Homosexuals Crossing

Apologies for the absence..  I've been busy with work, the puppies, and a couple of trips abroad. I therefore think one of my usual ramblings is more than overdue, so here we go.

Caution: Homosexuals Crossing

Homosexuals holding hands. In public!! :o

I'm just back from Vienna, a city I visit a good 3 or 4 times a year.  Hitler had hated Vienna, because when he was there in the 1920s, it was far too Jewish, Slavic, cosmopolitan, and socialist.  By contrast, he declared "Finally, a German City!" when he moved to Munich.  The 20 July 1944 conspirators who tried to assassinate him dreamed of a free democratic European union, with its capital in Vienna, rather than Brussels.  It was the natural heart of Europe, straddling East and West, and the former capital of the great multi-ethnic Habsburg empire.

Instead, Vienna was divided in 1945, in a similar way that Berlin was.  When the Iron Curtain descended on Europe, from "Stettin in the North, to Trieste in the South" to quote Churchill, the effects on Vienna were profound.  No longer a crossroads, you effectively went to Vienna only to visit Vienna because just a few miles past the city you reached a mined, armed, dead-end.  I disliked the place intensely on my first few visits: stifling, Catholic, conservative.  A place where people in their 30s and 40s actually wore fur coats and hats without an sense of irony.  A backwater.

Then everything changed.  Since November 1989 I've watched the city slowly develop back into the type of place the Nazis loathed.  The road signs point once again to Bratislava, to Budapest and to Prague.  Unlike in the rest of Austria, the (mainly ultra orthodox) Jewish community is flourishing.  It's constantly ranked in the top three cities worldwide for quality of life.  And there's a big, visible, gay community.

Literally every time I see a Vienna tram I smile

I've been used to seeing the city trams flying rainbow flags (apparently by order of the mayor) all around the city, not just for LGBT Pride, but many of them all year round.  But this year there's something new.  It's that many of the pedestrian crossings in the centre of town have been changed to same-sex couples... with love hearts.  They are a mixture of male/male and female/female - as well as male/female couples (nice inclusive measure to bisexuals and straights!)

Here is a female couple dutifully showing you to wait for the green light at the entrance to the main shopping street, Kärtnerstrasse, close to the Vienna State Opera House:

Lesbians say DON'T WALK

Symbolism

A needless, silly bit of symbolism?  The Far Right Freedom Party certainly thinks so, and is sufficiently wound up they've threatened court action over the lights.  But here I am, a 44 year old, out, self-confident gay man, who had heard about the pedestrian lights and who felt a genuine pique of excitement and happiness to see that they actually existed.

When I was a kid growing up in Germany I loved Playmobil.  In about 1980 they suddenly started randomly including Turkish figures (that is brown faced, ordinary people, rather than historic characters dressed in a fez).  They've moved on to a whole range of ethnicities now, such as the black family below.

Playmobil rocks

I guess that unless you belong to a group that isn't in the majority, it isn't very easy to put yourself in the shoes of another group and realise what public invisibility feels like.  Same-sex couples aren't by any means invisible in tv programmes, movies etc in the way they were in say the 1980 or even 1990s, but this little thing (and the rainbow flags on the trams, which I adore) costs very little, will be ignored by many people, but will really matter to some.  

It's so easy to dismiss, but then you think of the unsure gay teenager who sees that someone very senior in the city administration has made this gesture of inclusiveness.  Or you smile at the thought of little child asking their parent why these street signs are different to the ones they normally see, and hope it's a lead in to a "different couples and families" exist type conversation. 

The Times They Are A Changin'

And if you have any sense of history you start reflecting on the place this is happening.   Yes, Vienna was traditionally a "red" city, but it's also the place where tens of thousands of cheering citizens poured out onto the Heldenplatz on 15 March 1938 to cheer Hitler's triumphant arrival in the city.  The sporadic outbursts of violence against the city's Jews in the 2. district led an embarrassed Berlin to radio through orders to tone down the aggression (there were lots of international journalists in town).  Nazism grew in extremely fertile ground in Catholic, right wing Austria, even in its capital.

