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David Cameron's backing of gay marriage was meant to be an easy way to cement the detoxification of the Tory brand. However the most striking memory of debate is more likely to be a Tory MP claiming that he couldn't possibly be a bigot because he once punched a gay man in the face.
Culture secretary Maria Miller's encounter with Tory MPs on Monday and Tuesday saw Conservatives line up not only to attack the plan, but compare gay marriage to polygamy and dismiss it as not "normal". One suggested that straight couples would be more likely to have babies out of wedlock if gay people were allowed to tie the knot - because, presumably, the very institution of marriage would then have gay germs on it.
Same-sex marriage was described by one Conservative as "a constitutional outrage and a disgrace", another was "deeply offended", his colleague said plans for equal marriage smacked of "arrogance and intolerance" and another was concerned "this country will be passing a law that is directly contrary to what Jesus said".
Over half the Tory parliamentary party is expected to vote in favour of gay marriage. However their support, from the begrudging to the sincerely enthusiastic, is drowned out by the large number of their colleagues who will vote noisily against.
David Davies, the MP who inexplicably submitted a video of him boxing a gay guy as evidence of his lack of bigotry, was trying to undo damage done by insisting that most parents would not want their children to be gay. And Conservative Bob Blackman called for the re-introduction of the anti-gay Section 28 law.
Cameron is right to introduce gay marriage. It is the correct thing to do and he should be applauded. And helpfully, according to Ipsos-MORI, 73% of the public also supports it.
The passage of gay marriage legislation was designed to show how the Tory party had changed. Instead it looks more likely it will demonstrate how in large part, it has not. Perversely, and frustratingly for the prime minister, rather than detoxifying the Tory brand, triggering a debate about gay marriage has retoxified it.
The Bill due to be introduced in January should have no trouble passing the Commons given the support of Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg. However over 100 Tory MPs plan to vote against the Bill. The prime minister will not be able to argue he has detoxified his party if he is only able to introduce gay marriage thanks to the votes of Labour and Lib Dem MPs.
In just over two hours of Commons discussion on the issue, backbench Conservatives have generated multiple 'anti-gay Tory' headlines. When the Bill is introduced there will be many more hours of debate, generating countless more toxic headlines. And when the voters look at the record of the Tories, Labour and the Lib Dems on gay rights, they won't side with the one whose leader let his MPs repeatedly [metaphorically] punch gay guys in the face to prove he wasn't homophobic.
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Simon C. Johnson: Frenemies of Our State
The clauses in the Equality Act that relate to what people say and the opinions they express must be removed before marriage laws are changed. These clauses are removing freedom of speech and without freedom of speech we will have no "rights" in a few decades.
The speech and opinion parts of the Equality Act are already dealt with by harassment legislation, all that is required is for magistrates and judges to implement it. We cannot simply allow extrajudicial tribunals to impose massive fines on employers and sanction dismissals for employees who exercise free speech.
At present anyone can say they oppose same sex marriage but once it becomes a legal equivalent of marriage those people will commit an offence under the Equality Act. At the moment some people are on the wrong side of a debate and the next they are criminals.
Surely the young people you mention cannot favour such authoritarianism?
If you can reference anything to illustrate your point though, I'd be interested to see it.
But if I want to tell someone who's remarried after divorce that they're a bigamist, there's nothing to stop me doing that; it just wouldn't be correct under the law of England and Wales. The same would be true after the introduction of equal marriage - Catholics, Moslems, Jo Bloggs will all be able to say that a gay couple's marriage lacks *real* validity (where Catholics, Moslems, or Jo Bloggs are, of course, the arbiters of what constitutes *reality*); but for the purposes of the law, that will have as much effect as saying that the Moon is made of green cheese.
It will be possible to oppose equal marriage - in the same way as it is possible to moan about many other things - but that doesn't mean that society will accept that complaint. If you burst into a registry office or other venue where a marriage is taking place and shout out that it is a perversion, however, you're likely to find yourself dealing with officers of the law, as you would if you did the same when a marriage involving a divorcee was taking place.
I know because I have relatives who think like this.
I don't have an issue with gay marriage. As long as individual churches aren't subject to legal attacks, or the usual set-ups by people determined to be outraged.
My problem with the current gay marriage debate is, you'd think it was an important issue instead of the dinner party froth that it really is. Cameron and other senior politicians with their fixation on it give the impression that it's an issue on a par with our country's financial problems.
This is what so frustrates so many ordinary people that they are vilified, slandered and hounded for having perfectly valid views !!!!
What a load of hypocrisy.
Equal marriage is not anti christian.
Rather than complaining, you should be applauding the PM for allowing a free vote on the subject.
From the statistics that you quote, it is clear that not everybody in the UK is supportive of Gay Marriage, and so it should be expected that not every one of our representatives should be toeing the party line.
That is not to say that I don't think what Cameron is doing is wrong. I think the stand he is taking is deeply ethical and should be applauded. It wont change my mind about him, but it will be the one thing I will speak well of him for, at least.
If diversity is to be valued and respected, then this very fundamentalk difference must be recognised and respected.