reason to discriminate. Marriage has constantly been redefined: a point I make in my original blog at some length.

Well, I basically agree with the blog on this, though if I were making a religious argument -- and I'm not -- I'd distinguish between Tradition and traditions. I might also point out that the Catholic Church welcomed the Wolfenden Report in the 1950s, which advocated the decriminalisation of homosexual acts, and to be fair to conservatives, I'd probably add that William Wilberforce, the key figure in Britain's abolition of the slave trade, was deeply conservative, while Emmeline Pankhurst died a member of the Conservative party.

That aside, though, I take the point; as my Dad has often pointed out, we used to send small children up chimneys, so it doesn't work to argue that we used to do things, so we should keep on doing them.

Not, of course, that the (functionally non-existent) gap between civil partnerships and marriages is any way comparable to that between slavery and freedom, disenfranchisement and enfranchisement, or criminalisation and decriminalisation. It is, frankly, risible to put the redefinition of marriage in the same category as those acts of basic social justice.

But then, I've not argued this, whereas I have argued the following point, which the blog spectacularly misrepresents and describes as disingenuous and nasty. 

3) This is About the Protection of Children
This is actually quite a disingenuous and nasty argument.  By bringing in children, as Cardinal O'Brien did, he sought to muddy the water and appeal to age old prejudices that gay people are somehow not to be trusted around children.

And so on. Of course, Cardinal O'Brien did no such thing, and I'd be pretty confident that he was most certainly not seeking to muddy the water. It's only possible to hold to that view if you think children are basically irrelevant to marriage. The Cardinal may well have used deeply inflammatory language, but he did so while cutting to the heart of the matter, and he's far from the first to have made the point he did.

Take Richard Waghorne, for instance, who made exactly the same argument as Cardinal O'Brien almost a year ago, albeit in measured and sensible language. It's not a 'religious' argument, in that it's not faith-based in any sense, but is one focused on what the point of marriage is, and what it contributes to society. And, for those tempted to hurl words such as 'bigot' or 'homophobe' at anyone with the temerity to disagree with them, it's worth bearing in mind that Waghorne is himself gay.

Let's get down to brass tacks. What is marriage? We could talk about primate pair-bonding, and about anthropology, and we could trawl through history, but that'd require trips to the library for books I've long ago read at home. More to the point, that would take me off-topic without adding anything to my argument, the multiplication of examples beyond necessity only ever cluttering things up; wherever it's found, the basic purpose of marriage invariably comes down to the same thing, which is that it's an institution that exists so each child can be reared by his or her mother and father.

To focus on England in particular, since at least the seventeenth century marriage has been explicitly recognised by Parliament as the union of a man and a woman, with such unions being ordained for three purposes, the first of which is the procreation and rearing of children. This matters. While we can argue about what we think marriage could or should be, from a legal point of view, it's nonsense for me or for anyone else to say what we think marriage is. In British law that's already established.

Yes, it's about love and commitment, but it's not just about that. Why on earth would the State care whether two people love each other? Why would anyone want the State to care? Julie Bindel's right on this, at any rate; nobody should need the State's approval for who they love.

What's more, neither the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor the European Convention on Human Rights recognise a right to same-sex marriage; both documents distinguish between men and women only in their articles on marriage, and explicitly associate the right to marry with the right to found a family, described by the UDHR as the 'natural and fundamental group unit of society'. What's being recognised here is that marriage as an institution reflects a basic biological reality.

Children are utterly central to marriage as a concept. Cardinal O'Brien wasn't being remotely disingenuous when he pointed this out, and as I've said, he's far from the first to have made this point. Richard Waghorne said it a year ago. Parliament said it three hundred and fifty years ago.