Hitler addresses Vienna from the Hofburg Palace

Now that same square, just one year ago, was the place for another gathering of a different type.  It was at the far end of the picture and involved some 10,000 cheering Viennese.  This time they were there to greet home triumphantly a different one of their own: a certain bearded drag queen called Conchita.  Look behind the crowd with the rainbow flags to the pale grey building in the distance.  That is the Hofburg, and a keen eye will spot the exact balcony that Hitler had stood on, well within living memory.  And OMG I just noticed that there's one of those hat-wearing Austrians in the front row.  He must be lost.  The woman to his right doesn't look too happy either.  Oh well :P

WE LOVE YOU CONCHITA!

But seriously, do you get what a massive change this is?  At the incredibly serious, and wonderful, Haus der Musik, which is devoted to the Great Composers, the Theory of Sound etc. there is a Conchita exhibit right there as the first thing you see.  Vienna has gone through 180 degrees, and it's not just since 1938.  It's more like since 1989.

Conchita's Dress and Portrait, Haus der Musik. 26" waist. Amazing!

Just like Ireland, which recently gave a massive two fingers to a long history of the Church's attempts to control, manipulate, oppress and repress people's private lives and morality, this is about so much more than just LGBT rights.  The popular referendum in the Republic of Ireland was about accepting that all sorts of people don't "fit the mould" (whatever illusory thing that mould was).  It was about sending a huge signal of acceptance.  It was about saying that we want a modern society, where people are more than tolerated: they are welcomed.  In both Ireland and Vienna's cases that is probably as much a domestic message as one intended for an international audience.  It's about how people outside view those places today.  And it's a message that genuinely fills me with happiness and hope.

An outstanding, inspiring result in the Irish SSM referendum

Now, most importantly... the next blog will contain puppy updates, I promise!

Is it Homophobic to oppose Same Sex Marriage?

The first same sex marriages in England and Wales took place this week.  It gave an ideal opportunity not just to celebrate the love of the people getting married, but for those who disagree with marriage equality to have one last blast at airing their views about how wrong this all is.

Catholic Voices, for example, has been keen to get its members media time on the subject.  The group
was co-founded by Jack Valero, a member of Opus Dei.  CV purports to represent the views of ordinary British Catholics*.  It has put out various items on the issue, such as this blog post, which at first glance seems reasonable enough.  However, breaking it down, in it they say that by allowing same sex couples to wed, there has been an "evisceration" of marriage.  That word generally means "disembowelment": removing the internal organs of an animal.  According to them, when two men or two women enter together into a legal, civil marriage, these are not proper weddings, but instead are a "parody" of the real thing.

They predict that:

• all civil marriages will become insignificant and incoherent; 
• marriage will be weakened; 
• the state will be beset by groups wanting recognition of polyamorous and "other kinds" of sexual unions.  

Their claim is that society must rebuild itself.  You may agree or disagree with these quite serious claims about the effect of opening up of marriage to same-sex couples, but I'm interested in the question of whether being opposed to same-sex marriage is by definition homophobic.

Is it Homophobic? 

Well, I could answer this question in fewer than 140 characters by nicking Sean Jones QC's tweet below.  It's just brilliant and gets straight to the heart of it for me:

Catholic Voices take a quite apocalyptic stance about the effects of marriage equality, particularly when you strip away their attempts to be reasoned and reasonable.  Sean's tweet covers other less dramatic positions of people who simply don't "like" the idea of same sex marriage but haven't really formulated why.  I'll go on below to look at the matter in a bit more detail below, and explain why I agree with him.

The Word Homophobia

The first thing I'm going to do is to try to move away from the use of "homophobia".  It's an interesting word, first coined in 1969 to describe the "mixture of revulsion and apprehension".  It was also called homosexual panic.  I think back then that probably was the reaction of plenty of people (particularly straight men) when faced with people attracted to the same sex.  No doubt it is still the case for some now.

