Today the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill got royal assent and passed into law. If you want to read lots of happy articles singing this as a great triumph, I suggest you ask a search engine or elsewhere – I’m going to piss in everyones cornflakes. Though before I do that I would like to wish well to all the same sex couples for whom this is actually important. I’ll also ask those that campaigned for equality:
1) Why did you settle for inequality?
2) Why do you want the state involved at all?
Now on with the pissing. A while back I observed that this bill is not equality and now as it becomes law that hasn’t really changed. I’ve just finished reading the 61 pages of the act as it was last published and as is typical it’s not easy reading being full of amendments of the form:
“In act blah blah blah (1972) in section 299 part 72 after “this” insert “that””
In this day and age there must be a better way to do this, though I suppose the lawyers have to keep earning a crust somehow. Also I would suggest that saying that marriage between couples of the same sex was equal to marriage of opposite sex couples wouldn’t take that long either, if it was actual equality. Then I guess that’s why this is the “Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill” and not the “Marriage Equality bill”.
Just to get one of my biggest gripes out of the way first, civil partnerships are still only an option for same sex couples, so two options for the same sex couples – which as I said last time isn’t equality. Really would it have hurt anyone to give that option to opposite sex couples.
Again as I said before the new “same sex marriage” doesn’t consider adultery grounds for divorce (p 30, Part 3, 3 (2))
“(6) Only conduct between the respondent and a person of the opposite sex may constitute adultery for the purposes of this section”
So again as I said before looks like our lords and masters don’t think same sex couples can keep their pants on and shouldn’t be held to the same standards as opposite sex couples. I think same sex couples are also still let off the hook for the whole consumption of the marriage thing (why are we keeping that for opposite sex couples?), but I’m not sure as it’s an amendment bit, basically in grounds for annulment (p 30, part 3, 4 (3)):
“(2) Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) do not apply to the marriage of a same sex couple.”
So this is still not the same class of marriage as for opposite sex couples, and it’s really not clear how those differences will be handled in the case of marriages involving one or more transgender people.
This is such an act of equality that the marriage won’t even be valid through out the entirety of the united kingdom, cross the border into Scotland or Northern Ireland and your lovely same sex marriage magically becomes a civil partnership. Which makes me wonder two things:
1) How is that going to play out with the whole Scottish independence thing:
“Vote for an independent Scotland if you think marriage should only be between a man and woman”
2) How well does it bode for these marriages being recognized internationally ?
Let me expand that last point, Scotland and Northern Ireland are as far as I’m aware signatories to the Hague Convention, so if they don’t recognize these English/Welsh marriages what chance is there of them being recognised in less friendly lands. Just picture it:
Foreign diplomat to British ambassador: “Yes Ambassador, I realise they have a document that says they’re married but that’s not even recognised within all of your country and you expect us to recognise it here?”
Really it’s not going to go well is it, but that I guess is devolved politics for you.
Another bit of inequality now further enshrined in law is way down on page 59(37) an amendment to the “Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008”. There we have the following ammendment and others like it:
38 (1) Section 35 (woman married at time of treatment) is amended in accordance
with this paragraph.
(2) The title: after “married” insert “to a man”.
(3) Subsection (1)(a): after “marriage” insert “with a man”.
So this is looking like equality has been really well achieved.
Finally one bit I can see which will cause all sorts of fun and games is on P58 and the amendment to the “Public Order Act 1986 (c. 64)” where we have this:
“(2) In this Part, for the avoidance of doubt, any discussion or criticism of marriage which concerns the sex of the parties to marriage shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.”.
I can see some lawyers make quite a lot of money out of how that one plays out.
How the act handles the whole transgender thing seems to be a horrible mess, and I’m not going to even touch the mess it’s going to cause amongst religious groups. As you may have gathered I don’t think this achieves equality for anyone, it does entrench inequality further in modern law, and probably means all the celebs will toddle off to the next shiny cause leaving that inequality in place. It seems a shame that we’ve managed to gain not a huge amount of benefit for keeping inequality and pulling the machinations of the state into even more peoples lives.
Much like the good folks over at Samizdata I had no interest in commenting on the recent trial of Mr George Zimmerman for the killing of Mr Trayvon Martin – not in my fields of interest and I knew nothing about it. However following the jury decision to find Mr Zimmerman innocent it turns out that a lot of my friends are psychic and know that Mr Zimmerman deliberately went out of his way to murder mr Martin due to his colour. Now sadly these friends weren’t able to make their unique skills available to the court, but I would suggest that they need to get themselves a super hero identity as their skills are vitally needed. Until they do that all we have is the rule of law where a person is innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers having heard all of the available evidence (and I believe the same applies across the pond where the trial took place). Now I’ve not heard yet anyone claiming it was a mistrial or that evidence was withheld or tampered with, I’ve not even heard anyone claiming that the law was at fault – at least not amongst my amazing psychic friends.
If the law is wrong, well like it or not people can (normally) only get tried according to the law as it stands at the time the alleged offense was committed, so you’re too late for Mr Martin but go ahead and campaign to change the law. Whilst you’re doing that could you please deploy your amazing powers to this more recent case, which involves the self same stand your round laws. Do let me know or even better the relevant legal authorities what your amazing psychic powers of deduction reveal.
The trial of Mr Zimmerman has been quite revelatory with regards to how the case has been presented in the media, an awful lot of use being made of a 5 year old photo of Mr Martin and a more recent portrait photo, where as the pictures of Mr Zimmerman have been less flattering. Even after the trial by which time you’d have hoped a wider range of photo’s would be available bits of the media are still using that 5 year old photo – such as this piece by the ever reliable Martin Bashir, which seems to be popular with my psychic friends as he sums up the case in 4 minutes. Starting with that 5 year old picture and describing the 17 year old Mr Martin as a child. I’m not sure if my friends have read the summary of the closing arguments but I guess one advantage of having psychic powers is that you don’t need to, nor do you need to go to the court.
I shall leave both you and my psychic friends with a question from Brother Ivo:
“Brother Ivo asks a single question: “How much head injury would you be prepared to sustain before concluding that your life may be in danger?” You have three seconds to answer.”
Obviously for those with psychic powers such a question would never arise as they’d know in advance what was going to happen, and for those that missed it Mr Martin was apparently bashing Mr Zimmermans head against the pavement just prior to being shot. Now here’s a question from me:
Why is it OK to describe someone of Hispanic origin as White, when usually such behaviour is frowned upon?
Official UK Threat Level
"a youngster trying to defend from a moral standpoint themselves living an immoral existence." - Harbringer
