State of nature

Marriage : Gays.

Sorry for the relative silence - been vaguely busy.

Anyway, sort of apropo this wee spat (possibly) came the news earlier this week - Civic partnerships. More with a whimper than a bang - if anyone can recall the furore over gay rights in the Eighties with Tories getting all steamed up and passing Clause 28 (now thankfully dead) will mark the difference now the shoe is on the other foot.

Clearly, what in the US is now termed Culture wars is just some way for the right in power to mobilise their base. Certainly, some familly campaigners have been tiredly mouthing off. The Holy Mother Church being among them. Noticeably Radio 4's Today programme had a random Tory peer wittering on about marriage being a secure environment for raising children (does that mean a childless marriage is not a marriage?). Equally intriguing was a government Minister desperately covering their backs by insisting that Civil Partnerships are actually quite different from marriage because (and get this) you don't need to make your vows in public. There, that's it.

And this betrays the hollow core. Civil partnerships give all the same legal and economic rights as marriage to gay and lesbian partnership. Take that away from marriage, it seems, and there's nothing left ut the empty hollow shell of words. This is a fact further betrayed by the Archbishop (how we can trust the pronouncements on sex matters of anyone whose job title is a phallic metaphor I don't know) - who says:

"What the Government should do in terms of public policy is support marriage rather than undermine it," he said. "To put beside marriage an alternative or what appears to be a perfectly approved legal alternative lifestyle I think does not help the institution of marriage at all."

Oooh, look, look. Marriage is something, apparently, that cannot survive without state support and financial inducements - vide: In a speech on Monday, Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss said the loss of tax perks meant there was no financial incentive to marry or stay married. a Judge speaketh.

Marriage is natural, sayeth Conservatives. The truth, it is an economic relationship in an era where you are what you own. Entirely divorced from love and sex.

Addendum

Sort-of Tangentally, for Graham, I've meant to link to this book for ages. Via: Deweyblog