Your hypocrisy is only matched by your venality as a Tory lickspittle. Bring on the next election and the end of your career.

Thank you for your thoughtful insights. I agree with the point you made about message boards, and am sure the “eyes – trigger” phenomenon you describe has a lot to answer for. It seems to me that one very serious impediment to skilful and constructive human interaction is the tendency for people to demonise the interlocutor who represents an opposing view, or at least to depersonalise him and project onto him all one’s bad experiences relating to the topic under discussion.

This is how some adherents on both sides of the equal marriage debate (or indeed practically any debate) tend to behave, where people deliberately oversimplify, or simply don’t attempt to understand, the complexity and subtlety of the other person’s arguments, or where people have a knee-jerk reaction against something that is inconsistent with the accepted orthodoxy. I have myself been on the receiving end of irritatingly reactive ad hominem comments and clear misrepresentations of my position from some people in the anti-equal marriage camp, and also from some people in the pro-equal marriage camp who objected to my refusal to buy into a rigid orthodoxy of approach that I find to be too facile. The argument and analysis in this domain are complex, and need patient, careful and calm handling if they are to be done proper justice.

There is perhaps a great wisdom being missed by the tendency to pigeon-hole, mischaracterise, misrepresent and demonise people who do not share a particular view that is important to oneself. Even from a purely pragmatic perspective, unless they make comments that are so offensive and unconscionable as to render any attempts to change their mind a waste of time and energy, it may be worth bearing in mind that they could even change their mind one day regarding the issue in question. Even if they don’t, the person might be a major ally on other issues important to oneself. In my view, the parable of The Good Samaritan is relevant here, and contains a great deal of relevant wisdom with regard to the human condition.

Regarding my point referring to the status quo: yes, I think that the aspects of the status quo whose possible change provoke disquiet are different for different people.

On the issue of freedom of speech, I have the impression that the Daily Telegraph’s description of the World Congress of Families as a non-religious organisation is inaccurate. I do think that the Congress should be able to hold its conference somewhere, but I also think that the Law Society should be able to decide who holds conferences in their premises, and feel entitled to turn down religious or broadly-religious organisations whose values starkly conflict with their own; in the same way, say, that the Catholic Church should be able to turn down an application by an LGBT organisation to hold a conference in their premises. Presumably the Congress will be able to find a religious or non-religious organisation sympathetic or indifferent to its views, or alternatively an organisation that is more concerned about its lettings income than about anything else, to host their conference.

I am not at all convinced that the Government’s intended implementation of the right to equal marriage is a “vote-grabbing response to popular opinion,” as you suggest. If this really is popular opinion, and majority opinion supports equal marriage, then your description of the Government’s “forcing gay marriage on a community” will not be any more accurate here than if applied to any other legislation that has majority but not universal support. This seems to be the normal democratic process, where there are winners and losers. But even so, I don’t think one can really speak of “forcing gay marriage on a community” in the same way that one can speak of, say, “forcing VAT rises on a community,” as the former isn’t forcing everyone to get married to a member of the same sex, or even to attend LGBT weddings, whereas the latter *is* forcing everyone to pay more taxes. I think that the fact equal marriage is perceived as being likely to have no negative bearing at all on their lives, is why most people are not really bothered one way or the other whether LGBT people are able to marry, and why the strong opposition is, on the whole, coming from religious organisations and individuals, where there is likely to be at the very least a subliminal view that whilst it is proper to be kind and accepting towards gay people, homosexual “acts”, including homosexual relationships and anything that implies their endorsement, are nonetheless sinful or disordered, and therefore worthy of opposition if they are put on an equal footing with heterosexual relationships.

The irony is that, such is the general dislike of religious judgmentalism, hitherto indifferent people are probably more likely to be stirred into having a strong position on this issue when they know that religious groups are campaigning against it, and the position they adopt is likely to be one that is antithetical to the position for which the religious groups are campaigning.

It may well be the case that political support for equal marriage is a vote-winner, and it may also be the case that the Government would not have embarked on the road to legalise it if there had been clear majority opposition to the measure, even if just for pragmatic reasons. However, my own impression is that this is a change to which the Prime Minister is sincerely and genuinely committed. The good news for the Government is that what they hope to introduce as a matter of principle probably happens on balance to be a pretty significant vote-winner as well. The bad news for those religious groups campaigning against it, is that their vociferous involvement is likely to further galvanise public support for the very thing they want to prevent.

