Gay Marriage

Gay marriage has certainly been in the headlines recently with Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, joining a coalition of Christian groups to oppose David Cameron's plans to introduce same-sex marriage by 2015.

Lord Carey has said "This matter is so serious and so important for our nation – we cannot allow this act of cultural and theological vandalism to happen." 

The first thing to say in this debate is that I'm amazed how many straight people assume that gays have the right to marry in this country.  They don't.  They never have had.  Civil partnership was introduced under Tony Blair in 2004.  It accords an almost identical set of rights as marriage to same sex partners who wish to enter into one.  There are a few very minor differences to marriage: civil partners cannot enter a legally binding union in a church and then there's the name.  This is a CP, not a marriage.

What's All The Fuss About Then?

Well in many respects the battle has been won.  Civil Partnerships were passed with remarkably little debate in 2004.  The vast bulk of other European countries (such as France and Germany) also have same-sex civil unions, but there are differences that may mean a same-sex couple doesn't get the same tax treatment as a married couple, or can't adopt etc.  That is not the case in the UK: the rights are identical.  Huzzah.

However, there are two important little points to be made.  The first is a practical one.  When you tick the "Marital Status" box on an application, PR, bank or mortgage form, you do not tick "Married" you tick "Civil Partnered".  Instantly you are disclosing your sexuality to whoever reads the form.  I regard that as a completely irrelevant and intrusive disclosure of fact about someone's private life that, reflecting the prejudices that still exist in Britain in 2012, might lead to discrimination.

Get ready to reveal your sexuality when you reach 3

The second is a rather more fundamental point.  Up until 1967 many States in the USA prevented inter-racial marriages.  The Supreme Court struck this down in the landmark civil rights case Loving v Virginia.  Whites and Blacks were able to marry one another on absolutely equal terms as uni-racial couples.  They had not previously been able to.  Now, imagine instead of this landmark ruling, a separate institution had been created that accorded exactly the same rights as marriage but it had been called "inter-racial partnerships".  What would the fuss have been about?  A black/white mixed couple would have got the same rights.  It's just a different name!  Okay they have to tick a different box on a form, but so what?

Hopefully you get the point.  This is about equality.  As long as society is saying that same-sex couples do not deserve to have their unions accepted on the same terms as straight couples, it is making a distinction between the two unions.  It is the State saying the two institutions are not equal.  It is that simple.

But Marriage is a Traditional Institution!

The "tradition" argument is used time and time again to try to stop things from changing.  There have been many traditions in this country.  Until 1833 Slavery was permitted in the British Empire.  It was tradition and had been the case for ever such a long time.  Until 1882 married women could not own property.  Until 1918 only men could vote in parliamentary elections.  Until 1967 gay sex between consenting adults was punishable with prison.  I could go on and on....  The point is that society changes, develops and moves on.

Nothing would ever change if the argument "it has always been this way" is applied: it is a silly non-argument.  There can of course be very sound reasons not to change something, but simply to say "it's tradition and therefore by definition must not change" is wholly unconvincing.

It is also quite interesting to consider exactly what the tradition of marriage is in history and around the world.   Hinduism and Buddhism for centuries permitted marriages between one man and multiple women.   Judaism allowed them until 1000AD: under the Sephardic tradition this continued longer.  Only one of the 22 Islamic Arab League countries prohibits them today.  It is actually public policy under English private international law broadly to uphold polygamous marriages.

Queen Isabella: Married (13) to King John (33)

European Christian society permitted marriage with pre- or barely pubescent children for centuries for royals and nobles.  The Old Testament details the incestuous marriage of Abraham with his sister Sarah, and that of Lot and his daughters.  Marriage between first cousins was par for the course throughout Europe for centuries and is still permitted in many US States.  Same-sex marriage itself existed as a legal institution in Ancient Rome and was around before the first straight Christian couple wed.  It was only prohibited in Ancient Rome in 342 AD by a clause in the Theodosian Code.  It was practised in China throughout the Ming Period.  I've already touched on marriage until quite recently as being defined as only between people of the same race in some places.  The same applies to defining it only to people of the same religion, which applies today in many societies.

