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The arguments against gay marriage that just won’t cut it

January 19, 2013

Originally written for The Huffington Post.—

Gay marriage will very soon be back on the Westminster agenda. A number of arguments will once again be put with vigour against legalising gay marriage. Many of these will be emotionally charged. This is understandable, as for many, marriage is a particularly emotive issue.

However, some – both in and out of Westminster – will attempt to use that emotion as a smokescreen for the fallibility of their arguments. This should be called out. In 21st century Britain, if you want to deprive a large group of people of a right that really matters to them, you can’t do it by quoting scripture.

As a guide for those who aren’t quite sure if what they are regurgitating is in any way valid, I’ve taken the liberty of picking apart some of the worst arguments that will be put forth for keeping gay marriage illegal.

‘There is no mandate for this debate’

Far be it from me to recommend what I believe is a purely opportunistic Tory progressivism, but if you actually look in the Conservatives’ 2010 equality manifesto, under LGBT you will find a promise to, “consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage.” That’s more of a mandate than for the cuts to the NHS, which, we were promised, would never, ever happen. Tory backbenchers and Daily Mail journalists, desperate to promote democratic accountability, might like to consider campaigning against these instead. Would certainly save more lives.

NB. In case you missed it, a huge public consultation was also carried out with the majority of 228,000 respondents supporting equal marriage.

‘This will lead to a breakdown of the family’

Admittedly, this one is more popular in the US than over here, but it is still wheeled out occasionally. ‘Statistics show’ that as gay partnerships are going up, old-fashioned marriages are declining. Gay marriage will, allegedly, only serve to reinforce the implied link. Repeat after me; correlation does not equal causation. This should be obvious and it doesn’t even (really) need to be said. How many men and women do you personally know that are planning on abandoning their families if civil partnerships are reclassified as marriages? I imagine that it’s a number close to zero.

‘Marriage, in this country, has always been for a man and a woman’

The sentiment behind this declaration is, ‘Things have been like this for a while, so they should stay like this.’ It is not an argument that history looks kindly on. Institutions change with attitudes. Until 1967, sex was, in the eyes of the law ‘for a man and a woman’ and few are arguing to overturn the Sexual Offences Act that kicked off the legalisation of homosexuality. Voting was once for men. Housing was once for whites. Tradition can be overturned and we can all be better off for it. This is not controversial.

So if you’re looking to oppose gay marriage, make sure you’re not planning on using one of the aforementioned arguments. Also, try to avoid words like ‘sick’ and ‘abhorrent’, as they really aren’t going to help your case amongst the ‘decent, hard-working’ people you’re no doubt seeking to appeal to. Once you’ve taken these rebuttals into account, if you really are stuck for an argument against gay marriage, perhaps consider that maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason for that.

Edit(s) made on upload to theCharadian: two typos fixed.

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Posted in: Politics Tagged: conservatives, gay marriage, gay rights, lbgt

Cash for Cameron? We shouldn’t be so surprised …

March 27, 2012
David Cameron

Photo: Flickr / Nick Atkins Photography

Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper.

—

Less than a year ago, David Cameron told us that lobbying was “the next big scandal waiting to happen”. In hindsight, he was spot on, but at the time, few of us realized he was in fact preparing us for what Nick Robinson so delicately deigned the ‘re-toxification’ of the Tories.

Most of us didn’t expect much from Dave, then. Indeed, if he’d only marginally cut the number of private meetings with multimillionaire donors, we’d have probably been satisfied. But, fast-forward a few months and now he’s in a lot of hot water. A serious amount of hot water, various journalists clamor to inform us. So much hot water, that we’d be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that David Cameron now primarily resides in some sort of metaphorical political kettle. But why we’ve only so excitedly forced him in there after the most recent revelations, is a mystery to me.

The fact that large donations get you access to the PM really shouldn’t shock us. We’ve repeatedly been fed the line that a large donation gets you into what Cruddas called ‘the premier league’. But the Tories have their own public name for it. On their website, the Conservative Party offers you access to what they call ‘The Leaders Group’ for the paltry sum of £50 000 a year. You will be “invited to join David Cameron and other senior figures … at dinners [and] post-PMQ lunches”. It’s not £250k, so it may not get you into the ‘premier league’, but as it requires over 8000 hours of work on the minimum wage to raise the required funds it’s by no means a steal for all the ‘real people’ Dave has always been so eager to connect with.

But we’ve also been shocked by the influence over policy these donations allegedly buy. Really? Why? What did we believe donors were talking about over those fifty-grand Post-PMQ lunches? The weather? EastEnders? The England team? If you ask me, being part of the ‘leaders group’ does in fact make you sound and seem more influential than being part of a lowly ‘policy unit’.

Ed Miliband has seized this scandal as the political opportunity it was, of course, destined to be. But his hands are hardly clean. Putting aside the incredible influence that the unions predictably and consistently purchase in his party, on the Labour party’s website he invites you to join ‘The Thousand Club’. As a member, you will gain access to to ‘Exclusive Thousand Club Q & A events’ as well as ‘summer and winter receptions’ – although, it should be noted, Ed doesn’t promise he’ll be at any of these. Coming in at a considerably lower price of £1200 per year, you might get up close and personal to a top opposition politician for a lot less than a Tory. That said, as a struggling supermarket retail assistant desperate to engage in Labour party politics at this level, you’d still have to put in 190 hours of backbreaking minimum wage work to raise the cash to join.

As a result of the scandal, lists of donors David Cameron has dined with in his flat are being published as I write – and that is by no means a bad thing. But our sudden moral indignation seems odd to me. What’s more, it’s all come a little late. Could we not have got angry before the NHS bill went through parliament, and demanded to see how many private health company executives David Cameron has met with over the past few months? Only by seeing footage of Cruddas asking for large sums of money and telling us what we (deep down) already knew about policy makers and shakers, have we become engaged.

Putting all of this to one side, I should like to end this column positively. Looking to the future, like many others, I am waiting with bated breath for David Cameron’s announcement of the next “big scandal” that will seriously damage his party. Who knows – in a few months, we might be treated to secretly filmed footage of one of a top Tory advocating fox hunting and that, dear readers, would be huge.

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Posted in: Politics Tagged: bribes, cameron, conservatives, labour
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