There is those who'll counter by asking why is it that old people or those otherwise incapable of having children are allowed to marry, if marriage is essentially about children.  Fair question, and one which has been addressed elsewhere, including by Waghorne in his 'responses to responses', but for now I'll just say two things:

• Obviously, marriage is an institution, as I've said, and not a mere ceremony. As such, complementary couples can marry when young in the hope of having children; regardless of whether or not that comes to pass, they can grow old together, such that old people can be married. As complementary couples incapable of having children can be married, it stands to reason that complementary couples incapable of having children can get married.
• The State only cares about marriage because it's essentially about children. Can you think of one other reason why the State would care about what two people get up to together? That's a case I've yet to see made by anybody advocating the redefinition of marriage: why should the State care whether two people love each other?

Now, nobody that I know is saying that gay people aren't to be trusted about children, and if they're thinking it they're keeping their thoughts to themselves. No, if anybody genuinely thinks this is what's being said they should get over their paranoia and start listening more carefully. Time and again I've heard people saying that plenty of gay people do a fine job of bringing up children -- indeed, I've said so myself and will doubtless say so again -- but that the State supports marriage to promote the position that children should ideally be raised by a mother and a father.

This isn't a binary argument, where people are saying that only one way of raising children is good and all others are bad; it's saying that only one way is rooted in our nature, and that it is an ideal for which we should hope.

As Matthew Parris said last October, in a Spectator column which was sympathetic to the idea of institutionalising same-sex marriage, 

'I’m glad I had both a mother and father, and that as after childhood I was to spend my life among both men and women, and as men and women are not the same, I would have missed something if I had not learned first about the world from, and with, both a woman and a man, and in the love of both.'

Like Waghorne, Parris is gay, which lends extra weight to his uncertainty on the wisdom of jettisoning so universal and natural a societal ideal. That all children, as much as possible, should have such opportunities is, I think, something that we should all champion. Marriage is the only public institution that our society uses to champion this ideal. Do people really want to cast this aside?

4)  This is God's Sacrament
Marriage does not stem from the Bible, it predates it and extends around the world to countries of many different faiths.  Few serious voices would argue it is uniquely Christian: it demonstrably is not. Moreover the Church does not make the laws in this country.  Parliament does.  The leaders of every political party support same-sex marriage and it was in the Conservative Party manifesto.  The Church does have the right to be heard, but it does not have the right to dictate.

It's weird that this should be wheeled out, as I've yet to hear even one Catholic or Orthodox Christian take to the airwaves to make this argument; and yes, it's relevant that I say 'Catholic' and 'Orthodox', because Protestants -- Anglicans included -- do not regard marriage as being a sacrament.

Indeed, Catholics don't regard marriage as being a sacrament in itself; rather, they recognise marriage as something natural to us, with Christian marriage alone being a sacrament. I doubt any Catholic would describe as sacramental a freely-contracted marriage between a Muslim woman and an atheist man, but it'd be an odd Catholic who denied that it was a marriage. If any Catholic is arguing that the State shouldn't change the law regarding marriage because marriage is a sacrament, said Catholic could do with sitting down with his or her catechism for a bit.

That's why you'll hardly ever find any Catholics arguing against the law being redefined on the basis that it's contrary to his or her religion. Catholics don't regard marriage, in the broad sense, as a religious issue. We accept it as a natural thing, an institutional reflection, as I've said, of our biological reality. It's brutally Darwinian, when you get down to it.

For what it's worth, the churches are not seeking to dictate anything to society -- another canard in the post -- but are merely seeking to contribute to the debate. Parliament will decide what happens. We all know that. It's melodramatic nonsense to claim otherwise.

I'd also point out that it's simply false to claim that the proposal to institute same-sex marriage was in the Conservative manifesto. It wasn't. It was undeniably and blatantly absent from the manifesto, which mentions marriages and civil partnerships just twice in its 131 pages, both times only with reference to tax breaks.

Sure, there's a line in the little-noticed and almost wilfully obscure Contract for Equalities that says the Tories would be willing to 'consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage', but that document is not the Conservative manifesto, and lest anyone claim otherwise, I'd like them to explain to me why the word 'manifesto' doesn't appear once in its 29 pages.