However, what most people naturally mean when they use the term is something akin to racism or sexism, which is directed at LGB people.  The word covers a whole range of negative feelings that range from antipathy or mild prejudice, through to actual violent contempt.  It can include phobia, but on most people's usage it doesn't actually by any means require fear.  I therefore understand why some get hung up on that aspect of the word, particularly when they try to give it its literal meaning.  I'm therefore going to use the term "anti-gay" in this post instead of homophobia here.

Just like any prejudice, anti-gay feeling and behaviour cover a huge spectrum of words and activities.   Someone who calls gays "poofs" in a tweet is clearly not in the same league as those who beat up, attack or kill gay men because of their hatred (19.3% of all hate crimes in the US were incidentally motivated by sexual orientation bias).   By having your position on same-sex marriage challenged as being anti-gay, it does not mean that the person doing so is suggesting that you're in the same category as someone who engages in violent assaults.  It's perfectly possible for you to know, and even like, some LGB people, whilst believing the law should rightly discriminate against them and to seek to deny them the rights that heterosexual people enjoy.   That really should be obvious.

Also, as with racism, you can of course feel that you're entirely not anti-gay, whilst behaving in such a way that others would agree falls into that category.  Those affected by your prejudice certainly don't have an absolute monopoly of determining what is and what is not anti-gay, but they are often in the best place to assess the effect of it because of their day to day life experiences.

The Symbolism of Marriage Equality

Let's be clear that in the UK the huge legal injustices facing same-sex couples were not the driving force in LGB people arguing for marriage equality.  Civil Partnerships had already meant that almost the same legal rights were available to civil partners as to those marrying.  In this the UK differs to many other countries around the world.

The matter of marriage equality was foremost one of equal treatment, dignity and principle.  Marriage is of course an entirely made up thing: a social construct that humans have created and defined.  It's a concept, not a tangible "thing".  It is however an important institution from which we collectively have agreed certain rights and responsibilities should flow.  This change in the law on marriage was about the State saying "your unions are equal".  It's about the State sending out a signal that "you are equal" after many, many years of state instituted discrimination and wrong treatment, and in the context of ongoing social prejudice. 

It was extremely important to many LGB people, myself included, to win this battle.  I'm enormously glad we did.  The symbolism was absolutely enormous.  We have already moved from a society where, growing up as a gay teen in the 80s, my only point of reference to homosexuality was parody characters on Are You Being Served, and hearing how homosexuals were dying of a "gay plague".  Instead we have an incredibly positive affirmation of same-sex unions by a Conservative prime-minister who himself had even voted against the repeal of Section 28.   This is enormous.

Again, Sean entirely gets it:

I cannot emphasise enough what it represents to have the option of marriage available to me personally, and to know the positive effect on the next generation of gay teenagers growing up in an environment where the State recognises their relationships and treats them as equal.  What an amazingly positive change and healthy development in our society.

Being Anti-Gay

It's not terribly hard to set out tests for whether someone is expressing an anti-gay position.  Here are a few examples:

• Do you believe that LGB people should have fewer or different civil rights to straight people?
• Do you believe that civil marriage between an LGB couple is a parody of "real marriage"?
• Do you believe that LGB relationships are only worthy of separate recognition by the State and LGB people should be satisfied with that?
• Do your views and words tend to upset, offend or hurt a sizeable proportion of LGB people?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes, I'd say there's a good chance you're being intrinsically and inherently anti-gay.  It really is rather difficult for you to argue that is not case.  I think, with respect**, you'd have to be quite thick to not get this point.  If you were saying black people should have fewer civil rights, people would rightly say you're being racist.  Here, you're saying things that are anti-gay, and if you had your way the effects of this would be laws that discriminate against (i.e. treat differently) LGB people.  You're being anti-gay.

And if, remarkably, you still haven't got the point that you're being anti-gay by arguing I should not be allowed marriage equality, then consider this.  In 1967 the US Supreme Court overturned the Virginia Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which had prohibited inter-racial marriages.  Similar rules existed in other states.  Imagine if, instead, the court had permitted blacks to enter unions with whites, but it created a "separate but equal" institution called "inter-racial partnerships".  Would you argue that mixed race couples should be content with it because it gave all the same legal rights as "ordinary" couples AND this position is not racist?  I think people would label you as racist on this issue, with justification.  I see no difference with stating that LGB people should put up with the separate but (almost) equal institution of civil partnership is being anti-gay.

