Labour's Dangerously Close To Screwing Up Their #EqualMarriage Policy

Marriage equality is, I think, first and foremost being brought in for those LGBT people who wish to get married. I know that sounds completely obvious but I think that, after the last week of debate, that needs to be clarified.

Let us also be clear that the current marriage equality proposals are flawed (as I stated in my response to them). We still don't get equal pensions rights, there remains some outstanding trans issues that have been completely by-passed and mixed-sex civil partnerships are completely off the agenda whilst leaving same-sex ones allowed. There is a lot Labour could be doing to argue the case for more, especially on the pension rights and trans rights fronts.

Instead of putting into action its much mentioned strength on LGBT issues, Labour has decided to join with the churches and attack the Government's plans. Instead of trying to fix their past mistakes (forcing trans people to divorce and denying civil partners equal pensions rights) they are tilting at windmills along with the Church of England. I pointed out yesterday how ridiculous the Church of England was being and Anya pointed it out even more clearly. Yet Yvette Cooper had this to say on Government plans:

"Ministers have made a real mess of this," said Cooper. "Why are they making it expressly illegal for the Church of England and the Church in Wales to hold same sex marriages, when even senior figures in both churches are questioning it?  

"The government should rethink this before they publish the legislation. Religious freedom should be protected in the legislation. But that goes both ways. Churches that want to hold same-sex marriages should be able to do so."

It is not the Government's plans that are a mess, it is the Church of England's response (and the Church in Wales shouldn't escape blame, their consultation request was to be treated exactly the same as the Church of England! They got their wish...) that is a mess. The Church of England even explained why what the Government had done was correct just the other day. Doesn't Labour know this? Are they so credulous that they listen to opponents of marriage equality (even on the civil level!) and believe what they have to say without even checking a few days old statement?

Rather than using this issue to attack the Government, helping to build an "omnishambles" impression, perhaps Labour might instead stand up for LGBT people and demand the necessary changes for us? When even LGBT Labour MPs like Ben Bradshaw would rather fawn over the religious than protect LGBT couples and families, then you know Labour has gone wrong somewhere.

Stop fighting ghosts and starting fighting for us! You are meant to be the opposition, not the pawns of anti-equality activists! Right now you are playing right into their hands and you're moving ever closer to undermining marriage equality itself.

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Countering The "Civil Partnerships Are Enough" Argument

One of the most persuasive and effective arguments opponents of marriage equality (and oft-quoted marriage equality agnostics like Christopher Biggins) use is that civil partnerships are so close to marriage that there really is no reason to pursue marriage equality*.

If we ignore the, sometimes glaring, differences between civil partnerships and marriage, civil partnerships do offer extremely strong protections for same gender relationships. Gone are the days of long term partners being denied hospital visitation or inheritance rights. Those heartbreaking moments that were once so brutally common are now consigned to history.

Civil partnerships were successful enough to dampen the call for marriage equality, and it's one of the reasons I still have a bit of a downer on them to this day. They truly do undermine, when dealing the issues superficially, the case for marriage equality.

So it is important to take a step back and consider: are we just being greedy? Are we seeking to "redefine" marriage, as our opponents claim, just because we are selfish and ungrateful? Are we placing a great deal of importance in just a word? Is the "cost" worth it?

One thing so often forgotten (or ignored for ideological reasons) by our opponents and agnostics alike is the plight of transgendered people and their partners in marriages or civil partnerships when getting gender recognition. The wonderful Sarah Brown describes the problem here, and the paragraph below shows the heartache caused by keeping civil partnerships and marriage separate entities.

This trans woman was me, and I made that faustian bargain in 2009, surrendering my marriage of eight years and, after much bureaucracy, converting it to a civil partnership. I now bitterly regret doing that. We had both convinced ourselves that it was just paperwork, and didn’t really mean anything, but we were wrong. It hurt deeply, and it still does. We had a wonderful civil partnership ceremony with friends, but I wish I could take it all back.