It's worth remembering too that after the Contract for Equalities was published, David Cameron made it very clear that the Conservatives had no intention of renaming civil partnerships. Rather, he said, the Conservatives might look into the possibility of doing that.

There is, I think every reasonable person should agree, a substantial difference between promising to consider the case for something -- which sounds like a long and thoughtful process -- and announcing that the redefinition of marriage was going to be railroaded through parliament, irrespective of what people might think, and with complete disregard for the usual careful system of compiling a green paper, perhaps issuing a white paper, and then maybe introducing legislation.

It wasn't in the Liberal Democrats' manifesto either, despite Evan Harris falsely claiming otherwise*. The people have never been consulted as to whether this should happen, and the Government is adamant that the current 'consultation' isn't interested in that question.**

On balance, far from opponents of marital redefinition seeking to 'dictate', it's proponents of marital redefinition who appear to believe that they should be allowed impose their wishes upon society without such wishes being subjected to the normal process of democratic scrutiny, and regardless of the fact that such wishes thus far lack any democratic legitimacy or popular mandate.

5) It's Ours, You're Not Allowed It
How refreshingly honest it would be to hear this argument articulated.  It is in fact, as far as I can tell, at the base of every argument against same-sex marriage, no matter how it is dressed up.  This is a matter of discrimination per se: opponents believe they have the right to marry, but the state should be allowed to discriminate to withhold this right from others.

At this point I basically want to throw my hands in the air in frustration, not least because it assumes there's a crude 'us and them' dynamic at work, such that it's impossible for anybody who's gay -- such as Matthew Parris as cited above -- to have any doubts about whether the state should be institutionalising same-sex unions and calling them marriages.

It's eminently possible. Yes, I know the likes of Waghorne will be dismissed as self-hating gays for entertaining such reservations, but then we're into 'No True Scotsman' territory, and we all know that's a silly country, policed by the kind of absolutist fanatics Camille Paglia angrily refers to as Stalinists.

That aside, the European Court of Human Rights has already recognised that while men and women have the right to marry, men and women do not have a right to marry whoever they'd like. Individual countries can allow men to marry other men, and women to marry other women, but that's quite different from there being a right to such a thing. No rights are being withheld; the court recognises that the Convention identifies marriage as having a nature -- a specific meaning -- and it's not discrimination for that meaning to be respected.

Keep that in mind. According to the European Court of Human Rights, it is not discrimination for marriage to remain a complementary and conjugal institution.  Of course, the Court might change its mind tomorrow, but as things stand, that's the situation.

Take a look at the government consultation on same-sex marriage involves. It bypasses the fact that Parliament has defined marriage for centuries in such a way that it can't be shared without being redefined, or, if you like, it can't be opened up to others without ceasing to be what it has previously been.

Look at section 1.10 of that consultation, and then think about this. The Government says that it wants to make same-sex couples identical to different-sex couples in terms of marriage. Identical, mind, not merely equal.

There are a small number of important differences between marriages and civil partnerships; the Government is proposing to remove these differences.

• Marriage should henceforth be defined as being between two people of the either sex, rather than as hitherto between a man and a woman.
• Marriage shall henceforth be reduced to a public institution that recognises people's love for each other; the interests of children will no longer be recognised as central to the purposes of marriage.
• Marital vows shall no longer be necessary for marriages to be valid, as some people will be able to contract marriages through a bit of paperwork.
• Marriages shall no longer be dependent on sexual consummation, at least as the word has always hitherto been understood, for their validity; as same-sex couples cannot engage in the procreative-unitive act, consummation will have to be given a new meaning, which it'll be for the courts to decide and apply to everyone on a uniform basis, regardless of sexuality.

Or, putting it another way, the Government is saying that almost any adult couple can get married, but that in order for that to happen, it'll be necessary to tear marriage from its biological moorings, abolish it as currently and historically understood, and create something quite new -- which we'll call marriage -- in its place. And that something new, it seems to me, is pretty much what civil partnership would be were it open to everybody.

