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The losing side

The remarkable thing about the backbench Tory campaign to block marriage equality is its fearfulness. I don’t mean its damply apocalyptic claim that same-sex marriage will somehow “fracture” the institution of marriage (as if the one thing holding it together was the resistance of queers) but the deep reluctance to directly address the issue at stake.

Here’s David Burrowes MP as quoted in The Independent‘s story, “Tory MPs go to war over gay marriage”:

“Many colleagues are worried that it would fundamentally affect how marriage between a man and woman has historically been viewed in this country,” he said. “There are strong doubts that we need to go down this path. It would open up a can of worms and a legal minefield about freedom, religion and equalities legislation.

“Gay marriage is a debate we don’t need to have at this stage. It is not an issue people are hammering us on the doorstep to do something about,” he continued, adding: “It is important that there is a reasoned debate around how we view marriage rather than about homosexual rights. It may open up old wounds and put people into the trenches; no one wants that.”

How very sad that the issue of gay rights might force MPs to state their beliefs and defend them in public. How very inconvenient – and how gracious of Burrowes to decide on behalf of gay and lesbian people that the subject doesn’t “need” to be broached, and that they should wait until Tory backbenchers feel it more politically convenient.

The idea that we shouldn’t discuss gay marriage because then we’d need to talk about freedom, religion and equality is frankly ludicrous – not least because the claim on religious freedom has been routinely waved as the reason why same-sex marriage should not be recognised. Similarly odd is the idea we could talk about “views of marriage” – that is, views that gay people should be excluded from marriage – without talking about gay rights. Would we talk about “views on immigration” – for example – that seek to bar certain ethnic groups from the UK without also talking about race?

The desire to reframe the debate in this way – to reframe it in a way which tries to avoid talking about equality altogether – tells you something about the changing face of British attitudes to gay marriage and gay rights and the slow realisation by socially-conservative Tories that they’re on the losing side and that some day, likely very soon, the decision to recognise gay people as fully equal members of our culture isn’t one that they’ll get to make. It will have been made for them.