If you are surprised or indeed shocked by some of these examples you are proving the point.  The goal posts of the institution of marriage have changed repeatedly through the centuries, and in all likelihood will continue to do so.  This is how society works: things change to reflect the views and norms of the people at the time.  People once accepted these norms: they do not now.  Homophobic hatred, promoted by the Church, was the norm: it now no longer is.  Society has changed and so will the goalposts of marriage.

What Is Marriage Then?

Like it or not, those trying to "defend traditional marriage", you cannot simplify the argument to the institution always having been a fixed unbending concept of the union of one adult man and one non-related adult woman.  Even today marriage is still not a homogenous concept around the world.  It does not belong to one faith and has not originated from one single faith either.  

Let's also be absolutely clear, Lord Carey, this is not a Christian institution that belongs to bishops to decide on: it belongs to humanity, to us, to society, to people around the world.  It always has done.

What is then the core element that defines marriage, if it is not what the "traditionalists" say?  In my view it is very simply the desire to declare a public bond about your union.  The State allowing a same-sex couple to marry is not about creating a new institution (click here for that rather off the point argument).  It is about extending this long-standing human institution to reflect a truly massive change in how society relates to same-sex unions today.  The very point here is that couples will not say "I'm same-sex married" (as they would if it were a new institution, like CPs) - they will simply say "I'm married".  It is the same institution that has existed for thousands of years - marriage - being extended to a group who could not previously marry.

Even if it were about creating a new institution (the logic of which I refute) that is also irrelevant.  Was allowing women to vote creating a new thing, or extending an old thing?  Actually I doubt too many women went to the poll box saying "I'm going to cast my woman's vote" but who cares: the argument is not relevant to the argument about granting equality regarding men and women being allowed to vote.  Nor is it here.

It's All About Children

It is true that marriage often provides a framework for raising children, but it cannot be argued that marriage only exists to bring up children.  There have been millions of childless marriages.  Lots of children have been appallingly and miserably brought up within the context of marriage; equally children have been successfully raised in all sorts of different situations not involving marriage.  The survival of humanity does not depend on a fixed view of marriage that has in fact varied through history.  

If marriage is only about children, why should society permit infertile couples, those who do not want children, or post-menopausal women to marry?  If permitting them to marry does not weaken the institution of marriage on a macro level, I fail to see how allowing a likely total of 75,000 same sex marriages in this country would do so.

"An Act of Cultural Vandalism"

Lord Carey claims this is an issue "so serious and so important for our nation".  He said in his recent article in the Daily Mail that the Government has "no right to change marriage" and that "marriage will only remain the bedrock of a society if it is between a man and a woman."  He continues that marriage is the "glue that holds this country together" and somberly adds that if the plans go ahead this will be "one of the greatest political power grabs in history."  His article gives us the warning that "such communions would jeopardise the stability of our country."

How is that for hyperbole?  One third of the population has not just been wiped out by the Black Death.  Opposing forces are not meeting in battle during the bloody Civil War.  In a true political power grab, the King has not just broken from Rome, nor has Parliament just signed the death warrant of the Monarch.  The workers are not on General Strike.  This is not June 1940: hundreds of thousands of Nazis are not about to invade.  Yet this change of name from "civil partnership" to "marriage" jeopardises the stability of our great nation.  Stop and think about this claim for a moment.

Note the caption on the Mail photo, taken directly from his article.  Two gay women, who remember can already enter into a civil partnership, dress however they wish, and believe it or not are already allowed to kiss in public, are a "threat" to the stability of our nation... all because the name of their partnership might be changed to "marriage" by means of a democratically voted on, perfectly legal, Act of Parliament.  What an actual drama queen that man is. 

In 2001 The Netherlands became the first nation in the world in modern times to extend marriage to same-sex couples.  Society immediately collapsed.  (Oh, sorry, no it didn't actually).  Next came Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland and Argentina.  None of them is a perfect society: such a thing does not exist.  However many are much further up the list than the UK in terms the UN Human Development Index (Norway is at the very top).