Please do think about this if you're stance is "I'm not anti-gay, but I don't think they should be allowed to get married."  Really think it through and realise what you're saying.

Baffling Denial

We've had plenty of examples in history of laws related to marriage that discriminate against any given group.  The 1701 Act of Settlement was anti-Catholic.  It said that anyone who became Roman Catholic or married a Roman Catholic was excluded from the succession.  The Nuremberg laws of 1935 were anti-Jewish and prohibited non-Jews from marrying Jews in Germany.  I've already mentioned the ban on whites marrying blacks in some US states.

In each of these cases people were, I believe, consciously aware that the policies discriminated against a particular group.  They felt it was right to do so and put forward justifications for this.  This country faced what it considered to be a serious threat from Roman Catholicism in the early 18th century.  Millions of Germans supported the discriminatory Nuremberg laws as necessary to protect the "German nation".  People who argued for segregation knew they were backing a racist policy.  They wrongly thought it was correct to do so in the interests of social harmony.

The extraordinary thing same sex marriage issue, though, is that many people are in utter denial that by seeking to keep marriage from LGB people that they are being at all anti-gay.  Catholic Voices do it in their article.  They say that they are offended by "jeers" that they are homophobic or bigoted for taking the stance they do.  Here's a Catholic Priest, Father James Bradley, who says we live in "dangerous times" because of this and this is "not the path of a civilized society".

Quite how he reaches this point I'm not sure.  He's entitled to his view that I should be discriminated against by the State and to put forward what he sees as his compelling faith based reasons for this.  People will agree or disagree with them.  But to deny that anyone who takes a position that is by definition anti-gay is being anti-gay makes no sense at all.  It is not dangerous to point this out, and it is not uncivilised to do so.  It is only uncivilised if it's accompanied by abuse, but that's not what I'm doing.  I'm simply stating something which should be quite evident if you use some logic.

The Roman Catholic faith teaches (Catechism 2357) that homosexual acts are "acts of grave depravity" and are "intrinsically disordered".  It says that they are "contrary to natural law".  They do not "proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity".  "Under no circumstances can they be approved".  It talks about same-sex attraction being a "trial" for homosexuals.  This is as inherently anti-gay as it gets.  With these teachings, it is a virulently anti-gay religion.  The Catechism then talks about treating these poor homosexuals with "respect" and not unjustifiably discriminating against them (justifiable discrimination is by definition okay according to the faith).

Why should I not point out that all of the attempts to deny me civil rights come from an inherently anti-gay set of religious views?  They are entitled to their beliefs and can argue them as much as they like, but I will not accept that whilst doing so they are not being anti-gay.

Just as a side-note, we have always to remember that there are many Christians who take a different viewpoint to the one above.  The Church in Wales last month issued a report by the standing doctrinal commission which stated the following:

Isn't that beautiful?  A very recent poll found a majority (53%) of Americans now support same-sex marriage, with support amongst white Catholics even higher, at 58%, and amongst Hispanic Catholics at 56%.  Perhaps Rome will catch up with the huge number of its own members who don't support its anti-gay position.  Don't believe that it doesn't or can't ever change its policies on fundamental issues either: that's demonstrable historic nonsense.  To give one example, the Catholic Church banned the charging of interest on loans during most of its existence.  It said the practice was "detestable to God and man, damned by the sacred canons and contrary to Christian charity".  The doctrine was enunciated by popes, expressed by three ecumenical councils, proclaimed by bishops, and taught unanimously by theologians.  People who lent for money were refused the sacraments and Christian burial.  Then, in the 19th century they changed the rules and, hey ho, allowed it. Such is the immutable Word of God.

It Bothers Them

Now, back to the curious point about those being anti-gay denying that they are in fact so.  If you point this out to them, wow does it bother them.  They want to have their communion wafer and eat it.  NO, they are motivated by God's word and love and nothing about their anti-gay stance is at all anti-gay.  They trot out the words that everyone is created in God's image and is worthy of human dignity.  It's "love the sinner, hate the sin, and go out and campaign loudly for the State to actively discriminate against the sinner in civil matters."  They get most upset when their anti-gay stance is called out as such.

