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| Gay marriage is a detox symbol for Cameron, but is it worth the trouble? | Gay marriage is a detox symbol for Cameron, but is it worth the trouble? |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| A wise Labour veteran who has been close to the heart of the party's affairs for decades derided my suggestion early on Monday that Ed Miliband would be wise to rescue David Cameron's gay marriage bill from his own wreckers, as he did later in the day. Why? Because Labour supports the measure and to vote otherwise would be mere tactics. Impatient voters nowadays do not like mere party tactics. | A wise Labour veteran who has been close to the heart of the party's affairs for decades derided my suggestion early on Monday that Ed Miliband would be wise to rescue David Cameron's gay marriage bill from his own wreckers, as he did later in the day. Why? Because Labour supports the measure and to vote otherwise would be mere tactics. Impatient voters nowadays do not like mere party tactics. |
| "I believe the job of the opposition is to oppose. Any opportunity to humiliate Cameron's government and help bring it down should be taken," countered my strongly libertarian friend. Had we taken it further I might have asked him (he knows a lot about these things) how the jittery financial markets might take the collapse of the current coalition and the prospect of another one or a highly uncertain general election. | "I believe the job of the opposition is to oppose. Any opportunity to humiliate Cameron's government and help bring it down should be taken," countered my strongly libertarian friend. Had we taken it further I might have asked him (he knows a lot about these things) how the jittery financial markets might take the collapse of the current coalition and the prospect of another one or a highly uncertain general election. |
| Instead we agreed that Cameron had been showing hopeless political leadership in countenancing such a divisive vote for his MPs and their activists over a measure for which there is no evidence of great demand, even among gay men, lesbians and transsexuals, according to some polls. Earlier reforms, notably civil partnerships, seem to have levelled the proverbial playing field, more or less. | Instead we agreed that Cameron had been showing hopeless political leadership in countenancing such a divisive vote for his MPs and their activists over a measure for which there is no evidence of great demand, even among gay men, lesbians and transsexuals, according to some polls. Earlier reforms, notably civil partnerships, seem to have levelled the proverbial playing field, more or less. |
| Alas, the vote has acquired symbolic power for Cameron, who has been trying to "detox" the Thatcher-toxified Tory party in exceptionally difficult times. He is torn between his Lib Dem coalition partners, who support that project, and his activist base – traditionalist and elderly, who loved Lady T and think Norman Tebbit has the answer to electoral success. He doesn't, though in fairness he was party chairman the last time the Tories won a working majority (1987). | |
| So gay marriage has become a detox symbol for Dave, the latest in a long line of hugged hoodies and hugged huskies, the Cameroons' Clause IV moment when he defies his party base as Tony Blair relished doing (too much) to impress the voters. Duh? Yes. Unfortunately it has come to a head just as the fatuous Euro-battle did, allowing more ingenious critics to link the two issues: those Europeans are making us do it. | So gay marriage has become a detox symbol for Dave, the latest in a long line of hugged hoodies and hugged huskies, the Cameroons' Clause IV moment when he defies his party base as Tony Blair relished doing (too much) to impress the voters. Duh? Yes. Unfortunately it has come to a head just as the fatuous Euro-battle did, allowing more ingenious critics to link the two issues: those Europeans are making us do it. |
| The parliamentary website has a pretty decent summary of the legislative position, including Monday's debate. There is much sincerity to be found among partisans in both camps, one side likening the gay rights struggle to the battle to abolish slavery (still plenty to do in that campaign), the other complaining about the pushy behaviour of the "aggressive homosexual community". | The parliamentary website has a pretty decent summary of the legislative position, including Monday's debate. There is much sincerity to be found among partisans in both camps, one side likening the gay rights struggle to the battle to abolish slavery (still plenty to do in that campaign), the other complaining about the pushy behaviour of the "aggressive homosexual community". |
| I don't have much trouble seeing both points of view, even the notion that one or two gay rights lobbies adopt the same kind of aggressive tactics that militants do in most campaigns. Milder colleagues don't want to be disloyal and disown them, but sometimes wish they'd shut up. That's human nature. | I don't have much trouble seeing both points of view, even the notion that one or two gay rights lobbies adopt the same kind of aggressive tactics that militants do in most campaigns. Milder colleagues don't want to be disloyal and disown them, but sometimes wish they'd shut up. That's human nature. |
| The question for practical politics is what to do about it. I was lucky enough to be in New Zealand when the gay marriage row last erupted on to the front pages in January. No escape for the wicked. The same debate was going on there – later carried amid cheers and singing of Maori love songs in the Kiwi parliament – as it has been in Australia, the US and even in France, where gay marriage is one of the few things the hapless presidency of François Hollande has managed to achieve. | |
| Every country's history and culture, secular and religious, is different. But the battle lines are similar in them all. Social conservatives, not all on the political right, say civil partnerships gave gay people what they wanted at the time, so that Labour ministers who enacted the law (Patricia Scotland was quite explicit in the Lords debate) assured waverers that this would be it. No coming back for more, they said. | |
