Last week I mentioned that I wanted to comment on Maggie Gallagher’s piece on the marriage debate for it angered me greatly when I read it (of course reading this ultra-conservative approach will always anger me so I don’t know why I do it). Of course, there’s a whole blog related to the topic at marriagedebate.com.

Apparently, losing the marriage argument ‘means losing the idea that children need mothers and fathers’. How? Why does the fact that you allow same-sex couples to marry suddenly mean heterosexual couples won’t form unions and families (married or not) and somehow deprive children of their parents?

And how do you get to “The consequences of our current retreat from marriage are not a flourishing libertarian social order, but a gigantic expansion of state power and a vast increase in social disorder and human suffering”?

There is a huge misunderstanding here. Why is it always assumed that, by allowing same-sex couples to form recognised partnerships, everybody else will stop? It’s not as if all the straight people in the world are suddenly going to decide not to marry because another group of people can. Why would they? If Maggie’s quoted ‘marriage recovery’ exists, then it is from a change in the way people relate to each other and not because gay couples can not marry. It’s not a choice of one or the other for gay couples. They will not form heterosexual marriages because they can’t have a legally binding partnership of their own. They will simply continue to suffer.

I believe I have a reasonably wide circle of friends both gay and straight. Of all the gay couples I know many have been together for a very long time. By allowing those couples to marry we do not stop children from having mothers and fathers nor suddenly see an expansion of state power.

So, why are traditional marriage supporters so afraid?

On this day…

What does the world think of homosexuality then? It’s a crazy mixed-up place. Earlier this week, we had a sitting Conservative MP tell the world that he is gay. This, on top of the fact that the Tories also seem to be supporting the bill on gay marriage[previous comments on this subject]. It’s about time the Conservatives accepted that there are gay men and women in their rank and file. It’s just a shame it’s taken so long for one of them to publicly stand up and say so (mind you, it’s also a shame they have to say so). Still, Hugo Young makes the most sense on the subject. Then we have a TV programme playing the camp-card for comedy – I know this is going to be unpleasant (Corrie’s Les Battersby to claim he’s gay). Lots of gay visibility then. So why does the church continue to live in another place on the subject? Catholics should boycott gay commitment ceremonies, is the new message. What is a boy to think these days?

Hugo Young in The Guardian:

Almost everything you need to know about the Tory party is encapsulated in the revelation that Alan Duncan is gay. A banal detail is elevated into first place in the news. A dreary social commonplace is treated by both the party and the media on a par with the discovery that the Pope has a secret wife. How much further behind the curve can an organisation get than feeling obliged to declare its 21st-century relevance by means of this amazing item? How devoid of content does a party have to be if the best way it can think of proving its openness, its revolutionary departure from type, is by showing its tolerance for Alan Duncan being gay?

On this day…