This is a guest post by Polly
I wrote a while back about my (now ex) friend who gained her ex status when she suddenly expressed a belief that civil partnerships in churches were wrong after coincidentally hanging around with a bunch of evangelical Christian homophobes, who were coincidentally black Africans, and who then, in one of the only genuine instances I’ve ever come across of political correctness gone mad, further proposed that there must be something in homophobia if black Africans were expressing it because it was obviously some sort of ethnic characteristic, thereby being simultaneously homophobic AND racist. She is doing a PhD in ethnography, which might explain it. That and the prodigious quantity of illegal drugs she gets through.
She was of course at pains to protest her non homophobia, and just before being chucked as a friend, said that I must know she’s not homophobic, it’s just that she didn’t agree with every bit of my “political agenda”, and couldn’t I respect her view, the way she “respected” mine. My response was that unfortunately I couldn’t respect her view, because it was homophobic. Well she did ask. And I wasn’t prepared to facilitate a delusion that she couldn’t be homophobic because hey – some of her best friends are lesbians.
I was reminded of the whole sorry affair by this Guardian editorial – Civil partnerships: questions for the church – which is peculiar even by their standards.
My personal view on marriage as a legal phenomenon is simple. I think it should be abolished. If I had my way, no legal marriages or civil partnerships would take place anywhere.
However as it is, we have religion, and we have legal marriage and we have civil partnerships. And some religious institutions want to host civil partnership ceremonies, and some same sex couples are religious, and want to plight their troth in a place of worship. And amazingly, it took the ConDems to decide it was a good idea for this to be allowed. I hate it when that happens. But a pantomime villain lurked in the wings in the shape of Baroness O’Cathain. So what do the graun think of her motivation?
“As ever in such debates on equality, though, a much bigger issue of principle lurks not far below the surface of this lawyerish dispute – in which, it should be added, legal opinion is divided and not all on Baroness O’Cathain’s side. That issue of principle is homosexual equality. This newspaper supports such equality and believes that opposition to it will soften over time. It nevertheless believes that the opposition is there, is sincerely held, and should not be legislated away.”
This raises a number of questions. Does the graun believe that the view should be legislated away if it was frivolously held? Are there insincere bigots out there? If someone sincerely expresses some other kind of prejudice, e.g. racism does that make it better? Will the next grauniad editorial express sympathy for e.g. the crusades on the basis that our genocidal medieval friends truly believed they were doing god’s will?
And the answers presumably are a)yes b)who knows c)of course not and d)quite possibly. There may well be people who are bigots for a laugh, just for a joke, a ha ha ha, but it isn’t nearly as funny as the idea that our dear Baroness is motivated by anything other than the fact that she just doesn’t like non heterosexual people much..
There are various positions you could take on the current law. Personally I think it’s a grubby little compromise, that is slightly less homophobic than the previous grubby little compromise. I can see why they did it the way they did, and I have to admire (oh this really hurts*) Scameron’s willingness to at least partially upset the Fail, the Torygraph and numerous backbench bigots for a principle, when Bliar wouldn’t have known a principle unless it turned up with a cheque for a trillion billion pounds.
However the fact is religious institutions are still allowed to discriminate in ways nobody else is, and this is excused on the basis apparently that such discrimination is “sincere” and based on the bible/other religious text as appropriate (though the meeja’s a lot less sympathetic when muslims complain about gays for some reason, even gay penguins).
Can we please, please drop the idea that there are genuinely non homophobic people who just have to do everything their imaginary sky pixie friend tells them, even though it really hurts them more than it hurts us because they’d really like to live in a big rainbow hippy world but the ISPF won’t allow it? And that this somehow makes them superior to common or garden bigots?
Because a)if you did everything the bible tells you you’d find life pretty difficult – let’s just hope for her sake that Detta O’Cathain has no poly cotton about her person, or even worse some kind of viscose/cotton/angora blend. And b)muslims do it, Christians do it, even educated fruit flies do it. Be honest, admit you’re a bigot, and stop hiding behind obscure bits of Leviticus to justify it. Because things that you’re liable to read in the bible, ain’t necessarily so.
*not nearly as bad as having to shop at Tesco to annoy Christians though….. But I suppose they are cheap and convenient…
Too Much To Say For Myself 
An absolute gem on this…
Julian Brazier, the MP for Canterbury, maintained it was not about homophobia, saying he knows “lots” of gay people.
Do they admit to knowing you though Julian?
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/02/gay-partnerships-churches-threat_n_1125704.html
Polly – Firstly, I love your style!
Different faith groups will always have different beliefs for different reasons. Problems, I think, arise politically because it is difficult to enable tolerance for some folks except at the cost of intolerance to other folks. And it becomes infernally difficult for the dear ‘ol CoE because, as the ‘Established Church’, it’s trying to be church and state at the same time.
I’ve always thought the church today makes far too much of marriage. But then, it brings the pennies in far more than baptisms and funerals. You’d never have kept our church choir lads snoring through the sermons on the threepences for matins and evensong if it wasn’t for the half crowns the bride’s fathers stumped up for every 15 minute wedding.
Thank you Stephen. I do have some sympathy for the legislature in this one, who are on a hiding to nothing.
But I think the argument that it is about ‘religious freedom’ is a nonsense. It’s about places of worship carrying out functions on behalf of the state. Now either they need to distestablish the whole thing (certainly my preferred option) or they need to abide by equalities legislation, same as anyone else. It’s the same as ‘faith’ schools being publicly funded and then trying to get opt outs on everything.
There is no suggestion that even if there had been a successful legal challenge, (and quite frankly I don’t see why the passing of the current law would be necessary for a challenge anyway, surely it could take place without it) that the ability of places of worship to carry out religious marriage ceremonies (presumably the bit that matters in their eyes) would have been impaired, just that they wouldn’t be able to legally marry people. Folks could still have the religious bit in the church/mosque/temple/synagogue and then the bit that entitles them to dodge inheritance tax in a register office. As indeed they do in other countries.
This reminds me of the bizarre case of Lillian Ladele, the registrar who claimed it was against her christian beliefs to conduct civil partnership ceremonies. But surely it was equally against her Christian beliefs to conduct civil marriage ceremonies, since without the benefit of clergy, the participants would not be married in the eyes of the church, and therefore sinning every time they had sex.
In short, have whatever irrrational or bigoted beliefs you want, I’m not the thought police. But the state shouldn’t endorse it.