Let's not pretend this is about opening up marriage to gay couples; it's about abolishing marriage as it stands and supplanting it with a new institution, functionally identical to civil partnership, which would be called 'marriage' and would be open to everyone.

You might think that's a good idea, or you might not, but surely we can at least all admit that that's what's on the agenda.

Summary

I don't blame the blogger for not giving any of the arguments he lists any credence whatsoever. I wouldn't either, if they were being made, but they're not.

The most important of the arguments being made for maintaining the status quo is completely misunderstood, and the ultimate question of what marriage is and why the State should care about it is wholly disregarded.

And no, I'm not happy about writing this, but when somebody who I've long rated as a blogger and who I've long hoped to meet as a person basically says that I'm a homophobe who's merely trying to look reasonable, and that all those who agree with me are also homophobes who are likewise masking their hatred beneath a veneer of reason, then it's clear that the debate has moved into very nasty territory.

Because if someone who's surely sensible, reasonable, and nice will make these kind of assumptions, what are those who are none of those things likely to be doing? Because such people are of every persuasion.

We all have to live together. Most of us would probably get on with each other. There's a fair chance that the majority of us like tea, and that we'd happily while away an afternoon or an evening having a pint or three of something stronger together. We need to accept the fact that honest and intelligent people of good will can sometimes find themselves on opposite sides of a debate, and that sometimes people mean what they say.



Update: Originally I linked to the blog, and named its author, but I amended this shortly afterwards, as on reflection I didn't think it was fair. I'm trying to make the point that this debate's gotten absurdly polarised when decent people are assuming the worst of people who sincerely disagree with them; it's not about the blogger in question, save to say that he seems a good example of a decent person who's become convinced that all those who disagree with him are doing so because they think he's an abomination.

__________________________________________________________________

* No really. Have a listen. He says it at the 5:37 point, or thereabouts.
** The rest of this section deals with a wholly unrelated topic which every Catholic I know responded to when the story broke on Saturday with a mixture of horror and caution. It was obvious that whatever had happened in the Netherlands in the 1950s was abominable, but there seemed to be very few facts in the story; given how so many stories about the Church tend to be badly reported, most Catholics have learned to wait, gloomily, and see how the dust settles; since then the story has been somewhat clarified. Much more remains to be explained, of course, and I hope whatever investigation the Dutch establish gets to the bottom of this, but for now it seems clear that the only people screaming about Catholic perversion on this one are those who are utterly in thrall to an irrational and ingrained hatred of the Church. And, for what it's worth, I don't for a moment count any bloggers I admire among them.

On First Looking at the Marriage Consultation

So, I've been reading the Government's Equal civil marriage: a consultation. Regardless of where people stand on the issue, they should quickly realise that it's a shoddy piece of work, undermined by the fact that its authors clearly don't know what they're dealing with.

I've just been glancing through it today, and think it might be worth getting a few of my thoughts down. For future reference, if nothing else.

A Couple of Oft-Misunderstood Points

In reading it, it's crucial to remember two things.

• Weddings and marriages are not the same thing. A wedding -- otherwise referred to as a marriage ceremony -- is an event. This event gives access to marriage, that being an institution.
• There is no legal distinction between civil and religious marriages. There are legal distinctions between civil and religious marriage ceremonies, but that's it. In English law, it is legally meaningless to speak of either civil or religious marriage. There is only marriage. That's it.

Bearing that in mind, you should realise that the document is misnamed. It's impossible to speak of 'equal civil marriage' in a meaningful British context; one can only speak of 'equal marriage'. 

Of course, those of us who subscribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are already signed up to the concept of equal marriage; men and women, it says, have the right to marry and found a family, with both men and women being entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage, and at its dissolution.  Calling 'same-sex marriage' 'equal marriage' is an Orwellian hijacking of an established term.

