Tuesday 5 February 2013 will be an historic day. It will be the first time in recent years that a 'free vote' bill is debated before a Queens Speech. The first time in living memory that an issue raising such fundamental matters of moral, legal and constitutional significance has been pushed through by a government without an electoral mandate and without the whole House's scrutiny. And it could be the first time a government has less than half of its MPs supporting a government bill.
If it passes the bill will of course be historic, making it lawful for same sex couples to marry. Supporters say colleagues should be on the right side of history in relation to gay rights. I see it differently like Stonewall's chief executive Ben Summerskill did in 2012, when he told me he feared gay marriage would just put us in our trenches and not advance gay rights. There will be MPs from all parties with me voting against the state's attempt to redefine marriage. They are united in supporting the equal value of men and women whatever their sexuality and affirming the distinctive value of marriage being between a man and a woman. They can tell their constituents in 2015 that they supported the social institution of marriage and supported the foundation of a free society.
Phillip Blond and Roger Scruton's paper on marriage published today by Respublica ('Marriage Union for the Future or Contract for the Present') comes in the nick of time to remind us why marriage needs defending not redefining and same sex unions need respecting.
Marriage is a vital heterosexual institution becuase it caters to the unique consequences of heterosexual union - children. It cannot simply be extended to others without this purpose being devalued or lost. For as Blond and Scruton point out what most threatens marriage is an account of marriage that just reduces it to the people involved - making marriage a simple contractual relationship that does not extend beyond the consenting parties themselves. Redefining marriage as more of a partnership than a conjugal relationship fundamentally changes the meaning of marriage and helps to erode its historic and crucial purpose.
Children and parenthood barely get mentioned by supporters of the bill despite the fact that this is the prevailing reason for most couples getting married. You could begin to think that marriage was all about the value of adulthood and not the value of parenthood. Of course same sex couples raise children in loving homes and not all marriages involve children. But over the centuries society and church have had a united view of the essential purpose of marriage, to provide a stable institution for the care of children. Now the state is trying to divide and rule the meaning of marriage.
Blond and Scruton's considered paper is a timely rebuttal to those who pigeonhole opponents of the bill. Tuesday will be the time for all MPs who believe marriage is our most progressive and conservative institution to stand up and be counted.
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Marriage is about way more then pro-creation. You know that. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be fighting to hold onto it as strongly as you are.
You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with, but same sex marriage is about equality. And by denying it, you're no different then those who didn't want to give women the vote or end slavery.
Marry for love, marry for commitment. Having children and getting married are consequences of the same love. To suggest one is a product of the other is intellectually bankrupt.
Does the writer really think that human fertility doesn't exist until marriage? Falling for that one means that the rest of his rant is just that! A rant!
This is that it is the safest way of generating human identity, which is necessarily produced by the conjunction of male and female.
That is why children's psychological health - despite the heroic efforts of so many lone parents - generally depends on their being brought up by both a mother and father.
That is why marriage is unique, and why it has a unique place in society. And that is why it is socially so destructive to promote the expansion of any sexual relationships outside marriage.
But the Tory leadership never says this. It presents marriage not as the inimitable union of the two components of human identity, but instead merely as a utilitarian contract.
Thus for all its weasel words it has made marriage intensely vulnerable.'
While you prioritise any expression of love as deserving to be treated as marriage, you undermine marriage as a privilege that confers a shared public identity that is genuinely inheritable by a fact of biological origin, rather than a legal fiction, or political fiat.
NO! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well you'd better damn well have some double-quick because that's the reason for being married. And if one of you is biologically incapable it's your duty to divorce your fertile partner and let them marry someone with whom they can fulfil the only reason for being married.
Gays are of course all infertile (well known fact) and in no way capable of reproducing.
Oh and by the by Mr Burrowes, you clearly haven't been an MP for very long. This vote, like those on abortion or capital punishment, is a free vote, which means MP's are, well, free to vote however they want regardless of party affiliation so the fact that more than half the tories will vote against it is.....how shall I put this.......oh yes, totally meaningless!
Try another line of argument.
If someone can actually provide one reason that my marriage is somehow threatened or invalidated by two men or women I've never met getting married then by all means do so. But you're going to have to do a lot better than 'it's for the sake of the children.'
If your object is to shift the focus of the marriage covenant towards the wider aspects of 'family', then using the same sex marriage argument as the stick to beat the issue with, is wrong.
You should be addressing your concerns towards the much greater numbers of heterosexual couples who willingly choose NOT to commit to marriage and to formalise their union. As the numbers of children born to cohabiting and unmarried couples continue to increase, the traditional idea of marriage is becoming more and more archaic and outdated.
Ironic that there is such resistance to an acceptance of same sex couples who want recognition of something that heterosexual couples seem to be turning away from in droves.
that empowers a minority to legislate for the majority may be historical. But in terms of the tenets of democracy, its hysterical. Democracy is dead! Long live whatever this is?
“matters of moral, legal and constitutional significance”
Who invented marriage and when? Its longevity, on a timeline with scientific us, is not even an eye-blink. In regard to religious us, Adam and Eve weren’t participants. Humans invented it. So where’s the mystique concerning that manifestation?
“without an electoral mandate”
Sorry. We don’t do referendums. But if we did…we’d probably select policies and not bother with parties at all.
“the right side of history”
What’s the difference between phoney marriage and phoney democracy? Like mis-selling and fraud, it depends on who’s supplying the definition.
“marriage being between a man and a woman”
appears to be falling out of fashion of its own accord. Maybe compelling cohabitants to register, might be a way of bringing numbers back up.
“a free society”
surely governs itself, by virtue of the majority will. Or is this more of a semi-free society?
“Marriage is”
different things to different people. Hands up whoever has the definitive classification, as prescribed by that institution’s inventor.
“children”
are at the mercy of their supervisors. Any duty of care comes from within the character of said guardian/s. Not from some external accessory.
“same sex couples raise children in loving homes and not all marriages involve children”
But leave us not let reality impact sentiment.