| Of course, they always say that. They said it when Scotland got its devolved parliament (they may be right too) and when Britain voted yes to Europe by a margin of 2-1 in the 1975 referendum. Life and attitudes change. As the Guardian's editorial remarks, UK public opinion is now supportive of the right to gay marriage – not just civil partnership, but marriage in the ancient sense of the word – "a principled happiness-creating reform", the paper calls it. | Of course, they always say that. They said it when Scotland got its devolved parliament (they may be right too) and when Britain voted yes to Europe by a margin of 2-1 in the 1975 referendum. Life and attitudes change. As the Guardian's editorial remarks, UK public opinion is now supportive of the right to gay marriage – not just civil partnership, but marriage in the ancient sense of the word – "a principled happiness-creating reform", the paper calls it. |
| So far so good. But public opinion can be pretty shallow, pretty volatile, often rooted in nothing deeper than whatever's being reported in the Daily Beast this week: thin soil. That's why polls to pick the greatest film, actor, footballer etc usually settle for a more recent choice than a great classic from the past. Ditto policy options in an age when formal ideologies of left and right are viewed with widespread suspicion – not by everyone, the jihadis are still out there – and pragmatic solutions, technocratic and evidence-based, are generally favoured. | So far so good. But public opinion can be pretty shallow, pretty volatile, often rooted in nothing deeper than whatever's being reported in the Daily Beast this week: thin soil. That's why polls to pick the greatest film, actor, footballer etc usually settle for a more recent choice than a great classic from the past. Ditto policy options in an age when formal ideologies of left and right are viewed with widespread suspicion – not by everyone, the jihadis are still out there – and pragmatic solutions, technocratic and evidence-based, are generally favoured. |
| So, whatever opinion polls tell us, my hunch is that more unhappiness than happiness may be created by the same-sex couples bill if it passes both houses. Why, when plenty welcome it as an act of belated equality while large swaths of public opinion isn't much worried by marriage, church or civil, either way because it doesn't bother to get married in a socially permissive era? | So, whatever opinion polls tell us, my hunch is that more unhappiness than happiness may be created by the same-sex couples bill if it passes both houses. Why, when plenty welcome it as an act of belated equality while large swaths of public opinion isn't much worried by marriage, church or civil, either way because it doesn't bother to get married in a socially permissive era? |
| This is not the place to discuss the consequences of this trend, except to note there are consequences. Thus sex and gender stories dominate most of Tuesday's home news pages in the relatively unsensational Times: pages 1, 4, 5, 7 to 9, 13 (the police raid on Nigel Evans MP's office) and 17, a court report of a domestic murder arising from infidelity. | This is not the place to discuss the consequences of this trend, except to note there are consequences. Thus sex and gender stories dominate most of Tuesday's home news pages in the relatively unsensational Times: pages 1, 4, 5, 7 to 9, 13 (the police raid on Nigel Evans MP's office) and 17, a court report of a domestic murder arising from infidelity. |
| But other swaths of public opinion, they may even be small swaths, care a great deal. They are the grannies protesting – here and abroad – with their "Marriage = Man + Woman" placards, the clergymen, rabbis and imams who protest against what they regard as the tainting of the core institution of civil society down the ages, the family that consists of parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, cousins, pets. It is the great bastion against the intrusive power of the state or corporations. | But other swaths of public opinion, they may even be small swaths, care a great deal. They are the grannies protesting – here and abroad – with their "Marriage = Man + Woman" placards, the clergymen, rabbis and imams who protest against what they regard as the tainting of the core institution of civil society down the ages, the family that consists of parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, cousins, pets. It is the great bastion against the intrusive power of the state or corporations. |
| It may be that social progress, allied with dazzling medical technology and psychological insight, is changing the family for the better into something looser, more fluid, less hierarchical, one into which the gay family can fit happily with mutual adaption on both sides. I hope so, because we've already got there, haven't we? That's the new reality in 2013, with or without the bill. | It may be that social progress, allied with dazzling medical technology and psychological insight, is changing the family for the better into something looser, more fluid, less hierarchical, one into which the gay family can fit happily with mutual adaption on both sides. I hope so, because we've already got there, haven't we? That's the new reality in 2013, with or without the bill. |
| There again, great claims made for progress sometimes fall sort of their ambitions. Even Facebook is no longer looking as great a step forward as it did five years ago. Surprise! By that test the conservatives are entitled to be sceptical when asked to choose between their long-established, much-loved religious institution and what they see as transient fashion, unpleasant though some of their fulminations may be. | There again, great claims made for progress sometimes fall sort of their ambitions. Even Facebook is no longer looking as great a step forward as it did five years ago. Surprise! By that test the conservatives are entitled to be sceptical when asked to choose between their long-established, much-loved religious institution and what they see as transient fashion, unpleasant though some of their fulminations may be. |
| They're like the countryside lobby, whose hunting faction cares more about their sport than all but the most swivel-eyed of its critics dislike it. They won't forget in a hurry either. If Cameron is brought tumbling down over grievances like this one – along with misjudgments over Europe and all the rest – we may look back in astonishment as sterling tumbles and interest rates soar for straight and gay people alike. | They're like the countryside lobby, whose hunting faction cares more about their sport than all but the most swivel-eyed of its critics dislike it. They won't forget in a hurry either. If Cameron is brought tumbling down over grievances like this one – along with misjudgments over Europe and all the rest – we may look back in astonishment as sterling tumbles and interest rates soar for straight and gay people alike. |
| In a climate of deepening social division and ungovernability, we may ask: how did we get into this mess? Did we do it for this? |