And before anyone pipes up, there's a reason why both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights speak of men and women in their articles on marriage; they specifically mean that men and women have the right to marry each other.

We have to read the documents in their entirety, and not look at articles in isolation. Both documents speak of 'everyone', 'all', and 'no one' in all their other articles, but specifically refer to 'men and women' only in their articles on the right to marriage.

If that sexual complementarity wasn't important, why not just say 'everyone' again? And why link 'men and women' to the foundation of the family, that being 'the natural and fundamental group unit of society', if the Declaration isn't about how families can be naturally founded? In nature, as Camille Paglia puts it, 'procreation is the single, relentless rule'. I'm pretty sure Darwin said similar things.

There's a handy annex at the back, including all questions being asked, and it gets interesting if you edit them to reflect legal reality. Look at questions five and six, for instance.

• Question 5: The Government does not propose to open up religious marriage to same-sex couples. Do you agree or disagree?
• Question 6: Do you agree or disagree with keeping the option of civil partnerships once civil marriage is available to same-sex couples?

Yep, utter gibberish. Questions five and six make no legal sense unless the Government is planning on legislating to create new institutions called 'religious marriage' and 'civil marriage'. As it stands, there's only the one institution, which we call marriage, and which has been defined, since at least 1662, as being the union of a man and a woman primarily for the purpose of bearing and rearing children.

Should Marriage Be Redefined?

People who have issues with the whole idea of truncating the definition of marriage such that it's reduced merely to a bond of commitment between two adults, and who believe that we shouldn't be casting aside the one institution that has always upheld the ideal that children should always be raised by their mother and father, will want to pay attention to the following four questions in particular:

• Question 1: Do you agree or disagree with enabling all couples, regardless of their gender to have a civil marriage ceremony?
• Question 2: Please explain the reasons for your answer. Please respond within 150 words.*
• Question 14: Do you have any comments on the assumptions or issues outlined in this chapter on consequential impacts? Please respond within 1,225 characters (approx 200 words).
• Question 16: Do you have any other comments on the proposals within this consultation? Please respond within 1,225 characters (approx 200 words).

Granted, the Government may just smile indulgently at your concerns, as section 2.8 of the consultation document makes it clear that the Government plans on redefining marriage whether people like it or not.

Early Problems

Looking at the consultation, and bypassing the erroneous title, things get messy very quickly in the ministerial forward. Same-sex couples, we're told, have access to the same civil rights as married ones, bar the ability to be married and the ability to say they're married.

It's an odd sentence, and not merely because it wouldn't take much to say 'opposite-sex couples have access to the same civil rights as same-sex ones, bar the ability to enter into a civil partnership and the ability to say they're civil partners', which for some reason the government doesn't see as an injustice in need of rectifying.

No, as we all know, the Government's claim is not quite true. I'm pretty sure 'marriage' isn't a protected term in Britain. While they may not be able to say so for legal purposes, couples in civil partnerships regularly say that they're married, and so do lots of people when talking about them. What's being proposed here is that others should be compelled to accept that same-sex couples are married. That's a rather different thing.

And then, lest we think that that was just a slip, we see the false distinction between civil and religious marriage rearing its head before the page is out:

'That is why we are, today, launching this consultation to seek your views on how we can remove the ban on same-sex couples having a civil marriage in a way that works for everyone. We are clear that no changes will be made to how religious organisations define and solemnize religious marriages and we are clear that we will retain civil partnerships for same-sex couples.'

Obviously, I've tidied it up a bit. The 'topic' section on the next page, headed 'About this consultation', blurs issues in exactly the same way, making the law seem a lot simpler and more compartmentalised than it really is:

'This consultation seeks your views on how to provide equal access to civil marriage for same-sex couples.

The Government is focused on looking at this specific issue and is not considering wider reforms to marriage. It is therefore not considering any reforms to religious marriage. Neither does this consultation look at opposite-sex civil partnerships.'

Never forget. The State, like the Church, says marriage is just one thing. There's only one institution called marriage. It's one house which we can enter by either of two doors, not two semi-detached ones with their doors side-by-side.

