Marriage isn't just for you - to the Coalition For Marriage

To the Coalition For Marriage,

I appreciate that on your website, there have to be broad ideas rather than nuanced argument. A block of impenetrable text never attracted anybody save the most hardened academic. However, the four statements on the front page of your website make little sense. They are:

• Marriage Is Unique
• No Need To Redefine
• Profound Consequences
• Speak Up

Let me show you why each of these points caricatures arguments made by proponents of gay marriage and are anyway poor arguments against it.

Marriage Is Unique But Not Exculsive

Marriage is a commitment based on love between two people. That is unique but it is not exclusive to a man and a woman and your assertion as such is merely that - an assertion. Firstly, it is simply untrue that "all human societies throughout history have recognised marriage as between man and woman". There has been documentation of such marriages in China, the Roman Empire and other historical civilisations. But it is nonetheless irrelevant.

Something being historically true does not mean it is a good idea. Slavery, racism and the prevention of women's suffrage are all ancient ideas. However, those ideas have long since been decried as immoral. The case against gay marriage needs to do better than simply stating the definition of marriage is old.

Finally, the assertion that marriage is good for children. The causality is false. It is that couples who are happy and bring up children happily are more likely to marry, not that marrying causes couples to be more stable and thus bring up children more happily. If there is a stabilising affect to marriage, it is yet to be demonstrated since no studies I am aware of look at the stability of a couple before they were married or whether a similar couple that does not marry falls apart more quickly. Moreover, it incentivises failing couples to stay together where a healthy break-up may be the best thing for both partners and children.

Anyway, this suggests that your movement only has a problem with gay marriage where the intention is to have children. Since infertile couples or couples with no intention of conceiving or adopting are not opposed by your movement, I fail to see why this is an issue.

The Need To Redefine

Equal but not the same is not good enough. It perpetuates the idea that something like sexuality, which you do not choose, should be used to separate people. On this basis - that it is not a choice - it is no different than discriminating on the basis of sex, race, disability or age.

If civil partnershps provide all the same legal rights, then what is the difference anyway? Marriage has long existed as a secular institution otherwise the Coaltition For Marriage should be campaigning against marriages of atheists. So given your arguments are not religious, what is the basis for excluding one set of people on a criterion which, I repeat, is not their choice?

A Lack Of Profound Consequences

"Those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined." Why? What aspect of marriage makes it traditional that is being denied by gays? Tradition is not a sufficient argument for denying the rights of others. Two people having a gay marriage does not sully the institution for others. This is no different from saying we should not allow blacks to marry because some whites feel it should be a white-only ceremony. The institutions of slavery and racism which I mentioned earlier are traditional. This does not justify them. Neither does it justify the exclusion of gays.

You then make three outrageous statements - careers could be harmed, children would not be adopted and schools would have to teach the new definition. For the first two statements, no argumentation or evidence followed so I cannot refute them other than by saying, no. As for the final statement, so what? There is no harm from this. The recategorisation of Pluto from a planet to a dwarf planet revealed no such problems. I see no reason why this should be different with gay marriage. Please feel free to provide me with one.

Speak Up

This I absolutely agree with. We live in a democracy and I welcome the debate. If anybody personally wants to debate gay marriage with me in a public forum I will happily do it. Those who stand against gay marriage should come out and say so. If you're only doing it because of political correctness, not because it is simply the right thing to do, we proponents do not want your help.

If we are to grant rights to British citizens, sexuality should never be a criterion for differentiation. We do not judge anybody on the basis of what they are sexually attracted to in any other sense - that they may be attracted to the same sex should mean just as little when deciding how we treat them.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Rajin Chowdhury

The supposed threat of militant secularism - to Baroness Warsi

Dear Lady Warsi,

Earlier today, you gave a speech condemning the rise of "militant secularism" in Britain and Europe. As of yet, I do not have its full text - forgive me if you are misquoted. I have read your article (We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith 13 Feb 2012) in The Telegraph on the same subject and so it is from here, I extrapolate my interpretation of your views.

You state that "the value we hold...stem[s] from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity". A common misconception but more importantly an irrelevance. That a belief is old does not mean it is good. Slavery and racism are both old concepts yet we have abandoned them as immoral and outdated.

Our moral framework is wider and more nuanced than you imply. To say that "these [Christian] values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture," suggests that Christianity was the only source. Our democracy was taken from Ancient Greek models that pre-date Christianity. Your party's economic approach to the recession is rooted in a free-market ideology whose greatest proponents - Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek - never cited religion as serious justification for their theories. 

Then we come to the crux of the matter: the supposed threat of militant secularism. Secularism is not the same as atheism and the two are often conflated. Secularism is absence of religion from the state. It does not deny the right of individuals to pursue religion freely. One can be both a Christian (or Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, indeed theist of any kind) and a secularist. They are not mutually exclusive.

What secularists like myself want is for the state to never favour one particular belief over another in the make up of its apparatus. That is to say, it is unfair for any religion to hold a special place within government. It does not mean politicians should not state their religious beliefs. It does mean the Church of England should not have specific powers with the House of Lords.

If the number of religious people are waning, something you seem desperately afraid of, then let them wane. It may be, Baroness, this is indicative of a change in Britain's beliefs; that it no longer feels the pull of the church or a desire to be religious. You have a right to try and convince us otherwise. But we do not have to listen.

Britain is not so clearly a Christian country as the Prime Minister suggests. His evidence (the 2001 census) was ten years old and there has been evidence since then that suggests otherwise. According to the 2009 British Social Attitudes Survey only 43% identify themselves as Christian. An Ipsos MORI poll issued by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) suggests 74% of Christians do not think religion should have a special influence on public policy, 12% thinking that it should.

It seems the country is not so Christian and far more secular than you believe. Secularism is not about eradicating religion wholly from society. Secularism is about giving every belief system a fair hearing. That is what I believe. It is what secularists believe. You seem to think Christianity and religion as a whole deserve a special place in government and it is that tenet we oppose.

Your message is not just anti-secularist. It is anti-democratic - no belief system should be made special. According to you, that makes me and seemingly many Christians "militant" and "totalitarian". I - and these Christians - would argue this simply makes me a proponent of that most popular of today's political buzzwords.

Fairness.

Yours sincerely