The law society had a perfect right not to allow this org to lecture on their premises if it was against their diversity policy. I would’nt rent my house to them in the same way.

No-one is stopping anybody from thinking or talking about what they regard as marriage.

The govt is simply proposing lifting the discrimination against LGBTI in the civil law legilsation. Religious people can continue to think or talk about marriage in whatever way they want.

Gary: Thank you for keeping your head screwed-on. Comment pages are not the easiest places to remain calm and rational (something about not seeing the look in your opponent’s eyes when you pull the trigger – apparently it works for pilots too).

I’m not sure I want the ‘status quo’ to remain. You should see the letters I write to my MP and MEP about the changes needed in the way Euro registered mining companies treat their developing-world employees. I want change, not status quo.

I can feel the LGBT bitter and resentful sadness at not being ‘allowed’ to express a passionate love for another human being in terms that are universally meaningful, and I think it is cruel to make a thing as good as love into something dirty, unmentionable or inadequate.

But, like you, I am convinced that moral good has an objective reality and is not simply an emergent phenomenon of an evolutionary process. I mean, the sense we have of an ultimately right way of being, are not simply subjective, but are ontological; having an existence in their own right.

Somewhere in this mixed-up life of goodness is ‘love’, and it is surely at or near the pinnacle of true good. But also there is ‘truth’. And I am far from convinced that a group of earnestly truth-seeking people should be inhibited from discussing their views which differ from the majority view at this point in history. Whether they are religious people or not, they are being told that they can’t even discuss the idea that things are different, and that heterosexual marriage is a good (and best) way for humans to form intimate relationships. I know there is an immediate tension between that statement and the paragraph above about gay love. But before this law of Lynne’s is even passed, the playing field is already slewed.

The answer must be tolerance, true tolerance which allows people to think and discuss different values. The march of political correctness does not suggest we are heading in that direction. I don’t see a government forcing gay marriage on a community as tolerant, but a vote-grabbing response to popular opinion (like Obama).

I think that there are some ill-judged comments and stances on both sides of the debate. As difficult as it may be to try to step back from the strong emotion of it all, it is probably helpful to take a more detached perspective and look at the arguments rationally.

Ultimately, though, this question seems to be one of ethics, and is informed by people’s values. While I personally believe in absolute rather than relativistic morality, I think that values are axiomatic and don’t ultimately lend themselves to rational exegesis and proof.

Your genuine good will towards LGBT people is evident in sections of your posts. It seems to me as though you, like many people, feel that supporting equal marriage is a step too far. I don’t however believe that a majority of the population is opposed to equal marriage. Even if there were a majority opposed, I can’t imagine that majority opposition would last for many years, especially given the degree of support for gay marriage that seems to be evident among the younger generation.

I was, I believe, the person to whom you were referring when you said,

“There were some unwise comments above by a man claiming that to NOT redefine marriage in this new way was akin to forcing black people to sit at the back of buses and be otherwise discriminated against by Nazi-like religious people. The use of such hyperbole betrays the utter poverty of underlying argument.”

People on both sides of the argument have been guilty of hyperbole. I respectfully suggest though that I am not one of them with my comparison with racial Apartheid and segregation. I am sure that many of the people who supported racial Apartheid and segregation were in many respects very average and decent people who had been culturally (and religiously) conditioned. I didn’t call them “Nazi-like,” as I suspect that not that many of them were. I would also imagine that many who opposed integration subsequently came to terms with, or even supported, integration post hoc. I would imagine that the same will be the case regarding equal marriage.

Having said that, it needs to be acknowledged that what seem like big changes in social institutions and customs can understandably be a source of anxiety and discomfort for people of a more conservative disposition, who prefer the status quo to remain and for challenges to it not to unsettle their sense of ontological stability and continuity. Hopefully, as was the case when the Anglican Church started to ordain women priests, in most cases, people will come to terms with the change quite quickly, and discover that it is one that does not bring about the outcomes they feared.

The answer is exactly the same as why marriage is good for straight couples. As has been very succinctly put by the Prime Minister.

Your only objection seems to be a dislike of amending the traditonal definitions. Well, as you admit, over the centuries LGBTI people have been subjec to the most appalling injustices. It is therefore unsurprising that they were left out of the previous definition. It’s long overdue to correct that.