Was the Government Listening?

Most of the 'Executive summary' is fair enough, though 1.4, 1.5, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, and 1.12 feature these absurd phrases 'civil marriage' and 'religious marriage' again and again; it falls apart at 1.7 in more ways than one.

'We have listened to those religious organisations that raised concerns about the redefinition of religious marriage. We are aware that some religious organisations that solemnize marriages through a religious ceremony believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman. That is why this consultation is limited to consideration of civil marriage and makes no proposals to change the way that religious marriages are solemnized. It will not be legally possible under these proposals for religious organisations to solemnize religious marriages for same-sex couples. There will therefore be no obligation or requirement for religious organisations or ministers of religion to do this. It will also not be possible for a same-sex couple to have a civil marriage ceremony on religious premises. Marriages of any sort on religious premises would still only be legally possible between a man and a woman.'

Let's read that backwards, starting with the last line. Marriages on religious premises will be illegal unless they're between a man and a woman. Ah, but the government means weddings, doesn't it? Otherwise a same-sex couple, married in the eyes of the State, would cease to be married once they stepped into a church. Think about it.

Perhaps more importantly, we have that wonderful statement that the consultation is only about civil marriage and not about religious marriage, even though they're the same thing.

And oh, look at the opening statement about the religious organisations that raised concerns about religious marriage. Did they really, Theresa and Lynne, did they really? Or did they raise concerns about marriage? Because I know the Church of England understands full well that in English law, there's no such thing as religious marriage, and I can assure you that the Catholic Church does too. So did they not make themselves clear or did the Government misunderstand? What exactly is going on here?

The Heart of the Matter

I'm tired of crossing out errors, but you'll see them again at 2.1 and 2.2. More interestingly, and in support of what I've been saying, 2.4 and 2.9 say basically the same thing, which is that there's no legal distinction between civil and religious marriage; it recognises a distinction between civil and religious weddings, but marriages are all deemed identical in law. Here is how 2.4 starts:

'There is, however, no legal definition of religious and civil marriage. Marriage is defined according to where it can take place, rather than being either specifically religious or civil.'

Obviously, the second sentence should read 'Weddings are defined according to where they can take place, rather than being either specifically religious or civil', but let's stay with the key fact that there's no legal distinction between religious and civil marriages. When government ministers or advocates of redefinition speak of 'civil marriage' or 'religious marriage', they're playing further Orwellian word games, making things sound neat, tidy, and easy to change. They're trying to make the whole project of redefinition sound reasonable, and playing down the effect it will have.

Marriage is a single phenomenon, the basic building block of British society and something integral to the British legal system, referred to 3,000 times in current law, not least in the official Anglican prayerbook, which is licensed by Parliament. There's no way this is going to be straightforward.

Would the Anglicans be obliged to celebrate Same-Sex Weddings?

2.10 and 2.11 are intended to allay the fears of those who fear Anglican ministers in particular would be obliged to celebrate same-sex weddings. The problem with these two sections is that they both perpetuate the myth that civil and religious marriage are different things. Given the way equality legislation works and how there's no distinction between types of marriage in British law, I think the Anglicans can be forgiven for being rather concerned that the Government's assurances can't be worth whatever paper they're written on; all else aside, would you trust them?

Because let's not kid ourselves: there are people who would happily see Christians criminalised for their views on what marriage is.

And What of Hate Speech?

2.12 is very slippery, and worth quoting in full:

'We are also aware that the doctrines of many faiths hold the view that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and this belief is contained within the teachings of their faith. We are clear that no one should face successful legal action for hate speech or discrimination if they preach their belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.'

Yes, those are my italics. Note the shift from 'can' to 'should'. What would happen if someone -- an Orthodox Jew, say -- were to argue not that marriages should only be between a man and a woman, but that marriages can only be between a man and a woman? What if that same Jew were to argue that the same-sex unions the government called marriages were nothing of the sort?

