Salaam
So the Gay Marriage law has passed its first hurdle easily enough,
http://www.islamicboard.com/world-affairs/134317989-mps-approve-gay-marriage-england-wales.html
damaging though it was to David Camerons Conservative party (More than half voted against), mind you wont bother him too much.
Interesting commentary on this debate by Peter Hitchens
Stalingrad Revisited - some responses to comments
Here are a few responses to contributors on the subject of same-sex marriage. First, I am told by someone
‘ I'm quite looking forward to gay marriage passing and seeing Mr Hitchens reaction when absolutely nothing happens in consequence. Don't worry though, I'm sure he'll find some way to fuel his persecution complex anyway.’
Has this contributor read a word that I wrote? I think not.
Then there’s Mr ‘L’Eplattenier, who notes ineffably
:’ Mr Hitchens does not present us with a single argument against gay marriage. He says compassionate changes in the law would have been sufficient but does not enlighten us on why giving gay people full equality is wrong in his view.’
Again, has he paid any attention? My first 'Stalingrad' article does not offer an argument against homosexual marriage as such, because I believe this argument is a waste of time, a ballet on the head of a pin, while an enormous social change – the slow death of heterosexual marriage - goes on unobserved, unexamined and criticised . That is the whole point of the 3,000 plus words which I wrote , and which he presumably read, or at least allowed his eye to pass over, before commenting.
Mr L’Eplattenier sets himself up as an intelligent contributor, and he can obviously write clear, literate English. Can he read it? He seems to have come here looking for something he did not find, and been disappointed. Thus his pitiable collapse into baseless personal abuse of his opponents at the end:
‘I cannot help but wonder why all these opponents of the new law are presenting us with such feeble (or sometimes non-existent) arguments if it is not because the real reason they are against it is a deeply seated underlying homophobia.’ Wonder away, Mr L, but unless you can prove this charge, your evidence-free ad hominem wonderings will continue to sound like someone who is one or two propositions short of an argument.
In this he is much the same as the persons on Twitter who , on the passage of the Bill last night, speculated on how I would be enraged, in tears etc. If they’d read what I wrote, they’d have known that I was absolutely unmoved.
I am however, interested. And I’ll come on to one or two aspects of interest in a moment.
First I will deal with contributors who feel that I should hurl myself into this doomed battle.
One Mr Noonan, asked :
‘"How do you square your view that homosexual marriage is a minor issue with the fact (reported by a leading legal expert today) that 40,000 Christian school teachers will be compelled by law to promote gay marriage or face the sack? It is simply a misunderstanding to say that changing the meaning of marriage only affects homosexuals. It affects the whole of society.’
Because the restrictions on what teachers and other public servants can say in public and on public premises already exist, and have existed for many years. This law will, I acknowledge, probably move the ratchet a little further on. But in how many schools (state or private) does Mr Noonan imagine it is possible to state in class that marriage is preferable to non-marriage, without facing serious discipline?
The adoption under the Equality Act of ‘Equality and Diversity’ as the official ideology of the country, with the keen support of the trades unions (the only bodies which might be able to defend individuals against persecution on this matter) has placed the seal upon this. Speech on such matters is already unfree, thiough the censorship is enforced by threats to the offender's livelihood, rather than to his physical liberty. For some odd reason, people seem to think this threat isn't serious.
Note also the case of the foster parents Eunice and Owen Johns who were rejected for fostering by Derby council, because they would not agree to tell any child that homosexuality was positively a good thing. Note, they were not required to silence any doubts they had, which would have been bad enough. They were required actively to endorse the new ideology, and the courts supported this decision, right up to the High Court which said on March 1st 2011 that homosexual rights "should take precedence" over the rights of Christians in fostering cases.
Mr Blades chides me thus :
‘Some people just want to fight same sex 'marriage' because it's right to do so regardless of whether it's possible to win. This issue isn't just about politics or conservatism but about standing for Christian morality and in those kinds of battles sometimes it's just necessary to make a public stand no matter what your enemy does or says or thinks. Personally speaking, if you don't want to get involved then I'd rather you just kept quiet instead of shouting from the sidelines and discouraging those of us who are fighting. ‘
What are these ‘sidelines’? On what way am I on them? I expose my reputation, and quite often my person, to opponents all the time. I would be more deeply engaged in national politics, were it possible for me to be. I have many times explained here why it is not possible( see 'Standing for Parliament' in the index if this discussion is new to you).
