I don't need encouraged to marry

On the news today I heard a Conservative MP said "We should be encouraging people to marry, through the tax system".

Now I don't know about anybody else but I certainly don't look across the room and see someone and think, "Wow! That person is my ticket to a tax break." But then maybe this is only an attitude for millionaires who can afford a private accountant and one day harbour hopes of safe seat in the Lords for live after a few terms as a Conservative MP.

I know it is not something that any of those seeking marriage equality have placed high on their agenda. The married man's tax allowance, (yes note it was only available to the man) was discontinued in 2000, therefore over 5 years before same-sex couples were even allowed to have a legal recognised relationship status. Those of us who want marriage equality want it on the grounds of equality, but seeing as we have been denied equality for so long we don't what that equality to disadvantage others.

You see there would have been men in the past who would have lost their married man's allowance if their wife had run off with someone else, they may even have had to pay maintenance for their children. By talking about men and unfaithful women I am not being sexist, merely because there was no married women's allowance the women were already losing out, if they were the larger earner, this is merely a statement of fact. Also widows and widowers would have lost out on the marriage allowance at that vulnerable time at which they lost a loved one. So if you'd looked across the room and seen the tax break of your life, you would have lost it when death parted you.

You see above how mecahnical and clinical a married persons allowance is. There are those that claim that the marriage tax allowance is to support those who are the worse off in our society. But bear in mind that a married couple will have two incomes to pay all the bills, it it those who are single, who don't have the extra buying power to lay down a mortgage and are living in rental accommodation who are actually those most in need of a tax break when times are tough economically. So what are the Government doing about that?

Well actually they will be increasing the personal individual's tax allowance to £9205, this is up from the £6,475 that it was at the time of the General Election. That gives a married couple (or in fact any couple) a tax break of  almost £5,500 in the last three years. Almost giving them a whole other person's personal allowance over what was available to them on 6 May 2010.

So the arguments about encouraging people to stay get together in marriage to help the worse off is a fallacy, everyone is better off, £2,730 of their income has been lifted out of income tax. The result is that they are paying £600 a year less in tax (£1,200 for any couple where both earn over the threshold and less that the higher band).

People are not to be encouraged to stay married because they have a tax break, there was divorce in this country before 2000. People are not going to be encouraged to get married simply to have a little extra money in their pocket. People get married for one reason only, love. That is also the reason that we need marriage equality to recognise that love that a couple have for each other, a love that is the same whatever the make up of that couple.

Tax breaks neither make nor break marriages. Love is love and equality is needed for that love. When you call something by a different name it is not recognising it as the same thing.

Looking at the OED in response to Cllr Brian Wilson

In this weeks Spectator (pictured) there is a report of the debate on Equal Marriage. One of the Councillors Brian Wilson the independent for Bangor West is reported to have said:

"the definition of marriage was not a matter for the council but for the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary."

Now the OED is a fluid document and definitions there do get redefined all the time; marriage is one such word actually.

In older editions it was defined as:

marriage, n.
1a the formal union of a man and a woman, typically as recognized by law, by which they become husband and wife:

But by 1989 in the (second edition) there is a subtle but important change.

marriage, n.
1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between married persons; spousehood, wedlock.

Note that the 'and' becomes an 'or' it is also extended beyond a formal union to include common-law husbands and wife within the wider definition as a result. But the or is important and does not imply that there is one of each gender required any more.

We move along to 2007 and we have a further revision:

marriage, n.

1. a. The condition of being a husband or wife; the relation between persons married to each other; matrimony. The term is now sometimes used with reference to long-term relationships between partners of the same sex.

Apart from the final part of the main definition which is quite clear, there is another subtlety. The relation between married persons becomes the relation between persons married to each other. At this stage of course some countries and US States had already introduced same-sex marriage, therefore there is subliminal recognition of these unions.

Elsewhere in the same volume is another definition.

gay marriage n. a relationship or bond between partners of the same sex which is likened to that between a married man and woman; (in later use chiefly) a formal marriage bond contracted between two people of the same sex, often conferring legal rights; (also) the action of entering into such a relationship; the condition of marriage between partners of the same sex.

 But the OED are not alone in recent version of the Merriam-Webster's dictionary marriage is defined as:

marriage, noun

 

1 a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage same-sex marriage> b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities
3: an intimate or close union marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>

 So the OED and indeed other dictionaries have already redefined marriage. Why then did Brian Wilson not vote for the OED definition of marriage but instead called the motion on Monday a political stunt?

PS Of course governing by dictionary definition is almost as bad as governing by wikiopedia definition.

Equal marriage = disestablishment of C of E???

So marriage equality will lead to disestablishment of the Church of England according to an article in today's independent.

Well they said similar stuff about Catholic emancipation, yet nothing so cataclysmic has happened since the Catholic Relief Act of 1829. It was the Church of England's superior outlook that led to the Acts of Uniformity in 1559 and 1662. Yet these were repealed in 1828 so that Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Methodists and others became eligible for many forms of public educational and social benefits.

Jews were also expelled from England in 1290, and although in 1656 a small community was found to exist but no action was taken to expel them by Oliver Cromwell at the time. Their emancipation came at roughly the same time as those above. Either in 1829 or in 1858 when Jews were finally allowed to sit in Parliament.

Of course the Church of England has been disestablished in the past during the Commonwealth 1649 to 1660

You see the argument that the Church of England is under threat has been used in the past against other Christians, other believers, other people. To use it again in light of the history of the oppression of the Church of England of others through the year being as they were the established church and had, and still have a say in laws, is such a red herring and over the top desperate plea that it should be confined to what it is.

