John Humphrys asks: is the gay marriage bill necessary reform or is it needlessly divisive and a waste of parliamentary time?
The gay marriage bill is about to return to the Commons and looks set to incite as much strife on the Conservative benches as the row over a referendum on EU membership has been causing. One cabinet minister has said the government should not be focusing so much attention on it because there is no demand for it. But the Prime Minister has personally identified himself with the cause. So is it a necessary reform or needlessly divisive and a waste of parliamentary time?
David Cameron has long made gay marriage something of a personal crusade. Some years ago he told the Tory Party Conference that being a Conservative didn’t make him opposed to gay marriage. On the contrary, he said, “I’m in favour of gay marriage because I’m a Conservative”. His argument was that Conservatives are in favour of institutions that create stability in society and marriage is one of the most important of such institutions. Extending the right to marry to gays would extend this stabilising force.
Cynics took the view that Mr Cameron was simply grabbing the issue as a way of ‘detoxifying’ his party, showing that it was no longer in thrall to old-fashioned, bigoted views but was keeping up with changes in society, one of the most striking of which in recent decades has been the shaking off of anti-homosexual prejudice. His supporters countered by saying that he himself was part of that radical change in social attitudes and meant what he said.
Nonetheless, his sponsorship of gay marriage continued to baffle many people, not least in his own party. That’s because in their view the issue had already been dealt with. The passing of legislation in 2005 by the last Labour government to introduce civil partnerships had removed obvious legal discrimination against gay couples and given them the same legal protections as married couples.
But civil partnerships, though a huge advance for gay rights campaigners, were viewed by some of them as having only second class status. Egalitarians regarded them as symbols of gay inequality and campaigned for gays to enjoy the right to first class status, marriage itself. Mr Cameron agreed.
This idea, though, aroused the animosity of many (though not all) Christians. For them, although the state had been involved in the institution of marriage for centuries, the institution itself was of a fundamentally religious nature. And many Christians (though, again, not all) took the view that theologically marriage could only be between a man and a woman.
Opposition from many in the churches to the idea of gay marriage led the government to make a compromise that left few people happy. No churches would be required to carry out gay marriages if they didn’t want to but the Church of England, the established church, would be prohibited from conducting gay marriages even if it wanted to.
When the gay marriage bill was first presented to the House of Commons in February, 134 Tory MPs, on a free vote, voted against it. Feeling is no less divided now on the eve of its return for further debate. On BBC’s Question Time on Thursday, the defence secretary, Philip Hammond, expressed the views of many dissidents. He said: “I have just never felt that this is what we should be focusing on. … There is no huge demand for this and we didn’t need to spend a lot of parliamentary time and upset vast numbers of people in order to do this. … This change does redefine marriage. For millions and millions of people who are married, the meaning of marriage changes. There is a real sense of anger among many people who are married that any government thinks it has the ability to change the definition of an institution like marriage.”
Many Tories who share Mr Hammond’s views think it is just another example of the Prime Minister being out of touch with what ordinary Conservatives feel. And as some in their ranks are beginning to think about what a Conservative Party without David Cameron might look like and, in particular, who might lead it, it is not surprising that possible contenders (such as Mr Hammond is thought to be) are ready to express views quite opposed to the Prime Minister’s.
But disagreement about the basic issue of gay marriage is not the only problem confronting the government over the bill. Its passage has been further complicated by the demand of some equality campaigners for a further reform – giving heterosexual couples the right to form civil partnerships, a right now exclusively enjoyed by gays.
Their argument is that if the gay marriage bill in its current form is passed an injustice will be perpetrated because then gay couples will have the choice between marriage or civil partnership, while heterosexuals will have marriage as the only option open to them. Some heterosexuals disapprove of the very institution of marriage precisely because of its religious origins. Some attack it as the vestige of a patriarchal society they wish to see cast into history.
Three Tory MPs, led by the former children’s minister, Tim Loughton, are seeking to amend the bill in order to allow civil partnerships for heterosexuals. Some see this as a spoiling tactic to impede the passing the bill altogether (Mr Loughton voted against it in February) so the government has sought to bat it off by announcing a review of the issue.
Maria Miller, the culture secretary who is also responsible for equality issues, says: “The equal marriage bill is about extending marriage to same-sex couples. Questions have been raised about whether we should extend civil partnerships to opposite-sex couples. We are therefore offering the house the opportunity to have a review of this area, rather than legislating now without the required evidence.”
It’s thought that, at best, this review would postpone any extension of civil partnerships to heterosexuals for at least five years. Unsurprisingly, therefore, proponents of the reform are up in arms. Peter Tatchell, the human rights campaigner long known for his commitment to gay rights, has been pushing the case for civil partnerships for heterosexuals ever since the legislation for civil partnerships was first passed. He said: “The government’s decision to oppose the legalisation of civil partnerships for heterosexual couples is hugely disappointing. It is a sad betrayal of the principle of equality.”
So there will be plenty to row about when the bill returns to the Commons next week. But is it the sort of row the Prime Minister really wants after the bruising he suffered last week? Public opinion polls will cheer him with the evidence that there has been a remarkable shift in opinion on the issue of gay marriage with a firm majority now in favour. But he knows too that it is hardly the most burning issue on most people’s agenda. Just like Europe, in fact, the row is not going to help persuade people that the government has got its priorities right.
What’s your view?
- Do you support gay marriage or not?
- What do you make of the argument that it is not for government to change the meaning of a term like ‘marriage’?
- Do you think civil partnerships provided gay couples with all the legal rights they need, or do you think it is a serious inequality that gays cannot marry?
- Do you think heterosexuals are being discriminated against by not having the opportunity to form civil partnerships?
- Is the government right to want to review the issue before changing the law, or do you think we already know all we need to know?
- And do you think the government is right to be spending parliamentary time on the issue or not?