So civil partnerships certainly aren't enough to stop people having their marriages dissolved forcefully by the state. 

Then we have international recognition and the protection of the rights of British citizens abroad. The case of Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger represents the slap in the face caused by the current downgrading of one's perfectly legal marriage in another country to a civil partnership here. If we recognise opposite-sex marriages under the same foreign laws, then how can we pretend people aren't married under those same laws just because their genders don't meet our requirements? It's totally unfair.

Even more concerning are the problems (and they will grow as marriage equality becomes more widely recognised in the coming years) caused when someone in a civil partnerships visits or lives in a country with equal marriage laws. Because civil partnerships, unlikely marriage, aren't an internationally recognised standard it is highly likely that they will not be recognised as marriage in those countries. It is bad enough that civil partners won't be protected in countries without same gender partnership rights, but worse that because we don't have marriage equality they might not be registered in countries that do protect those rights! Following what will, fairly obviously, be an internationally recognised standard makes sense.

So civil partnerships are a typically British fudge that are not enough to avoid insult to those married abroad nor avoid the risk of non-recognition of the rights of British ex-pats and travelers. 

This argument also suffers from another problem. If civil partnerships are so similar to marriage what is the issue with marriage equality? Surely it makes sense to bring such similar institutions together in a simplified way to make sure case law applies equally. And Rupert Myers has a similarly probing question for proponents of this argument:

If civil partnerships are sufficient for gay couples because they provide the same package of rights, is that significantly different from saying that Rosa Parks should have been happy to sit at the back of the bus because it took her to the same place as the white people at the front?

Are civil partnerships enough to allow religious freedom? Some might say that those religious organisations wanting marriage equality so they can marry members of their faith should just accept their, newly won, right to conduct religious civil partnerships. Unfortunately for those wishing to stop marriage equality, local authorities have conspired to make the cost of being allowed to register civil partnerships much greater than marriage. This is putting an unfair burden on churches that support same gender partnerships than those who don't. With a properly worded marriage equality law allowing freedom of conscience for the religious this problem would cease to exist.

So civil partnerships aren't enough for those who believe in religious freedom. 

There are other examples of how civil partnerships aren't good enough, feel free to add them in the comments if you so wish!

Those, such as our "friend" Ben Bradshaw, who make the "civil partnerships are enough" argument must be challenged on it. They are often simply uninformed on the issues, usually blind to trans issues and make the remarks in an off-hand manner. It is important to correct them loudly to stop this lazy argument in its tracks. It is simply wrong. Civil partnerships were not enough in 2004, and they are not enough now. Marriage equality is the only way to resolve all these issues in a clean, clear-cut fashion.

*Another way this argument is put is that people do not understand why gay people would want a marriage in a church when they have civil partnerships and Christianity hates them. 

There are so many faults with that argument it is worth pointing them out.

1) it assumes LGBT people want to marry in a church. Marriages, in this country, don't have to be performed in a church. 
2) it assumes all churches are against LGBT relationships and that all LGBT people are atheists. Do I really need to point out this is fairly obviously untrue?
3) it takes a rather evangelical and Protestant view that Christianity is a cohesive whole when we all know it is far more complicated than that. 

I have to say that whilst I try to treat opponents with as much respect as I can muster, if you make the mistake of assuming all LGBT are atheists or all Christian churches think the same thing then I tend to dismiss most of your other arguments without further consideration. So let's stick to sensible arguments only please. 

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It's Okay To Be Homophobic If You're Gay, Part Two

Two years ago Andrew Pierce outed himself as a homophobe, one who believed that you can't be a homophobe if you are gay. This of course is a ridiculous proposition. Now he's come out with a more direct challenge in his most recent article's title: I’m a gay man who opposes gay marriage. Does that make ME a bigot, Mr Cameron?

