Gay Marriage (my tuppence worth!)

It is 10 weeks today until our civil partnership, so we’re very much getting into the detail of planning. Quite a lot of things to do, of course, and plans to make. However, by and large the big details of the day are done.

The day itself is of course not our wedding day. Civil partnerships in the UK are specifically and legally separate but (almost, but not quite) equal.

However, there are plans afoot by the Government to bring in equal marriage – not gay marriage, which would be separate by fully equal – but instead extending existing marriage rights to gay couples.  A decision that Sir Humphrey Appleby might describe as ‘courageous’, nevertheless a few weeks ago the proposal passed the first stage of the legislative process in the House of Commons.

The legislation had a tough ride, and the debate was marred perhaps by some rather pompous and insensitive remarks. Among the usual  “what next? Siamese twins marrying narwhales?” brigade who are so far off the map (a) their minds cannot be changed and (b) they are Mostly Harmless in that most people recognise they are frankly barking, there were some rather more pernicious naysayers.

One argument ran that this change would force people like teachers to act against their conscience and compel them to treat gay relationships as equal when they don’t believe this is so.

Well, the previous Conservative government had no difficulty enacting charming legislation forbidding teachers discussing homosexuality in positive terms (section 28 which banned  the “teaching in any [state funded] school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”)

Another, frequently made, argument was that extending marriage to gay people devalues straight marriage and anyway we have civil partnerships and those are the same.

To me this is like saying Rosa Parks was wrong on 1 December 1955 to refuse to give up her bus seat to a white man, as she was required to by law. After all, she was still on the same bus and still heading the same place, at the same speed as white people and in almost, but not quite, the same comfort. Now, instead, all this civil-rights nonsense has devalued bus travel for white men!

It’s not a very good argument, and vanishingly few could rationally support it. But even if they did, the argument might be said to be missing the point.

And let us not forget that ‘gay marriage’ has been legalised in countries on every continent (if we include Nepal where the Supreme Court has ruled it must be enshrined in the new constitution). There does not appear to have been a collapse in morality and family life in any of those places. Nothing that has rocked them like the recent scandals to affect a certain Church currently searching for a new leader…

But I think it is the third, broad argument – one made of many strands - that demonstrates the blindness some people have when it comes to gay rights and tells us how LGBT people are still not quite seen as having the same validity as straight people. For all the arguments around religious freedom; the value of marriage; the future of children – how can anyone who values marriage as the bedrock of society or argues in favour of personal freedom be logically against everyone having the freedom to enjoy it?

The future of the legislation is uncertain but I think it is unlikely to be completely derailed. The politics around it will become increasingly toxic, I fear. The largest party split its vote 42% for and 46% against. If the Government’s own party can’t muster a majority either for or against its own policy… well, there may be trouble ahead.

But we shall persevere.

Controversy

Now gentle reader it is not often that the Cheerful Fairy wades into the murk of politics. Very much an armchair fairy about that sort of thing. Usually.

Over the last few months Stonewall has been running ads on the side of Strumpetville’s shiney red buses “some people are gay: get over it!”. A very simple and effective message, and part of a campaign that is complemented with posters and leaflets and T-shirts etc.

But that is of course never the end of it. A counter campaign has been formulated: “not gay, ex gay, post gay and proud. Get over it!”. These were also due to be plastered on our shiny buses, right up until yesterday the Mayor had the campaign stopped.

Ensue much hullabaloo and stroking of beards, oh yes indeed.

A group called the Core Issues Trust, supported by Anglican Mainstream, The largely unsought battle between religious faith and sexual orientation continues apace, it appears.

So what’s the issue? Well, the nominal reason is the suggestion the ad promotes gay cures. We know, I think, that such ‘cures’ are utter rubbish, and if anything actively cause a lot of harm.

Does the advertisement itself claim to offer, or support, “gay cures”? No, not really. But I think the man in the street would reasonably infer that such a thing were possible, or at least that sexual orientation is mutable. And we cannot ignore both Core Issues trust and Anglican Mainstream focus on offering gay cures. Certainly the advertisement goes further than arguing, as this article in the Daily Mail suggests, that homosexuality as an aberration and as such we gayers need to “get over” our 'agenda'.

The Advertising Standards Authority, the regulator of advertisements in the UK, has come in for much criticism for not banning the ads itself. But should it? I used to work for the ASA and grapple with issues such as these. It is implausible to ban advertisements because you disagree with their content or message in principle; but on the other hand you can be so offensive that in limited instances freedom of speech can, and should, be restricted.

The ASA cannot arbitrate on this before an advertisement is run. Such a thing is censorship. If after seeing an advertisement someone has grounds for complaint, that complaint should be fully considered and a decision made in favour of one party or  the other. That is what regulators do; they are in the business of disappointing people. Not protecting them, on the grounds of some moral code nobody agreed, from things they might not like.

The timing of the advertisement, and the decision to ban it, can also not be ignored. The Mayor is running for re-election on 3 May, and up to now the campaign has been a mud-slinging vileathon with no debate about real issues. Of the party (right of centre) that is the main partner in the unpopular national coalition government, and one that is consistently considered to be sleazy and nasty, and in an incredibly diverse and largely left leaning city… I strongly suspect he’ll have swung some of those swing votes. Being sued by people who are to me clearly a hate group (although I’m sure they sincerely don’t see themselves as such, take out the words gay or homosexual in what they write and replace them with black of Jewish and see how it reads then) won’t hurt either, methinks.

Cynical? Perhaps. But should then the advert be run? Well, freedom of speech is a right for those who understand, as all sane adult men and women do, their responsibilities. We must think before we speak, and sometimes consider whether we need to speak at all. So it can’t always be absolute.

If I were Mayor of Strumpetville – or better still, king and tyrant – then I would let the advert run, but publicly and loudly voice my disagreement with its message and my view of those behind it. I would use it as a reason to keep equality, rights (and obligations), tackling hatred, and proper education about sexual health sand orientation high on the list of social priorities

In the meantime we have to accept that there are those who disagree with, or simply hate, homosexuality, and this must be tackled through open and honest debate. It creates climate of fear that stops people freely living their lives. Those, like the Anglican Mainstream or the Daily Mail, who clearly have an agenda all their own that is closer to something far more right wing and pernicious than sleaziness or nastiness must not be driven underground or simply banned. They have to be shown to be wrong.