The lingering stench of ‘gay marriage’

Friday, 16 March 2012

I am under no illusions about winning a popularity contest among the chattering classes on this one. It’s much easier to swim with the progressive tide. And I know I’m fighting a losing battle too, because almost every outlet, especially the BBC, is obviously in favour of gay marriage. But I though it was worth restating my position again, so I went on Newsnight last night to explain why gay marriage is such a bad idea.

People are rightly uneasy about something as fundamental as marriage being redefined by politicians, none of whom put this in their manifestoes, when public opinion is so split on the issue. Some polls have the public as much as 88% against redefining the institution.

The legal ramifications are very complicated. If this were just about inventing civil gay marriages it wouldn’t be so much of a problem. But as soon as this hits the statute book, people are going to invoke human rights legislation to force churches to allow gay marriages on their premises. There is not the remotest possibility that, for example, the Catholic Church will allow this. This will turn gay marriage into a battlefield.

What you’ll get is a series of messy test cases that cannot be amicably resolved, particularly in the case of, say, Islamic mosques, which I cannot imagine being comfortable with gay marriage either (to put it mildly). No Imam or Catholic priest is going to preside over a gay wedding. Any priest who did it would be automatically excommunicated – and so would the couple – because they are parodying the sacrament of marriage. So the Catholic Church will either shut up shop and padlock its churches or simply refuse to conduct marriages at all.

Before you get too gleeful about that possibility, think on the millions of people in this country of all faiths who will then be denied the religious service they want.