David Cameron’s announcement at the Tory party conference that he supported the introduction of same-sex marriage was great news for supporters of equality, but it was greeted by dismay from various predictable sources: churches, the Conservative party’s right wing (some delegates walked out of Cameron’s speech at that point), and so on. One particularly dangerous request came from junior defence minister Gerald Howarth, who was quoted in the Telegraph calling for a free vote on the issue when it comes to parliament.
Cameron must resist this demand. Free votes are held where MPs have genuine reasons not to want to vote along with their leadership on a matter of conscience. But not all consciences are equal. Where there exists some sort of argument on either side of an issue (like capital punishment), it makes some sense to let MPs exercise their judgement. But parties should not give members of parliament infinite scope to inflict their bigotry or stupidity on the rest of us. Indeed, they don’t: we have a whip system where MPs are strongly “encouraged” to toe the party line in the majority of votes. This system should quite clearly be brought to bear in the case of gay marriage, for the very simple reason that every single argument against gay marriage would be dismissed by a vaguely intelligent person after a moment’s thought.
Think about the arguments against gay marriage. “Marriage has always been a union between a man and a woman”: this is both false (polygamy, anyone?) and irrelevant (that something has always been done a certain way clearly doesn’t mean we should keep doing it, otherwise we should have never abolished slavery). “This redefines marriage”: irrelevant (yes, it does change the definition of marriage, the definition needs changing, that’s the point). “Same-sex parents are worse”: both deeply questionable empirically, and irrelevant, as adoption agencies can decide the best parents for a particular child on a case-by-case basis, and because adoption by same-sex couples is already legal anyway. “The Bible doesn’t allow for same sex marriage”: irrelevant, because we’re not forcing Christians to marry other people of the same gender, and the days when the Bible could dictate the lives of non-believers have thankfully been consigned to the dustbin. “Same-sex relationships are less stable”: again probably false, but also irrelevant, as we don’t apply that standard to heterosexuals, plenty of whom end up getting divorced.
There are simply no reasons to oppose gay marriage that constitute a legitimate grounds for restricting people’s freedom and equality. So why not whip MPs into voting for it? Such a move would obviously not be undemocratic: virtually all laws are made in this way. Cameron has already taken an admirable stance on this issue. It would be a shame if such a progressive move were put at risk when literally every argument against it is spurious.