A few of them are obviously and offensively homophobic.  The ostensibly reasonable Catholic Voices piece contained the slippery slope argument about "other sexual unions" being recognised.  These words are a bit nebulous and they don't spell out what is meant with that.  Given the piece has already considered straight, same-sex and polyamorous sexual unions, I can only assume it refers either to bestiality, paedophilia, or both.   Considering the union of two people of the same sex with screwing animals in the same context is a bit anti-gay isn't it, even it if wasn't overt?

This Catholic convert and former monk below, who calls gay men "LGBT perverts" and "poofs", is much more direct:

And YET, it bothers the donkey-loving former monk to be called anti-gay.  He's been off recently on a long rant with a doctor I follow about how he worked with gay men in the 1980s during the Aids crisis, preaching abstinence.  Because of this, and despite his anti-gay tweets, he maintains he isn't anti-gay.  This is, to me, very baffling psychology.

A Fifth of Britons wouldn't go to a Gay Wedding

Just to wrap up, it was widely reported (BBC, Guardian, Telegraph etc) that a recent poll showed 68% support for marriage equality, with a minority of just 26% who actually object to it.  That result must have hurt those opposed to same-sex marriage, with their claims that the majority of the population is opposed to it.  26% opposition is actually quite a remarkable figure.  There actually aren't many contentious political issues (HS2, fracking, EU etc) where just 26% of the population are opposed to something.  It shows surprising and heart-warming consensus given the public hasn't even had time to get used to the change yet.

Rather than emphasise this positive point, most of the press however highlighted a subsidiary finding in the poll that a "fifth of Britons (22%) would turn down an invitation to a gay wedding."  Father Bradly, above, said the findings of the survey reflected the reality that people remained "deeply uncomfortable" with being honest about their true feelings on the meaning of marriage.

I actually wouldn't be at all surprised if 20% of the British population would respond in a poll that they would not be comfortable attending a Muslim wedding.  People can be very uneasy and/or prejudiced towards groups, particularly when they have had no personal contact with members of it, and have soaked up negative stereotypes from the press and elsewhere.  If this were the case, a sensible approach might be to accept that prejudice of all sorts is deeply engrained in our society and to ask what can be done to justify it.  I certainly wouldn't argue that it means that Muslim people shouldn't be allowed to marry by the State, because people are personally "deeply uncomfortable" with going to one of their weddings and we need to pander to that prejudice.

Some Gay People Get Married. Get Over It.

The really GREAT thing is all this is over, or it should be.  Those seeking to be anti-gay about marriage have lost their argument, the vast majority of the population supports marriage equality, and this is the last opportunity for them to air their anti-gay views with anyone taking any kind of notice. 

I believe it's been a particularly disastrous week for the likes of Catholic Voices in getting their anti-gay viewpoint over and attempting to win hearts and minds.  Some attempts have led to enormous mirth online, and it's been really quite amusing watching it unfold, and see it bite them back on the arse.  The opponents of marriage equality appear, in my view, to be increasingly isolated, bitter, unreasonable, and often hysterical in their predictions. 

I hope this is my last blog post on the subject.

Love wins in the end.







* Christian Voices is in somewhat hot water at the moment when one of their Speakers, Paula Thompson, an architect, put out an anti-gay tweet regarding Mozilla that spoke of "normal people".  In response a person in the US agreed with her and added "All fags are mentally ill and need to be exterminated".  She retweeted this hate-filled statement to her 1100 followers with no indication that she objected to the contents of the tweet.  She further agreed with a tweet that said "Homosexuals do not want tolerance.  They want to dominate with their sick, deviant life style choice".  Finally a tweet came to light before she was a Catholic Voice in which she said she hoped the IRA would bomb an abortion clinic in Northern Ireland.  It was after that they recruited her as a speaker.

