Posted: Apr 09, 2012 5:32 pm
OK...I'm going to stick my neck out.
I don't think we should permit gay marriage in the UK. This is not because I'm a religious fundamentalist or have anything against homosexuals, but because I actually think the view of marriage as an age-old concept of the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of raising a family is the correct one. We already have civil partnerships, so this is not about "discrimination" in any material sense. In terms of the legal system, we already have the equivalent of gay marriage, and that is just the way it should be. So why do some gays want more than this? Why do they want to actually be able to say they are married? What extra do they gain by doing so? It would seem to me that the only thing they would gain is recognition that a civil partnership between two people of the same gender is equal in all ways to a traditional heterosexual marriage - not just in terms of legal and financial rights, but culturally identical to marriage. And the problem with that is that it's simply not true. Gay partnerships aren't the same as heterosexual partnerships, for the simple reason that no biological children can be produced by the two people in the partnership. To put it metaphorically, it's like saying that Yin and Yin is no different to Yin and Yang, or that 1 + 1 is no different to 1 + -1. I'm sorry, but this is asking too much. It is asking the rest of society to take part in a politically-correct charade in order to make gay people feel like they are no different to heterosexuals. I have a newsflash for them: you're different. That doesn't mean you're bad, or wrong, or should be discriminated against. It just means you're different. What is so bad about that?
I might add that I live in the Hanover district of Brighton, about half a mile from the most concentrated gay community in the UK, and have not the slightest problem with this. Where I come from, the sight of gay couples being obviously gay in public doesn't even raise eyebrows. It's as much a part of the scenery as the seagulls are.
I don't think we should permit gay marriage in the UK. This is not because I'm a religious fundamentalist or have anything against homosexuals, but because I actually think the view of marriage as an age-old concept of the union of a man and a woman for the purpose of raising a family is the correct one. We already have civil partnerships, so this is not about "discrimination" in any material sense. In terms of the legal system, we already have the equivalent of gay marriage, and that is just the way it should be. So why do some gays want more than this? Why do they want to actually be able to say they are married? What extra do they gain by doing so? It would seem to me that the only thing they would gain is recognition that a civil partnership between two people of the same gender is equal in all ways to a traditional heterosexual marriage - not just in terms of legal and financial rights, but culturally identical to marriage. And the problem with that is that it's simply not true. Gay partnerships aren't the same as heterosexual partnerships, for the simple reason that no biological children can be produced by the two people in the partnership. To put it metaphorically, it's like saying that Yin and Yin is no different to Yin and Yang, or that 1 + 1 is no different to 1 + -1. I'm sorry, but this is asking too much. It is asking the rest of society to take part in a politically-correct charade in order to make gay people feel like they are no different to heterosexuals. I have a newsflash for them: you're different. That doesn't mean you're bad, or wrong, or should be discriminated against. It just means you're different. What is so bad about that?
I might add that I live in the Hanover district of Brighton, about half a mile from the most concentrated gay community in the UK, and have not the slightest problem with this. Where I come from, the sight of gay couples being obviously gay in public doesn't even raise eyebrows. It's as much a part of the scenery as the seagulls are.