But apart from that, what if you don’t just *lose* the battle ( which of course the conservatives have done, and will continue to do, on this subject)? For you will lose it. You have lost it. It is over already.
What if you also weaken your own side by allowing yourself to be made to look foolish and prejudiced, for no good reason? What if you waste, time, energy, resources, money prestige and emotion on a doomed cause, which are irrecoverable and cannot be sued elsewhere or in future? Aren’t you then guilty of self-indulgence, making yourself feel good about yourself without serving the cause you claim to embrace?
A friend of mine ( I hope he won’t mind me mentioning this ) recently called me to ask for advice on taking part in a university debate on this subject. My main advice (offered jokingly since I knew the friend wouldn’t pay any attention) was ‘don’t go’. What happened? Why, the opponents of same-sex marriage were treated like pariahs, and voted down derisively, losing so heavily that the Christian, conservative moral cause was left dead on the field of battle. What was the point of this? Does ‘going down fighting’ achieve anything for posterity?
Sometimes maybe. But I don't see how it does in this case. We are obliged to fight intelligently,. as well as courageously. Christ himself was known to sidestep tricky arguments from the Pharisees. Read the exchange which ends with ‘ Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s’.
Oh, and to those who glibly maintain that children are happy when their parents break up, or at least not unhappy, I draw their attention to the terrible, heartbreaking messages sent by Chris Huhne’s son, Peter, to his father, and made public as a result of his court case. I have seldom seen a more frightening and raw example of the damage that adults can do when they break their promises in front of their children.
Mr Colin Johnstone’s summary of my position seems to me to be broadly correct.
I’ll add here one or two points about the Bill which seem to me to be interesting. Some opponents of it now say that the Blair Government, when it implemented Civil Partnerships, claimed that this was not in fact a step towards same-sex marriage. This doesn’t appear to me to be true .
Check the House of Commons Hansard for the 12th October 2004 (this is now gratifyingly easy to do) and read what happens as Jacqui Smith, then Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (note this is now a much more senior position, with a cabinet seat) , introduces the Second Reading of the Civil Partnerships Bill . Mrs Smith is taking interventions from opponents of the Bill:
‘Miss Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con): The Minister has several times used the word "equality". Will she be very specific? Is the equality that she seeks that whereby a homosexual relationship based on commitment is treated in future in exactly the same way as marriage in law?
Jacqui Smith: If the right hon. Lady looks at the Bill, she will see that, in the vast majority of cases, it is the Government's intention that those people who enter into a civil partnership will receive the same rights and take on the same responsibilities as those that we expect of those who enter into civil marriage.
Mr. Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con): It would surely be much fairer to Members on both sides of House if the Government came clean and announced that they support gay marriage. Why will they not do so?
Jacqui Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman heard me make the important point that civil partnerships under the Bill mirror in many ways the requirements, rights and responsibilities that run alongside civil marriage. I recognise that hon. Members on both sides of the House understand and feel very strongly about specific religious connotations of marriage. The Government are taking a secular approach to resolve the specific problems of same-sex couples. As others have said, that is the appropriate and modern way for the 21st century.’
Pretty clear, I think(Miss Widdecombe later thanks her for her clarity). And of course those who are now in Civil Partnerships will be able to convert them (presumably for a small fee) into marriages once the Act is law, clear evidence that there is no significant difference between the two.
This is not, in fact, a major change in law, only in terminology and so in the culture wars over language and its permissible use. Even then, as I point out above, it is not that significant, as the Equality Act 2010 pretty much expunged what was left of our former Protestant Christian system (this Act was based on the EU’s four major equal Treatment Directives, which, as sometimes needs to be pointed out, were directives, not suggestions).
The legislation’s principal purpose is to isolate and rout the remnants of the Tory Party’s moral conservative wing, so that, after the Tories lose the next election, which they are bound to do, the defeat will be blamed on their obduracy in face of Mr Cameron’s enlightened heroism. They will then be howled down, Michael Gove or Boris Johnson (bafflingly seen as a figure of hope by so many conservatives) will take up the mantle of David Cameron, and the transformation of the Tory Party into a sky blue pink twin of New Labour can be completed. As usual, the political reporters of the British media, who aren’t interested in politics and so don’t understand it, are quite unable to grasp what is actually going on.
http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2013/02/stalingrad-revisited-some-responses-to-comments.html