Catholic Voices apparently has the "blessing" of the Catholic bishops in the UK. They apparently "can be relied on to express authoritatively the Church's positions in ways that are succint [sic], compelling and reasonable."  Make your own mind up how those tweets fit with that.  Genocide and sectarian violence.  Paula has since resigned, which has conveniently led Catholic Voices to say it's nothing to do with them any more.  Neither she nor Catholic Voices have offered any form of apology to the anti-gay tweets.  The issue of whether this constitutes illegal hate speech is currently with the Police.


** not really

The Times They Are A Changin'

I'm on a complete high.  Despite predictions of a narrow victory, Barack Obama seems to have swept back to power.  The latest results I have is that he won the popular vote by 59,298,913 votes to Romney's 56,801,964.  If Florida does go to Obama, as looks almost certain currently, the President will have 322 electoral college votes to 206.  It is what I think they technically call a landslide.

There is another big story of interest to me here though, apart from the general rejection of right-wing, conservative philosophy.   There are six US states where same-sex marriage is permitted, but marriage equality was achieved either through law suits or by lawmakers, rather than as a result of direct votes by the population.

Last night, the State of Maine became the first US state to introduce marriage equality.  It has been joined by the State of Maryland and (subject to finally counting) by the State of Washington.  In Mid-West Minnesota, a ballot to introduce a ban on same sex marriage into the constitution was defeated by voters.  These smiling young smiling young faces of discrimination who voted yesterday to enshrine prejudice won't be too happy this morning.

This is massive.  LGBT people are in the minority everywhere, but voters have shown that they do care about issues outside their own personal interests.  Social issues and equality do matter to them. 

There will now be 9 US states where same-sex marriage is legal.  Federal appeal courts have repeatedly struck down the "Defence of Marriage Act"* and it is likely to end in the US Supreme Court.  The President himself took the principled, risky and politically unnecessary step of declaring that he was in favour of marriage equality during the campaign.

Meanwhile, closer to home, yesterday the highest court in Spain declared that same sex marriage is legal and constitutional.  This was in the face of an aggressive challenge by the country's conservative party and the Catholic hierarchy.  Although mired in arguments, the majority of the population in France supports same-sex marriage and its government is drawing up plans to introduce it there.  This will bring to 12 the number of countries with full marriage equality.

Back in May I saw the above tweet.  Its words have really stuck with me.   The fight isn't over yet, but we will get there.  The times, they are a changin'.  They are changing faster than I would ever have thought even two years ago.  An acceptance that lesbians, gays and bisexuals should have equal rights rather than be classed as inferior is rapidly becoming a reality.  The forces of reaction, discrimination and social conservatism are losing.

I don't want to pretend the discrimination I face is anything like that faced by people who have suffered in the past.  It isn't, by a million miles.  However, this picture sums up beautifully how widely accepted societal norms can change in a very short space of time and how we look back on it with genuine incomprehension now.

Thank you America.  Thank you voters in Maine, Maryland, Washington and Minnesota.  Thank you Spanish Constitutional judges.  History is on our side.  Equality is right, it is just, and it is coming.



* Correction: thanks for the comment below. DOMA was penned by Republican Representative Bob Barr and was passed by the Republican dominated Congress.  Every Republican but one, in both houses, voted in favour of it.  A White House spokesman described it as "gay baiting" but President Clinton, not President Bush, signed it into law.

The Case Against Same Sex Marriage

I blogged a month ago on what I believe to be the compelling case in favour of same-sex marriage.  I've been watching arguments on the subject including the comments of people like Cardinal O'Brien and trying to understand their validity.  I've tried to set them out below in category form.  The first requires the longest treatment because of some woefully inaccurate reporting on the part of the Mail (repeated in the Telegraph).

1) This isn't civil marriage, it will be forced on churches

The government has expressly said that the proposed change relates to civil marriage and churches will not be forced to marry same sex couples (just as for example divorcees cannot marry in the Catholic Church: they set their own rules on this). 

The Mail today reported on the Strassbourg case of Gas/Dubois v France.  It relates to a lesbian couple in a French civil union, who complained that they were discriminated against because they could not adopt as a couple.  The ruling is in French and is here.  My French is no longer fluent, but I waded through it and also looked at the English summary which can be downloaded here if you are interested.  The court found against the couple and expressly recognised (as it has done before) that a signatory state has to the right to discriminate against same-sex couples by not allowing them the right to marry if it so chooses.

