Wedding Days, Gays and Bigoted Ways (Gay Marriage)

Member Name: stoffy

Product:	Gay Marriage
Date:	20/08/03 (192 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: the tide is gradually turning in most countries

Disadvantages: current UK legislation forbidding it

The both the Catholic and Anglican churches currently have their knickers in a knot about ‘the gays’ in general, with both seemingly unable to decide whether they should be castrated and thrown to the lions or able to hold senior positions in their respective bodies (why not both? Maybe that’ll get church attendances up…).

The Pope, a octogenarian who appears not only to have lost his marbles, but his entire play-set, released a statement last month declaring that gay people were ‘evil’. This is particularly interesting for an institution which has been shown time and time again to sweep child sex-abuse cases under a carpet of lies and secrecy.

General political and societal opinion of gay people has drastically changed over the years. Homosexual acts (those confined to the bedroom rather than spending all day in Topman looking at belts and bitching about minor celebrities, it’s worth pointing out) were only decriminalised in the late 1960’s. However, whilst gayness has been gradually absorbed and accepted into society on the face of it, there is still an undercurrent of opposition from many quarters. It is still enshrined in law that gay households are ‘pretended family relationships’ (Section 28 of the Local Government Act), and whilst women, ethnic minorities and the disabled can bring legal action for discrimination, gay people can’t. The fact that South Africa, who abolished apartheid barely a decade ago, can already boast this level of protection for gay people speaks volumes about this supposedly liberal democracy’s shortcomings

Recently, the focus of attention towards has been on whether gay couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Whilst it’s pretty common knowledge that at present there is no legal right to marry (although some areas now have partnership registers, a welcome if somewhat limited step), there are also barriers f
or gay couples in areas such as inheritance and property distribution after separation.

Proposals have recently been introduced into Parliament to try and redress this balance by affording gay people more rights, although any legislation is surely to be delayed in the same way that Section 28 has through the predominantly right-wing House Of Lords. However, whilst a welcome step for the Labour government to introduce these proposals, it doesn’t go far enough in enshrining genuine and equal rights, not only for couples, but for gay individuals generally.

Giving gay people full marriage rights, just as they have in a number of European countries would once and for all legitimise gay relationships in the eyes of the law. There are estimated to be approximately 500,000 – 1m gay couples in the UK – a not insignificant proportion of the population. Whilst it is possible for two 16 year olds to get hitched in Gretna having known each other for the length of time it takes to boil an egg, gay people can be in a monogamous relationship for 20 years and still not be deemed fit of being even a next of kin.

The main opposition to granting marriage rights is ultimately lodged in homophobia – the marriage of two people doesn’t legally affect anyone else and puts nobody at a disadvantage. Marriage is a very private thing and is surely one area of life that shouldn’t be governed by paternalistic morality.

Whilst it’s perhaps understandable that the church may have some difficulty in seeing two men or two women walk up the aisle together, and that this is purely going to be a private, non-legal issue for the church, there are no real legitimate arguments that civil marriages granting exactly the same rights for gay couples as heterosexual unions should not be performed.

The Pope and some quarters of the Catholic church may still believe that gay people are evil. However, the law needs to ackno
wledge immediately the reality that gay people do have relationships and do deserve exactly the same rights as their straight counterparts.

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