I should love to hear George Carey for one moment define how "traditional marriage" in these countries has been undermined by the extension of marriage to same sex couples.  I would like him to explain exactly what the wider damage to these countries is and how their societies have been destabilised in such a fundamental way.   Cultural vandalism is a phenomenally strong term to use.  I would like him to explain what it means in this context.

I want to know exactly what the harm is to the institution of marriage in allowing same sex couples to call their civil partnerships marriage.  I have yet to hear one cogent argument that can prove any harm, or likelihood of harm.  If your heterosexual marriage is somehow weakened by a gay couple marrying, you have the problem with your relationship.  There is no cost to this name change: the financial rights accorded by marriage are available already to civil partnerships.  

To be absolutely clear: we are talking about the institution of civil marriage here.  500 years after Henry VIII shifted the goalposts for marriage by allowing divorce, the Catholic Church is still not forced to marry divorced couples: they can make their own rules.  There is no suggestion that churches would be forced to open their doors to same-sex partners if it conflicted with their own beliefs (it doesn't, of course with all faiths: see Reform Judaism, the Lutheran Church of Sweden, the Mennonite Church of the Netherlands, Metropolitan Community Churches, Unitarian Universalists etc. etc.).  If you're a divorced Catholic and your church won't accept you, come to a registry office.  The law of this country will allow your union (as long as you're heterosexual, of course.)

Further, as Ben Summerskill put it "If you don't like same sex marriage, don't marry someone of the same sex."  Straight people are not somehow being converted here.  No-one is forcing gay people to enter into these unions: it is simply giving gay people the same right as straight people to make that choice or not.

 

Sweden: a morally bankrupt nation on verge of collapse

One thing that the introduction of same-sex marriages in these countries has of course already done is to destroy the "tradition" argument: an 20 year old alive in Holland has spent more than half his or her life with the tradition of same-sex marriage around them.  Many of these countries are our close neighbours: gay marriage is a reality all around us.  Marriage has been redefined once more.  If history is anything to go by, it won't be the last time.

Mimicking a Straight Institution

There are plenty of individual gays who reject the idea of marriage as a failed example that they would not want to copy.  I understand where they are coming from.  As a woman friend on Twitter put it to me "Heterosexuals have undermined the institution of marriage far better than gays ever could".  Why would anyone want to copy it?

I do not have a partner, I do not currently want or expect to get married to another man.  I do want to extend this basic element of equality, though, to those who men and women who do.  As long as kids use the term "gay" as an insult in school playgrounds, as long as gay teenagers self-harm because of their sexuality, as long as society sees homosexuality as something wrong, different, or not equal to heterosexuality, I will take this position.

Why should they be "separate, but equal"? What's wrong with equal?

To go back to my fictional example of "inter-racial partnerships" you can hopefully see why it is simply not good enough to have "marriage" for one group and separately to have "civil partnerships" for another.  It is State defined discrimination and it is wrong.  To equalise the two institutions would send out a huge message.  Names matter; signals matter.  This is a small, but symbolically highly important step on the path to equality.   When kids grow up seeing same-sex people and couples on equal terms society will change.  It is already happening, thank God - despite the best efforts of particular elements within society for decades now to prevent it.

Conclusion

I used to feel quite relaxed about this subject: kinda "meh".  The more I think about it, and the more I see the hysterical utterances of the likes of Lord Carey, as expressed in the Mail and Telegraph, the more irritated I become.  We live in a largely secular country.  The definition of marriage does not belong to a minority group (traditionalist Anglican or Roman Catholic churchgoers and their leaders).

Once again, marriage does not derive from and belong to the Christian Bible, it is not a fixed concept, and it belongs to society to define.  Lord Carey is being perverse when he attacks David Cameron and says law-makers have no right to extend the institution.  It in fact very much belongs to us, society, and not to the bishops.  It is our elected representatives that make laws on our behalf in Britain.  All I can see is spite and prejudice coming from anyone seeking to deny this change.  I have yet to see a cogent argument against it not based on "it's tradition" and "I don't want to give this to you".

A sign of how far our society has changed is the fact that the leader of the Conservative Party is apparently pushing for this harmless, just, and simple change.  I really hope that the pressure of these mean-spirited, hysterical, reactionary groups does not lead him to waiver in this.