The Mail, and the Telegraph [See Footnote] in a near virtual copy of the original article curiously reported that "the ruling also says that if gay couples are allowed to marry, any church that offers weddings will be guilty of discrimination if it declines to marry same-sex couples".  That is a pretty startling aspect that would drive a horse and cart through the government's statement to the contrary.

It is also, as far as I can see, entirely wrong.  There is nothing that I can find in the French ruling or the English summary to this effect.  It is important to note that if there had been, of course, it would have been obiter in the sense that the court was looking at whether the couple had the right to adopt under a civil union, not considering hypothetical situations that do not exist.  Further, the English law doctrine of binding precedent does not apply to ECHR judgements, so it would additionally have provided persuasive guidance rather than hard case law to be followed.  But again, let's get back to the point: it's not in the ruling.

How has this apparently shoddy reporting happened?  A barrister friend and I challenged the Telegraph journalist @DonnaBow to explain and asked her if she had not confused the opinion of a "specialist in discrimination law" quoted with the actual ruling.  This specialist is the barrister Neil Addison.  He describes himself as a "Church going Roman Catholic" who runs the website www.religionlaw.co.uk and blogs at www.religionlaw.blogspot.co.uk on such subjects as abortion, the gay B&B owners case etc.  He is obviously entitled to give his opinion on the ruling from the perspective of a committed Catholic, but for journalists to portray him as a neutral authority in this area is, I believe, misleading.  For a journalist to pass off his opinion as fact is negligent and wrong.

The "fact" that the ECHR would force same-sex marriage on churches was banded around by influential voices such as @His_Grace on his blog ("Churches WILL be forced to conduct same-sex marriages") and retweeted by opponents of marriage equality to back up their view that the law should continue to discriminate.  I suppose one can not criticise him too much for rehashing and believing a misleading couple of pieces of journalism, but it is irritating that he believes he is "quoting court judgement" and when asked to produce the relevant paragraph numbers refused to engage.  The irony of the tweet below is rather splendid in this light.

Let me summarise: the Gas/Dubois ruling expressly confirmed the right of ECHR states to discriminate against gay people in matters of marriage.  It did not discuss what I think is a key question of the interplay of the Article 9 Right of Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion with the right of a gay person not to be discriminated against, where a state does have same-sex marriage.  The Netherlands, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Belgium all have full same-sex marriage.  Any court actions in these countries attempting to force a clergyman to marry against his conscience in these countries would, I am sure, have been widely reported.  Certainly nothing has reached Strassbourg.

This is only my opinion, but I think it is widely fanciful to suppose that, in the light of its repeated view that gay people can be discriminated against by their countries, Strassbourg would currently take on the church in this way and rule that the rights of a gay person to get married in church outweigh Article 9 rights.  It is scare-mongering, it is conjecture, and it is not based on any jurisprudence I am aware of to pretend it is fact this would be the case.

2) This is an Attack on Tradition

So was the ending of slavery, giving women the vote, decriminalising homosexuality and any number of other positive legistlative changes that conservatives fought tooth and nail against.  This is the weakest of arguments: society changes and tradition per se cannot be a valid reason to discriminate. Marriage has constantly been redefined: a point I make in my original blog at some length.

3) This is About the Protection of Children

This is actually quite a disingenuous and nasty argument.  By bringing in children, as Cardinal O'Brien did, he sought to muddy the water and appeal to age old prejudices that gay people are somehow not to be trusted around children.  Actually same-sex couples have the right to adopt children in this country.  Allowing same-sex marriage will do nothing whatsoever to the rights of gay couples to have or adopt children here.  That is simply not the question being discussed.

The same line is trotted out here by Norman Wells of the Family Education Trust: "the ruling from the ECHR [oddly, the same one that the Mail is claiming will force churches to marry same-sex couples] will embolden those whose concerns about same-sex marriage and adoption are not inspired by personal hatred and animosity, but by a genuine concern for the well-being of children and the welfare of society."  This is in my view dishonest and frankly, rubbish.

