My Lords, it is always with very great care that one clashes with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, particularly when one has to suggest to him that there is an illogicality in the argument that he has put forward. He said, on the one hand, that there is a whole range of differences between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage. In that, he is not only right but obviously right. He then attached to that the reason for making this distinction in the Bill, but it is a distinction that does not need to be in the
Bill because, as he says, it is universally recognised. Therefore, making the distinction in the Bill must be for a different purpose.
As we have heard the debate continue, we have moved from the careful language of the noble and learned Lord to expositions which explain the purpose of the amendments. When they are referred to as modest amendments, I think only of the modest proposal which, in Dean Swift’s writing, went rather further than that title suggested. This modest amendment is here for a purpose. It is to say now what has so far not been able to be said more directly, which is, “Wait a moment, it is not quite what you say”. We will have made sure that in the Bill, and therefore in the Act, we make a distinction that can be referred to and used not only internationally, as the noble Lord, Lord Alli, said, but at home.
I think that Christians should be even more strongly opposed to this than others because the Bill is specifically designed to give us an absolute right to maintain our view about marriage. It does so on the basis that it gives the state an absolute right to maintain its view about marriage. That was, after all, something that was started back in the days of Henry VIII, when the state said that it could make its own decisions about what marriage meant, even though that meant disagreeing with the highest powers in the church.
I am not suggesting that the state should go any further in its relationships with the church than Henry VIII did, but I am suggesting that this is an historic decision and one that we should respect. The church, under the quadruple lock, is absolutely able both to perform and to give its teaching about marriage. That is a teaching which I wholly support. As a convert, I have to, otherwise I would not have made that decision and choice. However, I also believe that parliamentarians have a duty to the whole nation, and those in the whole nation who seek marriage do not seek marriage followed by brackets. Indeed, I think that opposite-sex couples ought to object to this. Why should they have marriage so defined?
I turn to the second argument, which is that in the very clear words quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, there is now a different way of looking at marriage from the historic one. That was rapidly picked up by those who want to support the amendment. I hope that we will think carefully about this. Differentiating between same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage because you think that the one is about a new view of marriage and the other is about an old view is of course not correct. If you wanted to distinguish between the new view and the old view of marriage, you would have to have more brackets. You would have to have “(traditional) marriage” for opposite-sex marriage and “(new) marriage” for opposite-sex marriage. No one in this House would suggest that as one approaches the registry office or the smart hotel, one should go up with a list of alternatives, asking, “Am I going in for marriage-light or marriage-heavy? Am I taking marriage in this way or that way?”. From much of my experience of some 35 years in surgeries as a Member of Parliament—more, if you take in the period of candidacy—I do not think that anybody would understand having to fill in a form on that basis.
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We come back to the reason, which is very simple. People want to say on the face of the Bill that they do not accept that this is marriage, and they want to find the nicest way of doing so. I give that to them but in my view the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, gave it away. What he said was, “We tried here and we did not get that, so we tried at another point and we did not get that. We tried at another point again and we did not get that, so we have a new wheeze, which is here and has moved farther towards it”. I beg the House to realise that if we accept the proposal that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, put forward so elegantly and with such absolute honesty, we are actually undermining the whole purpose of the Bill. In that sense, and not in any other, it is a wrecking amendment because it would mean that what we have sought to do would be undermined.
I want to say one last thing. I hope that those who are thinking of supporting this amendment will just remember what they are having to live down. This country has a terrible history of the way it has treated gay people. There are other countries which have a terrible present in the way they treat gay people. If you think that we are going too far, then put that down to making up for not getting there much earlier. Put it down to all those years in which gay people were subject to punishment of a criminal kind. Put it down to all those years of the jokes at school and university which so hurt gay people. Put it down to what we have done in the past to gay people and, if we go a bit further than you would like this time, then say, “I really have a lot to make up for”.