I’ve been doing a bit of catching up on the old blog reading this last day or two, and as usual am swamped by the vast quantities of stuff to read. Can’t possibly comment on most of it, but one little debate held over at Conservative Commentary and commented upon by Bobbie at politX drew my attention.

I find all the debate over the electability of the Tory Party rather pales into insignificance when you see views like those of Peter Cuthbertson expressed openly. Granted, Peter is just starting out on his career as a Tory but in the post linked to above, and in the subsequent debate held in the comments, he displays contradictory attitudes towards homosexuality and it’s position in society that really take the breath away. Robin Law expresses this criticism far better than I could:

‘I certainly would oppose treating homosexuals as second class citizens or anything like that’

An utterly extraordinary statement from someone who neither supports gay marriage (on the grounds it undermines the institution of marriage) nor supports any kind of formalising of gay partnership rights (on the grounds that if we gave any kind of partnership rights to gays we would also have to give them to co-habiting straights and that undermines the institution of marriage).

Or are you going to argue that denying rights to gay partnerships does not treat them like second class citizens?

Just because a leopard denies his spots doesn’t mean others cannot see them.

I’m aware that views like Peter’s are held by more people than I’d hope, and probably by a lot of Tory voters, but even if I ever came around to agreeing with Tory policies on the economy and the Welfare State, an approach to social issues along these lines would be more than enough to drive me off forever.

It’s all very well supporting the institution of marriage, and no doubt very noble at that, but it ignores the fact that there are many people who live differently and have different needs. A strong, vital society should embrace this diversity and cater for it in it’s social policies, not disregard it because it doesn’t fit into some narrow idea of “normality” that many left behind years ago.

On a more general note, I get annoyed when people go on about how the breakdown of the family and the loss of respect for the institution of marriage are behind our current social woes. These changes have had effects, some no doubt negative, but some have been positive too. In the past, these institutions trapped people in misery for their whole lives. It’s not so long ago that homosexuals of either gender could never come out at all without facing massive levels of opprobrium and being ostracised. It’s not that long ago that women found themselves trapped in abusive and loveless marriages because of the social stigma surrounding divorce. I know of people from older generations for whom some of these problems were real. The old ways had their flaws, let’s try and develop some new ones that retain what was good and fix what was broken – we’ve still got a fair way to go yet, too.