So we have the spectacle recently of a baker in Northern Ireland being threatened with the wrath of the Equalities Commission for daring to refuse to bake a cake supporting gay marriage for a client. This case must be as famous as King Alfred and the burnt cakes. It’s pretty obvious to anyone with an ounce of discernment that a Christian baker will not go along with gay marriage as the Good Book clearly condemns homosexual behaviour as sin, so it’s no surprise that our baker is making a stand, and all power to him, because he is simply being true to his beliefs. I am sure a lot of gay people are magnanimous enough to realise that their behaviour is not sanctioned by the Bible but they would not be spiteful enough to pick on an easy target such as Christians are seen as today. There is a general background of course to all this. The number of bizarre and far-fetched cases that seem to end up on the front pages just because of the golden triumvirate of ‘equality, anti discrimination and human rights’ has multiplied in recent years, especially since the reign of New Labour.
This is all so predictable due to David Cameron’s pushing through of ‘same sex marriage,’ a highly contentious and divisive policy. He has now uncovered a can of worms which will prove very ugly and nasty indeed. The craziness of all this is that he has created a problem and potential legal action where there was no problem before. And so the inexorable crushing of freedom goes on in western society, and the presence of an Eton/Oxford educated incumbent of number 10 has guaranteed this.
With the advent of this policy the political class have disqualified themselves from governing this nation, and all the more reason why they all need to be given a good kicking at the next elections, including the big one next year. Leon Trotsky and Josef Stalin themselves would be proud of David Cameron, not because they would have been particularly in love with homosexuality, but because pushing same sex marriage represents a battering ram to destroy Judeo Christian civilisation which they hated with a vengeance.
On the celebration of the first same sex ‘marriages’ recently a picture of two blokes kissing on the front of a Bristol newspaper to mark the city’s first same sex marriage led to a significant fall in sales, prompting an inquiry on the part of the editor as to why people had refused to buy the paper that day. Even in 2014 the universe he inhabits is a different world from the universe inhabited by many ordinary people. Hardly a surprise to me that it didn’t go down too well with some of the good people of Bristol. Plenty of people disagree with homosexual behaviour but have been bullied into silence by the politically correct high priests of the new counterfeit religion of equality and rights, who think they can just jettison the Judeo Christian moral framework sunk into these isles over centuries. However, they won’t be forced into buying newspapers whose front cover they find offensive and they’ll tell you what they think away from any whiff of liberal fascism.
This is possibly the issue that will do for the Conservative party i.e. finish them off as a major political force in the UK, and they will deserve it for this one act of cultural vandalism. But perhaps that is what is meant to happen. To bring in same sex marriage in my opinion is nothing less than deeply unwise and will bring trouble to our nation. Anyone who disagreed with this outrageous piece of legislation is accused of bashing gays in their quest for so called equality. You could not have got any worse than Nick Clegg calling those who disagreed with same sex marriage ‘bigots.’ But where were the street protests for gay marriage, where were the people chaining themselves to railings for the cause, where was the massive public campaign pushing for such a change? Absolutely nowhere, all the evidence being that this was pushed down from the top by an arrogant and ‘out of touch with their heritage’ elite. What on earth possessed David Cameron to pick up on this issue and to make it the lodestone of his modernising agenda I will never know, but one thing is sure, he has badly miscalculated and has encouraged an exodus from the Conservative party that may prove fatal. When a government tries to legislate in areas which govern fundamental relationships between people it has to be loath to get involved. No true statesman would dream of touching marriage by trying to redefine it to appease a tiny proportion of the population.
The most disturbing aspect of this whole affair has been the unholy haste in which the government pushed this measure through which also had no electoral mandate. How much pressure was there from impending legislation in the EU on this issue? There is almost something sinister about the conduct of the government. It is evident that this whole business has been internationally coordinated at a very high (or low?) level depending on which way you look at it. Same sex marriage has been brought in already in a small number of countries including Canada and South Africa, and also some states in the US. At the very same time that the measure has been pushed in the UK it has been campaigned for, and defeated, in Australia, pushed through against massive opposition in France under Monsieur Hollande, and has been enthusiastically embraced by Obama across the pond. It has even been an issue in Puerto Rico, a Roman Catholic country. The question you have to ask is, what do these people want or are trying to achieve by such a policy?
The affair demonstrates the clash we now have between the concept of ‘equality’ and a traditional understanding of what is right and wrong. Every culture needs a clear understanding of some sort of moral framework that the majority adhere to. Things are definitely moving against the traditionalists at present, as LGBT rights seem to trump religious rights or traditional norms almost every time.
Introducing same sex marriage is offensive to many people who are married who will wonder what on earth has taken possession of their Prime Minister that he can decide to redefine the meaning of the word ‘marriage.’ There are limits to the concepts of equality and anti discrimination. Marriage is just not permitted for certain groups of people e.g. if two people are too young to get married, if you are close relations like a nephew and aunt, a niece and uncle, or if you fancy some sort of communal marriage. We do not say that those people are discriminated against. Likewise marriage is just not for two men or two women. Any such relationship you have to call something different.
