COALITION FOR MARRIAGE

I’m sure a good many of you reading this column will have already been alerted to the launch this month of the Coalition for Marriage. It is an umbrella body representing faith groups, MPs, Peers, academics, lawyers, pro-family organizations and grassroots supporters of traditional marriage in the U.K. and opposed to any attempt to redefine it. CARE trust is part of it and putting its full weight behind it. The Coalition already has over 50,000 signatories. Like everything else these days it has its own code – C4M! But don’t let that put you off. Sign up!

It is a very welcome response to the government’s announced intention of re-defining marriage in order to include same-sex unions. This is to happen this year. The Home Secretary has made it clear that a consultation on the issue before the legislation is introduced will not be about whether the change should happen, but simply how it should happen. This is an astonishing example of blatant political bullying on a most profound issue and without any consensus whatsoever as to whether public feeling is really behind any such change. The Government is in fact attempting to stifle public debate on the issue. Happily C4M is demanding a debate. It’s up to us to support and make sure feelings are properly aired. We need a road block against such an irresponsible Juggernaut.

One of the most disturbing features about modern government is that it simply doesn’t seem to listen to any advice, tries to do everything too quickly and consequently in most cases does it badly. That’s the Achilles Heal of our kind of democracy. George Carey, the former Archbishop, put his finger on the source of the problem when, at the launch of C4M, he said, “The Government – egged on by pressure groups and image advisors, but not the general public – is pressing ahead to re-write the legal definition of marriage”. My reaction is simply, “Image advisors!!” What have they to do with such a serious issue? Is it a case of, “Yes, Mr. Cameron, we must be seen to be progressive; a change in marriage would look OK”? Is that where we have come to? What about substance and principle?

It would be very difficult to overstress the absolute centrality to society of the building block called marriage, in the way it has been defined for millennia. A man and a woman meet, commit themselves to each other, have children and then over the years that follow seek to provide the stability and love for those children to grow up happily. That love and stability comes out of the mutual love of the parents. It provides an essential place of belonging, security and resource with a true male-female balance. The particular man-woman relationship does not become redundant when the children grow up; it can still be fundamental not only to the well-being of the couple but to a growing family which includes grandchildren. The cycle is repeated by their children as they grow up. Marriage is the hub of life. To blur this clear definition is dangerous in the extreme.

Some marriages, of course, do not produce children, for a variety of valid reasons. But there remains at the heart of marriage the simple and natural biological physical engagement between man and woman which underlines their mutual companionship, complementarity and love. With or without children it remains the core ingredient of personal affirmation and social cohesion.

When the family fails (which unfortunately it can), society fails. When the family is broken, society breaks down. When the family fights, violence is found everywhere. The most important task of the powers that be is to strengthen marriage, educate for marriage, encourage marriage, and honour marriage. Government has no warrant to tinker with it in the interests of minority pressure groups who are well catered for. It does not need changing in essence – it was a “given” before governments were thought of.
Same sex relationships have also been known for centuries. What has never been acknowledged is that they can be considered as a form of marriage.

For a Christian, of course, the creation ordinance of one woman given to one man, with complementarities which include an extraordinary sexual complementarity, will always underline the basic relationship we call marriage.


Bob