The story of the summer, or at least the fortnight, has broken and the nation rejoices: the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are the proud parents of a baby boy. The breaking of tension over the baby’s sex and its actual birth has broken into universal celebrations that demonstrate as much relief as Monday night’s dramatic storms that did away with the heatwave.
One who definitely took advantage of the concentration on the royal progeny to quietly pass a key and controversial act was Prime Minister David Cameron, who saw the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill pass into law on July 17, rubber-stamped by the Queen. The decision to push the bill through when attention was elsewhere and with little fanfare, despite its momentous impact, the day before parliament took its summer recess, says a lot about how confident the Prime Minister feels about his Conservative Party at the moment.
Ever since the Same Sex Couple (SSM) Bill was first mentioned, it has courted controversy, particularly with three key groups: the Conservative Party; the religious establishment; and social coalitions not necessarily linked to either. Conservatives cried foul about the bill from an early stage, pointing to the fact that it was not in the Conservative Manifesto in the run-up to the 2010 election and describing the public consultation launched in March 2012 as an authoritarian bypassing of political tradition.
Matters came to a head when the Bill was debated in the House of Commons on May 20, 2013, and backbenchers threatened to undermine Cameron en masse, with Sir Gerald Howarth, MP for Aldershot, infamously decrying the advance of ‘the aggressive homosexual community.’
The Prime Minister’s insistence on pushing the bill through despite the resistance of his party has been described by some sectors of the party as born out of an excessive desire to portray back-benchers as outdated and anti-gay rights.
Whether that was a guiding principle behind the bill, and it seems a bit desperate if it was, certain groups have expressed concerns that the Conservative Party is haemorrhaging voters to Nigel Farrage and the UK Independence Party.
‘Former Conservative voters often list same-sex marriage as one of the reasons for switching their vote to UKIP,’ said Councillor Ben Harris-Quinney, member of Conservative thinktank The Bow Group, in an interview with the BBC in May.
At the same time, the Secretary for Defence, Philip Hammond, publicly stated his opposition to spending large amounts of parliamentary time debating the issue, stating that ‘we did not need to upset vast numbers of people in order to do this.’
The other group of people the new Act has offended is those who support marriage as a union between men and women. This is hardly a surprise; opposition to single-sex marriage has existed in all countries where similar legislation has been debated and passed.
However, representatives of the religious establishment, most noticeably the Church of England and the Catholic Church, have expressed dismay that the legislation in its current form has fudged the issue, turning marriage into an issue of equality rather than partnership.
Again, this may seem a moot point — but it isn’t. The CofE and other religious bodies in the UK have often expressed their support for civil partnerships, which recognize the union between same sex couples and infers them the legal rights of a marriage. The same institutions balk at the idea that marriage needs to be brought into it at all, accusing the government of state intervention in an institution.
In its determination to ensure equality, the government has tried to make certain that religious institutions are not forced into performing single-sex marriages in places of worship, allowing said places the freedom to opt out. By allowing some churches not to hold these marriages but stating that these can be held elsewhere, this creates two versions of marriage, as stated by Lord George Carey of Clifton, former Archbishop of Canterbury, in a collection of essays on the subject by think tank Civitas.
‘Where there was once just one view of marriage, whether church or civil, there will now be two. This introduces permanent division and dispute to marriage and drives a wedge into a previously united institution,’ states Lord Carey in his essay. ‘Extending marriage to include same-sex couples will not deliver greater social endorsements but rather it will imperil traditional marriage by a changed definition of the institution.’
This is the intellectual religious opposition. Of course, there are many who express something closer to anger that such an ancient institution is being defiled — and who aren’t explicitly connected with the church. Numerous groups have emerged, including the Coalition for Marriage and the less subtly titled Gay Marriage, No Thanks. The latter group took out a full page advert in The Times on June 17th expressing its opposition to the bill in ten reasons, while the Coalition for Marriage has a petition in defence of the institution, with just under 700,000 signed up so far.
‘From our polls, we’ve found 70 per cent of people oppose the redefinition of marriage. This is an undemocratic move that wasn’t in any party manifestos, which has ignored recommended amendments and legal advice,’ said a spokesman for Coalition for Marriage to the Buenos Aires Herald. ‘This was a rushed strategy, which will have a negative impact and prejudice those religious institutions and people who support marriage.’
In reality, this sort of opposition exists everywhere where the issue is debated; current Pope Francis was equally vocal against the measure when it was passed by the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration in Argentina in 2010. However, it is the manner of the passing of the law here that has also dismayed equality supporters.
Unlike France, where same-sex marriage legislation was recently passed to great celebration, Cameron and his government appear to have hastily thrown together a law that alienates the Conservative Party and a certain section of their voters, forced it through parliament despite vociferous condemnation by the Church and politicians, and allowed it to be passed the day before Parliament went on holiday for the summer.
At the same time, the law has created a double institution of marriage. For legislation that is allegedly aimed at increasing equality, this doesn’t sound too much like equal treatment, and a lot more like a play from a leader desperate for support.
First published in The Buenos Aires Herald on July 24, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment