Gay Marriage

Here is a copy of the letter that I will be sending to certain Conservative MPs.

The gay marriage debate has produced many arguments for and against legalisation. I’ve listened to all these arguments and I truly feel that the anti-gay marriage side has no argument based in substance or fact. I hope that after reading this you will see why.

You claim to be ‘protecting the sanctity of marriage’, yet what are you actually ‘protecting’? You say that marriage is an institution that has been around for thousands of years, untouched. The fact of the matter is, many civilisations recognised gay marriage; many Native Americans believed that gay or bisexual people were sacred; Ancient Greece also recognised same sex unions. If we take a look at Christianity then you would be correct in asserting gay couples were never allowed to marry, but you would be empirically wrong to state that marriage has not changed over Christianity’s 2000 years of existence.

Marriage has changed massively over that time, in times gone by a woman had to marry her rapist, Catholic priests were allowed to marry until 1022 and there was no divorce until the 16^th century. Even when divorce was legalised when King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church, women were entitled to nothing the couple owned. In marriage women could be raped and marriage would often take place between a young girl and an old man. In America couples of different races were not allowed to marry and the Ne Temere decree in 1907 allowed Catholic Priests to refuse to marry a Catholic to a non-Catholic. Let’s also not forget that women were once treated as property, a father could sell his daughter to a man he found ‘suitable’. At times if a woman disobeyed her husband she could be punished with death. I would imagine that all of you reading this would agree that divorce should be legal, women shouldn’t have to marry their rapists and that people of different ethnicities should be allowed to marry. Yet you argue that you want marriage to be what it was in Jesus’ day?

I often hear people cite the bible as a reason for banning gay marriage, the book often pointed to is Leviticus and to be specific, chapter 20 verse 13:

“If a man has sexual relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing, and both shall be put to death. They are responsible for their own death.”

This isn’t just calling homosexuality a sin; it’s calling for the death penalty. Yet who among you would actually pull the trigger, flick the switch or throw the stones to kill a homosexual? Or is that too extreme? Let’s also take a moment to think about what else the bible bans, here’s a short list of things you should not do if you wish to follow the bible to a tee.

Eat or use anything that comes from a pig: Leviticus 11:7-8

Tattoos: Leviticus 19:28

Rounded haircuts: Leviticus 19:27

A man entering a Church with damaged genitals: Deuteronomy 23:1

Psychic readings: Leviticus 19:31

Gossiping: Leviticus 19:16

A wife helping her husband in a fight by grabbing the other mans testicles (it really is that specific) Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Working on the Sabbath: Exodus 31:14-15

Wearing clothes with mixed fabrics: Leviticus 19:19

Eating shellfish: Leviticus 11:10

After I put these points forward many Christians subsequently try and argue that the Old Testament no longer applies, as all the above verses are Old Testament. They say Jesus brought with him a ‘new covenant’ which trumps the Old Testament. Well if it no longer applies, why is it still read out in Church and Sunday School? Why is it still in the bible if it’s not to be obeyed? Regardless there are also things banned in the New Testament that I’m sure you’ve done:

Braided hair and wearing gold: 1 Timothy 2:9

Women simply speaking in Church: 1 Corinthians 14:34-35

Getting divorced and then marrying again: Mark 10:11-12

Men praying with their head covered: 1 Corinthians 11:4

Women praying without their head covered: 1 Corinthians 11:5

Women shaving or cutting their hair: 1 Corinthians 11:6

Wives not ‘submitting’ to their husband: Ephesians 5:22-23

Homosexuality is also deemed punishable by death in the New Testament, just look to Romans 1:26-32:

“Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way the men give up natural sexual relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing... They know that God’s law says that people who live in this way deserve death.”

So what do you do with these parts of the bible? Do you ignore the putting to death part and concentrate on the homosexuality as a sin part? If you saw someone wearing a gold ring, you wouldn’t think twice. If you saw a woman speaking in Church, it wouldn’t anger you. So why is homosexuality not an exception?

The fact is you can’t use the bible as a weapon in this crusade against gay marriage, not unless you want to implement new laws banning what I’ve just outlined. Even so, regardless of what your religion tells you, we don’t live in a theocracy. I shouldn’t have to abide by the rules of your religion; if I want to abide by those rules then I will join your religion.

Another argument sometimes made against gay marriage is that opponents don’t want to explain to their little children how two men or two women can love each other. What on earth are you going to explain to them? All you need to do is explain that they love each other. When your kids are older you don’t need to explain to them what sexual relations between two same sex couples entail. Just like you won’t explain exactly what happens between two couples of the opposite sex, other than a brief overview of how to make children.

Some of you say that gay marriage will destroy the family unit, this I find it hard to make a counter-argument for. Simply because I can’t comprehend what you can possibly mean by this. Will gay marriage somehow make your marriage less worthwhile, will love start to seep from your relationship with your family? No. So how on earth will it destroy the family? It will allow kids with same sex parents to grow up knowing their family is being treated the same as everybody else. Allowing gay marriage doesn’t bring straight marriages down; it raises same sex couples to the same level as straight couples.

Destroying the family unit isn’t the only ‘argument’ against gay marriage that simply doesn’t make sense. If you argue that marriage is all about procreation then I can only assume that you’ll be fighting for a law that requires all couples wishing to get married to undergo fertility tests. If you turn out to be infertile then you’ll be banned from marrying, after all marriage is only about procreation. As a side note, Earth’s population is over 7 billion; we’re not near extinction, so procreation isn’t really society’s top priority.

Another non-sense argument commonly made is that gay parents will produce gay kids. Exactly, just like straight parents always produce straight kids.  

So far I have concentrated solely on the argument for gay marriage, now I’m going to turn my attention to the politics of the situation. I have heard many Conservative MPs shout loud about how the government doesn’t have a mandate to legalise gay marriage! After all, it was not in the manifesto, the party did not campaign on the issue and it was not in the coalition agreement. You see the thing is, gay marriage has massive support in the United Kingdom. According to an IPSOS-MORI poll published on the 11^th of December 2012, 73% of British people support gay marriage; considering it is even higher amongst youth indicates that this is only going to rise. If support from 73% of the public isn’t a mandate – then I don’t know what is. I would like to remind you that this isn’t the only issue on which the government position is controversial; after all Nick Clegg did sign a pledge not to raise tuition fees. There is another bill, even less popular than the tuition fee rise, that has passed the House of Commons; the Health and Social Care Bill. Not only was it missing from the Conservative Party manifesto, David Cameron and the Conservative Party actively campaigned against any more “top down reorganisations of the NHS”, yet once you’re in government you pass the biggest reform of the NHS in its history. Not only that, the bill was extremely unpopular from the start, registering polling figures as low as 8%. So there was no mandate from the voters in 2010 and no mandate from opinion polls when the bill passed, yet you still passed it. If you are a Conservative MP who voted for the Health and Social Care Bill and your argument against passing gay marriage is that there is no mandate for it. Then you are a massive hypocrite, you cannot use that to back your position.

So what are you left with now? History is on my side, marriage has been revised constantly. Turning to the bible makes no sense unless you want new, bonkers, laws. Saying it destroys the family makes no sense. Finally you turn to the idea of a mandate; but if you voted to pass the Health and Social Care Bill, you are a joke.

I hope you will think about this before deciding on what your vote should be – make history and vote yes.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Spence – British citizen