Some might think that the arguments forwarded in relation to "one man and one woman" being the best most stable model to bring up children in a family unit have some merit; however they could actually be far better applied to illiberal measures such as outlawing divorce, forcing couples to stay together, and to ban single people and gays from adopting.

4)  This is God's Sacrament

Marriage does not stem from the Bible, it predates it and extends around the world to countries of many different faiths.  Few serious voices would argue it is uniquely Christian: it demonstrably is not. Moreover the Church does not make the laws in this country.  Parliament does.  The leaders of every political party support same-sex marriage and it was in the Conservative Party manifesto.  The Church does have the right to be heard, but it does not have the right to dictate.  Most people in this country are not church-goers, and from what I can gather many church-goers (including Catholics) disagree with the position of their leaders on this issue.

This morning timelines were filled with the hideous story of the Dutch Catholic Church being actively involved in the castration of boys and young men who had been abused by priests as a "cure" for the victims' homosexuality.  This took place in the 1950 but the story is as much about the continued cover-up by the Church up to the present day.

I do not believe it is in any way necessary to resort to attacks on the Church by describing priest as "paedos and rapists" as I have seen on Twitter in order to counter their arguments against same-sex marriage.  However, I am utterly sickened by this and other stories and do feel that an institution that has systematically permitted and covered up such abuses has rather lost the right to lecture to me about my morality, my relationships and my legal status in civil society.

I also note that the small group of vocal opponents of same-sex marriage on Twitter (mainly traditionalist Catholics, but some Anglicans) were not discussing this hideous story at all today on their timelines.  Instead they were busy seeking to justify their desire to discriminate, based amongst other things most ironically on the protection of children.  This point has been well-made: the Church recently issued a pastoral letter condemning same-sex marriage, yet we have seen no such outrage at the abuses it has permitted.  It really is quite easy to become angry and sickened at this attitude.

5) It's Ours, You're Not Allowed It

How refreshingly honest it would be to hear this argument articulated.  It is in fact, as far as I can tell, at the base of every argument against same-sex marriage, no matter how it is dressed up.  This is a matter of discrimination per se: opponents believe they have the right to marry, but the state should be allowed to discriminate to withhold this right from others.

Discrimination is not necessarily homophobia, but its effect is to separate and to say one group is not equal to another.   It is the same as "it's just not right" which I suspect is also in the hearts of many people who don't like the idea, but can't or won't articulate why. 

Summary

On political issues - for example the reduction of the deficit and economic growth - there are opposing views and it is usually possible to see the various merits and come to a view.  The issue of same-sex marriage is for me quite different.  I cannot in all honesty give any of the above arguments any weight or merit at all.  Not one of them (other than the first to correct a factual mistake) deserves more than a sentence to dismiss.

There is one important last point  I want to add to here.  The Equalities Minister recently said that Church leaders are fanning the flames of homophobia.  I disagree and instead believe what they are doing is fanning the flames of prejudice against Christians.  I have felt a level of dislike and anger towards certain tweeters I really do not like in myself and am trying hard not to tar all Christians with the same brush.  I know there are lots of Catholics and other Christians who categorically do not agree with their church's position on this issue.  However, when an institution is so aggressively telling you that you deserve to be treated as a second-class citizen by your country because of its view on morality it can be quite a struggle.

Beautifully put Zac!

There is no argument against Marriage Equality that holds water.  There is no even vaguely convincing case to be made of the harm this measure would cause.  Not one straight marriage would be affected by it.  This is a nasty attempt to discriminate simply because you think you can.  You cannot be a "liberal Christian" and convince me that they are pro-gay, whilst at the same time telling me I deserve to be treated differently by the State, as a 2nd class citizen, based on nothing more than your own prejudice.



FOOTNOTE: since writing the Telegraph has now updated its story to remove the misleading aspects of the story, though it has left a photo caption that does not match the updated version.  The story additionally now makes little sense with this central plank removed, but credit and thanks to @donnabow for admitting her mistake and amending it.