The rather more vague 2.39 seems to clarify this, saying that there'd be no affect on religious organisations' ability to teach and preach their beliefs on the definition of marriage. If this, rather than 2.12 is to be the guiding principle here, it seems religious bodies are to be given the right to deny the authority of the state, which is nice though an odd thing to legislate for, but I'm still not convinced it works. 

Religious organisations are one thing, but what of individual religious believers? It's worth remembering too that the European Convention on Human Rights recognises the right to manifest beliefs in worship, teaching, practice, and observance. Is the government saying we'll only have freedom in teaching?

This, I think, is where question 14 could come in handy. Might be worth asking for clarification on that one.

Should a Law be Deliberately Vague?
Marriages being essentially about ensuring the children are raised by mothers and fathers, it's always been the case in law that consummation -- the procreative act -- has been an essential part of a marriage; even now, failure to consummate a marriage is grounds for dissolution of a marriage. 2.15 says that same-sex marriages should be identical to marriages as they currently stand in law, which raises a bit of a problem...

2.16 is superbly fluffy in how it dodges the questions of what would constitute same-sex consummation and what would constitute same-sex adultery. Clearly not wanting to go near the issue of what that might mean, the Consultation farms off the questions, saying they'll be for the courts to decide down the line.

This, frankly, is irresponsible, as it means that same-sex couples won't know if their marriages are legally valid unless their sex lives are inspected in court, at which point the court will redefine what counts as consummation. Of course, since any definition of consummation that the courts come up with for same-sex couples will have to be applicable to opposite-sex ones -- all marriages being identical in the eyes of the law -- this will mean that the very notion of consummation will itself have to change for everyone.

Something of a Double Standard

2.17-20 makes it clear that civil partnerships should be maintained for same-sex couples even if same-sex marriage is introduced. On this I think Peter Tatchell has a point; it doesn't make a lot of sense to redefine marriage to allow same-sex couples to marry if we're not also to redefine civil partnerships so they can be entered into by couples of different sexes.

Indeed, a part of me is persuaded that Julie Bindel may be on the right track on this; maybe the State should just abolish marriage as a civil phenomenon, and just open up civil partnerships to everybody. That would, at least, ensure that same-sex couples would become identical in law, rather than equal, with opposite-sex ones, whilst nonetheless preserving marriage as an ideal.

I'm not convinced some of those crying out for what they see as marital equality would run with that, though. It's very easy to change things when you think doing so will have no impact on your own life, but once you've to pay a price...

There is, of course, also the question of whether society should abandon the only institution that exists so that children are raised by their mother and father, leaving it solely to religious bodies to hold forth that ideal. This, for me, is the one serious stumbling block in this idea. Marriage is a good thing, after all. We all gain from it. 

A Glitch in the Proposal

2.23 conflicts with what's previously been said 2.6 as it says that a bit of paperwork will be all that's needed for civil partnerships to be converted to marriages. Given that marriages require public vows, as described at 1.10, and how according to 2.15 the idea of this proposal is to make them identical, with both same-sex civil weddings being conducted in the same way as civil weddings are currently conducted, public vows would surely be needed. 

Which is it? Vows or paperwork? Either?

A Dose of Reality

2.36 is a bit reassuring, as the government acknowledges that not all countries will accept same-sex couples as being married. This could be messy, though it's a particular hoop that Spain, the Netherlands, and a handful of other countries have jumped already.

More interestingly, 2.37 notes that marriage is a devolved issue, so this won't apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland. 

I'm not sure if that means same-sex couples deemed married in England might find that they're not regarded as married in Scotland and Northern Ireland, or if it's simply the Government's way of telling gay couples that they'd best not even think of running off to Gretna Green.

_______________________________________________________

* Or 1,225 characters (approximately 200 words) according to the main text. I'm not sure why they can't even get this right. Were lawyers and proofreaders barred from looking at this ridiculous mess? Pathetic.