Mr Cameron told last year’s Tory conference in Manchester: “I don’t support gay marriage in spite of being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I am a Conservative.” Last week his spokesman said he was “passionate” about the issue.
So passionate that this proposal was never mentioned in the 2010 conservative Manifesto – nor, indeed, in the manifestos of the Labour Party or Cameron’s Coalition colleagues the Liberal Democrats.
Yet suddenly we have been told by no less a government figure than Lib Dem Lynne Featherstone (an obscure liberal/left chattering class busybody who is now something called “Equalities Minister”) that she will soon be asking for a public debate about how gay marriage can be introduced.
Excuse me? I must have missed the previous debate about whether gay marriage should be introduced.
No I didn’t – because there never has been a debate about whether….instead Ms Featherstone trills rather meaninglessly about “the people”
Mrs Featherstone, however, has argued that marriage is “owned by the people” and that governments have a duty to change laws to bolster the “underlying principles of family, society and personal freedoms”.
Total drivel.
I have no issue with the current situation. Same sex couples already now have the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples via the civil partnerships introduced by Labour in 2004. They can even have their partnerships blessed by a priest to give their relationship a religious dimension.
However I can detect no massive groundswell of opinion throughout the land demanding a such a fundamental change to the concept of marriage that has been established in these islands for well over a thousand years. But what does exist is a well orchestrated campaign by a tiny group of activists with a hotline into our media/political elite and Cameron the former PR man is deeply embedded into that elite.
Over the last half century changes of direction in several key social and ethical policy areas such as abortion, penal policy and immigration policy have been driven by the liberal/left against the wishes of the majority. Yet, partly through fear of being branded as ignorant and intolerant and partly by sheer inertia these deep seated changes to the social fabric have been absorbed by the public with little overt resistance. The result? The emergence of a dysfunctional society and an accompanying breakdown in social cohesion.
But perhaps at last the silent majority will no longer remain so acquiescent. Voices are being heard in opposition to the Cameron/Featherstone diktat and some of those voices are being raised in anger.
The government has sown a wind – they might find themselves facing a whirlwind…..
On the other hand the whirlwind might prove yet another storm in a teacup and the silent majority will just once again give way to the relentless march of those who wish to transform our society into something more malleable – and easier to manage and control…