Well I think the obvious answer to this is no, it doesn't but you are one anyway. Your hatred of "camp men", your disdain for the truth and the fact you think your sexuality trumps criticism suggests you are indeed a homophobe.

Disdain for the truth?, I hear you ask incredulously. Firstly in this most recent article he uses the same tired phrase of other homophobes; "metropolitan elite". This from a man who lives in Belsize Park! The idea that marriage equality is some secret plan of the queer toffs belies the fact that the people pushing this (such as Peter Tatchell) aren't exactly part of that "elite". And our opposition (including, in the past, such champagne socialists as Ben Summerskill and Chris Bryant) has often come from the very grouping supposedly in support!

He then moves on to quote Ben Bradshaw's (another elite me thinks) ill-thought out comments on marriage equality, without then pointing out Bradshaw will, ultimately, support the move!! Such deception!

But his final move is breath-taking in it's audacity.

Even gay rights campaigners are puzzled by the Prime Minister’s conversion to the cause. Stonewall, a powerful pressure group for gay equality, has not called for gay marriage.  

While the organisation — of which I’m proud to be a member — supports the idea of gay marriage, its priority remains tackling homophobia in schools after research showed that gay men in the 16-to-24 age group are significantly more likely to have attempted suicide than other young men. 

Stonewall did adopt that position.... in 2009! It is now very much attempting to steal the spotlight and "lead" the marriage equality campaign. There's even a whole campaign now!

So even if there's an argument that Andrew Pierce isn't a bigot, I think there's quite a clear argument that he's not to be trusted.

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Ben Bradshaw MP Plays The "Semantic" Card On Marriage Equality

Here's a quote from a Washington Post article from the 30/03/2012 regarding Britain's march towards marriage equality:

“This is more of David Cameron trying to drag the Conservatives kicking and screaming into the modern world,” said Ben Bradshaw, a ranking Labor lawmaker who in 1997 became one of Britain’s first openly gay members of Parliament. “Of course, we’ll support it, but this is pure politics on their part. This isn’t a priority for the gay community, which already won equal rights” with civil partnerships. He added: “We’ve never needed the word ‘marriage,’ and all it’s done now is get a bunch of bishops hot under the collar. We’ve been pragmatic, not making the mistake they have in the U.S., where the gay lobby has banged on about marriage.”

Today on Twitter he's defended these comments by stating that the fight for marriage equality is just semantics. With the interview he played into the hands of homophobes and then he made things worse when on Twitter he used one of their arguments! Marriage equality is not just semantics, but unfortunately Ben Bradshaw follows in the tradition of LGB Labour politicians of not really understanding the legislation they originally supported. Certainly he points out above his understanding that civil partnerships were a cheap ploy to give LGB folks rights without the need to fight with the religious over them. Compromising on freedom isn't really something I'm comfortable with but that's playing politics in a nutshell so he can't really complain when Cameron does it! 

But on the uncomfortable nitty-gritty effects of civil partnerships on transgendered individuals he doesn't seem to have a clue. Civil partnerships certainly haven't given us equal rights for all, just a semblance of them. I won't go into too much detail here as we've got this article to refer to.

And I was a bit surprised to see Mr Bradshaw use the semantics argument for, unless I'm much mistaken, wasn't it he who got rather upset when someone referred to his civil partner as his "boyfriend"? Such a semantic problem, but words don't matter to Mr Bradshaw.

He's even gone on to use that old chestnut of "But isn't *insert issue here*  more important?" that may be, but since when did one need to only fight one battle at a time? It's not hard and we're not playing some sort of game of who cares the most about LGBT rights. It's simply a lack of understanding on his part that concerns me. It was almost, but not quite, forgiveable in 2004. It's absolutely unforgivable now. 


Ben Bradshaw might not think marriage equality is important, but he really needs to get with the programme, stop feeding the bigots quotes and start chipping in with LGBT activists for whom this is just one of many important issues they are working on. But that may be too much to ask given his record, and he doesn't really want to upset any Bishops after all!

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