We have a responsibility to pass on what was been bequeathed to us by previous generations, a common culture that means something, that is almost unconscious to our senses but that we understand naturally. It is a given. Our heritage is a Judeo Christian one whether we like it or not, and at the heart of that culture is the union of a man and a woman to nurture the next generation. You tamper with this at your peril. If you change the meaning of a word such as marriage you will introduce a spirit of confusion into the nation which not least will harm our children and grandchildren. Marriage will be not only between a man and a woman, but also potentially between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. The way will also open for virtually any relationship that expresses ‘love and commitment’ to push for marriage rights. It is disingenuous to oppose this argument because already polygamists have been pushing for marriage rights in Canada, and polyamorists doing likewise in Australia. Then there is the position of children. All the evidence supports the view that children brought up by a mother and a father have the best outcomes. Yet how many combinations of marriage partner will be able to bring up children as traditional barriers crumble? Is it wise to legitimise any and every form of relationship in the eyes of the law so as not to offend anyone?
You are also adding layers of legislation to our society that will further diminish our freedom as a people. The government has had to go back hundreds of years to amend legislation to make allowances for his unwise step. Whatever is said by the government, pressure will be on to protect the concept of same sex marriage by trying to shut down free expression of opinion on the subject and to prevent various organisations from ‘discriminating’ against same sex marriage in their ethos and employment law. It is sad but true that pandering to the LGBT agenda by successive governments has increasingly proscribed speech and behaviour in the UK. Brendan O Neill picked this up recently in the Telegraph.
Finally, in the eyes of many people, both religious and non-religious, we are dealing with a moral issue, and no matter how you dress up same sex marriage as an ‘equality’ issue, homosexual behaviour is morally unacceptable for those people. And when I say behaviour I think this strikes at the heart of the whole way in which people think of this issue today. In my opinion we have confused identity with behaviour. The whole concept of identity politics has a lot to answer for. Human beings are people first and foremost, that is their identity, male and female. Whether they are homosexuals, heterosexuals, or whatever is a secondary issue. These things are expressed as behaviour but are they really core identity? The jury is still out on homosexuality. At the very limit it may be a mixture of nature and nurture, but what percentage of each? What you are in effect doing in the eyes of many is state sanctioning immorality, enshrining behaviour at the heart of our national life that has been seen as immoral and fringe sexual behaviour over the history of western culture. Again is this really what we want for society? There is a right and a wrong meaning of the word equality. The right meaning is that we are all equal in value, no one is worth more than any other despite all our differences, and everyone is worthy to be treated with the same respect and dignity as any other person. However, that does not mean equality of behaviour. Some behaviour is still moral, and other behaviour is immoral. State sanctioned immorality is no less immorality.
In this regard the church in the UK has to look at itself on this issue. If anybody in society has a responsibility to give a clear sound on moral issues it is the church. You cannot just have a moral free for all, somebody has to give a lead for the majority of people for the majority of the time. Sadly the Church of England is agonising over this issue when the Bible is crystal clear. In the end this does no one any favours. In a free society people should be able to do what they want behind closed doors provided it is of a concensual nature, but don’t push such sexual individualism to the heart of our society in the form of same sex marriage.
In evaluating this issue, it may be offensive to many, but there is a bullying and intimidating spirit behind the militant gay rights agenda which will do great harm to the country if continually appeased. The aim of that agenda is to ‘normalise’ gay behaviour so that it is fully imposed on society, if necessary through the full force of the law. You have to understand the spirit that is driving militant gay rights, it is totalitarian in its mandate. Some people would like to criminalise criticism of homosexual behaviour. This is the direction in which we are going, and the bringing in of same sex marriage will only accelerate this process.
If we want a relatively peaceful and united nation we have to rub along together somehow. That means physical and verbal abuse of homosexuals is totally unacceptable. But it also means that people who disagree with homosexual lifestyles or same sex marriage must be completely free to express that disagreement. Because surely freedom of speech has been cherished in Great Britain but is now under enormous threat. You have no freedom if people are only free to express one point of view. You cannot make ‘offence’ the measuring rod for what is acceptable and unacceptable speech, otherwise you have lost the battle for freedom.
If Great Britain wants to recover its tarnished reputation as a nation of liberty the awful imbalance that has developed in this area has to change to make proper room in the public space for more than one point of view. At present we are sending out a confusing and oppressive sound to the rest of the world by harassing a Christian baker over a cake! Perhaps things will find a more healthy balance, as this article suggests:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2702229/Public-backs-bakery-gay-cake-row-says-poll-Six-ten-believe-proposed-court-action-owners-refusal-bake-cake-wrong.html?printingPage=true: .
The British have their weaknesses but can suss out a bully instantly. There will be plenty of sympathy for those who wish to protect rights of conscience.