Now that Drinkaury is over – though of course the fight against the puritans go on, it seems I missed all sorts of other things. This means I’m afraid that I’ll be doing a few catch up posts on the bits of news which didn’t entirely escape my attention. One of those things I’m afraid was this whole “gay marriage” thing. As you may have suspected I’ve a couple of problems with this legislation. The first of which is why are they even bothering with this at the moment, as last I checked:
it wasn’t in anyone’s manifesto,
it wasn’t in the coalition agreement,
it wasn’t in the queens speech,
the economy is still doing shit.
Now some cynical types have suggest it’s being brought in before our lords and masters in the EU start telling us off, other cynical types have suggested that maybe this is the boy Cameron following the apparent obsession of recent prime minster to make their mark in history. Obviously I’d never countenance such thoughts, but I do wonder if this is the best use of parliamentary time and if there aren’t more pressing matters they could be focusing their attention on? Let’s put that objection aside though as why they’re doing this now isn’t really that important, I am after all quite resigned to our elected representatives doing all manner of stuff to avoid actually tackling the hard problems. Instead I’d rather like to object to the law as it’s being proposed on the grounds that it’s bad law – which is something that really “grinds my gears” to use a phrase from the modern idiom. If we’re going to pay to have full time legislators I’d rather appreciate it if they actually produced well thought out laws, that actually achieved what they claim to in a demonstrable fashion.
The headline claim for this legislation is that it’s for the sake of equality (though that goal is mentioned in the consultation except in the title). Let’s assume though that the goal of the legislation is to put the legal registration of partnership between Homosexuals on the same footing as Heterosexuals the obvious question is does this legislation achieve this? I’m afraid to say that the answer is a rather resounding no, instead of coming out of this legislation with a single legal version of “marriage” we’re going to end up with three different forms of telling the state who you live with.
The proposed legislation will “retain civil partnerships for same-sex couples only” – so no equality there.
The proposed new form of “marriage” even has different conditions depending on if the people getting married are of the same sex or not. For the purposes of divorce “adultery” only exists between people of the opposite sex and same sex marriages don’t have a requirement of being consummated – so again no equality there either. So by bringing in a bill allegedly in search of equality of marriage we still don’t have legal equality of marriage anywhere.
Couples of differing sex get to keep marriage version 1.0
Couples of the same sex can choose between:
Civil partnership version 1.0
or
Marriage version 1.2 – now with no obligation for consummation and approval for extra marital dalliances
I can’t fathom why they couldn’t open up civil partnerships to all and sundry and make that the model for Marriage with all of the religious stuff being a private affair between people and their religion. Or if they really need to keep civil partnerships as a separate thing then why not let heterosexuals in on the game?
Likewise for the Marriage side why should Homosexuals be allowed to play around as long as they stick tot he same sex and it not count as adultery when Heterosexuals can’t either put the same responsibility on both groups or neither. Consummation would presumably be trickier for the same sex marriage side of things – so why not drop it from both. Drop the consummation clause keep the adultery clause for everyone and presto change-o an actual equal definition of marriage. Really why build in inequality into a law that’s meant to be about equality? The rest of the proposals are even more of a mess. I know some people argue that any improvement is better than nothing and that if they didn’t grab this chance then that would be it for a generation. I disagree if society has changed to the point where the inequality is unacceptable then societal pressure would make actual equality inevitable sooner rather than later. Further accepting the legislation as is represent failure, the fight was for equality and it hasn’t been achieved instead inequality has been again enshrined in law and changing that further will take far longer as “well it’s close enough isn’t it?”. Looking at the differences between the two proposed forms of Marriage I’d suggest that the subtext behind how it’s been drafted is that same-sex marriage isn’t as serious an affair, that same-sex couples can’t be expected to follow the monogamous tradition of marriage and are far too flighty and fickle for the serious responsibilities that Heterosexuals cope with. To use a deliberately provocative example just imagine that this was back in the times of slavery and someone had proposed that it was time for the slaves to be allowed to marry but that they shouldn’t be expected to not commit adultery – would that be acceptable? Quite frankly the legislation as worded is insulting to the commitment between same-sex couples.
I’m really quite with Steve Baker in wondering why doesn’t the state just get out of the religious side of things all together? After all as a friend of mine observed (paraphrased):
“pagans have to have their Handfasting separate from their wedding. As do my Buddhist friend with their faith/path weddings. Folks religious marriages, regardless of Gender types are often the more important ones to them, but yet have to be made separately from their ‘legally binding’ ones. I see no reason why the rest of the country should have it easier just because of state religion (which surely should be an outmoded thing in this multi faith multicultural age?).”
The religious considerations actually reveal that this bit of legislation contains a bit of a land grab by the state on all religions:
“enable those religious organisations that wish to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies to do so on a permissive basis only”
“we will devise an ‘opt-in’ system where same-sex couples can only marry according to religious rites on religious premises where the governing religious body has expressly consented; and the legislation will make it clear that no law requires any religious organisations to opt in to that system”
Which unless I’m miss reading it means that religions now have to expressly tell the Government they’re ok with marrying same sex couples, so all the various religions and churches that were quite happy just holding same sex marriages will now have to let the state know.
The other tricky bit for the legislation is that no Parliament can bind a successive Parliament, which is why all those cast iron guarantees and “locks” on legislation aren’t worth anything – so then they say:
“provide explicit legal protections for religious organisations that will allow them to continue to operate unhindered within their doctrines and beliefs as they do now”
that will be open to legal challenge, and as we’ve seen before the high and European courts can and will rule laws illegal and demand that they be changed. So which minority triumphs religious freedom or sexual equality?
Finally and I think this one will have fantastically comedic consequences:
“enable individuals to change their legal gender without having to end their marriage”
Now remember if the couple is of the same sex adultery is fine and no need for consummation, but if they’re of differing sexes then no adultery and consummation is required. So what happens if one half of a couple changes sex?
If they’re now a different sex couple could they divorce on grounds of lack on consummation or adultery when both were perfectly fine prior to the sex change? Or the other way round if going through divorce say and they become a same sex couple do they lose the ability to divorce based on adultery as that no longer applies?
Like I say this is bad law, that enshrines inequality and we really should expect better from people paid to spend time actually making sure we have good laws.
But then perhaps all of this is as Suzanne Moore observes all about state sponsored conformity and not equality.
Oh and for those that are wondering the video is this years Finnish entry to the EuroVision song contest it seemed appropriate.