There is the other argument that allowing equal marriage will undermine marriage. But the same was said in, 1857 when ordinary people were allowed to divorce. Or 1882 when married women were allowed to own property in their own right. Again in 1923 when women were able to petition for divorce. Or in 1969 when a period of separation rather than have to prove unreasonable contact was all that was required.

So of course I'm still at a loss how anything that allows more people who are lovingly wanting to commit to each other in marriage is a threat to marriage.

Is it not bigotted to disallow freedom of religion to all Mr Walker?

Of course I was sad when Jim Tolson was one of the Liberal Democrat MSPs to lose their seat in the elections today. I was even more saddened this morning when I saw that his replacement the SNP's Bill Walker appears to not believe in equality.

He has signed John Mason's amendment to the Scottish Parliament's Equal Marriage motion, which in itself failed to see the equality of all and freedom of religious groups to decide if they wish to offer same-sex marriage that was enshrined in the motion itself. He claims that he has received some "highly abusive messages" saying he is being intimidated and almost threatened. While I doubt that such behaviour may have been taken from concerned citizens writing to their MSP I would ask any that have done anything other that state a clear point to desist. What I suspect that the MSP has encountered though is a sheer volume of correspondence on the issue, seeking him to change his mind, possibly more than on any other issue that he has faced before. If he finds that intimidating that the public write to him then he is clearly in the wrong jobs as neither Jim Tolson nor Willie Rennie as the MP who was unseated in 2010 found correspondence from their constituents intimidating but a challenge to be seized.


What has saddened me is Mr Walker's response as published in the Dunfermline Press.

"I'm very upset about it. I feel I’ve been intimidated and almost threatened.


"I have been called a bigot and all sorts of names, saying I live in the dark ages.

"The irony is I got married a few weeks ago. Needless to say it was to a woman!

"There are things called civil partnerships, which I accept, but I'm really concerned about the use of the term 'gay marriage' because to me it’s a contradiction in terms and anything that puts homosexual relationships as any way equal to male-female marriages is just not right."

Tim Hopkins, of the Equality Network, told PinkNews:

"By saying that same-sex relationships are not in any way equal to male/female ones, Bill Walker is expressing homophobic prejudice. 

"His remarks are an affront to many of his constituents, and not just the LGBT ones. He is free to express his opinions, but must expect those opinions to be criticised if they are prejudiced and offensive.

"Bill Walker claims to have received 'highly abusive and bullying' emails from 'gay rights organisations'. However, the national LGBT organisations in Scotland – ourselves, Stonewall and LGBT Youth – invariably engage debate with anyone without abuse or exaggeration – unlike Bill Walker, it seems."

There is an arrogance about some of these in religious groups, Mr Walker is a member of the Church of Scotland but claims this does not affect his decision, that only the stance of their religious group is the right one. There are religious groups the Quakers, Unitarian and some liberal Synagogues plus the Humanists that wish to carry out marriage for all, whether mixed-gender or same-gender. They do not have the issue over the word.

Even calling it 'gay marriage' shows an element of separation in Messrs Walker and Mason's minds. I don't want to have a gay marriage that is separate from a 'straight marriage' I just want the option of a marriage. I'd also like it not to be separated into a civil partnership section and then a religious element (as has been proposes by David Cameron at Westminster to try and get around objectors) if 'we'* choose to have it in a church building, but fully integrated as all current church weddings are conducted.

There are religious groups that are prepared to offer not just their building to same-gender partnerships, but to fully integrate same-gender marriage to all into their ethos. These are welcoming people of faith, yet their beliefs and desires for religious freedom are being blocked by a few who disagree with their interpretation of the word marriage. The only people being forced to do anything are those open religious groups from turning away same-gender couples from the marriages they wish to perform. That surely is bigotry that we cannot condone.

* There is no other half of that we statement yet, but obviously the choice of service will be down to two of us in the end. So you can all stop thinking of buying a hat for the wedding just now.

The Cost of Cameron's Marriage Dowry

David Cameron has been promising to give tax breaks to married couples, you may have picked up on this. What you won't have missed is how he is intending to pay for this, because he hasn't told us.

Today the Guardian has looked at the options and just how unfair or untruthful David Cameron is likely to have been with his pledge.

Firstly the most obvious thing is to allow transferable tax allowances between couples. According to treasury figures this would cost a total of £4.9 billion, which in or current climate, especially with the Tories promising to accelerate spending cuts seems a high price to pay. Also such a scheme would only benefit couples where one partner is earning less that £6,435 a year. It really does favour the couples where a wife can stay at home, but does nothing to help two hardworking parents who both work full time to support their family.

However, the Tory think tank the Centre of Social Justice run by former leader Iain Duncan Smith is urging Cameron to only limit such a transferable allowance to couples with children under the age of three. Is is any wonder that Cameron isn't prepared to come clean about his policy? His bribe is to all married couples but his advice is actually to limit it still further to just that three year period.

The CSJ had first proposed the transferable allowance in 2006 but today in their Green Paper on the Family they say:

"In the long term we recommend the implementation of a transferable tax allowance for all married couples, but in the current financial climate we recommend a staggered implementation. We believe that as a priority, a transferable tax allowance should be introduced for married couples with children aged 0-3, the formative years of a child's life."

This will cost £600 million but is nowhere near the promises that Cameron has made in recent weeks. Of course he also had added on civil partnerships to his scheme, even if a same sex couple had children they may be from a pre-existing relationship and not count towards the under three threshold, or be adopted and not give the break for the full or any of the 3 year period. It also means of course that a mother in an abusive relationship with an infant could flee and struggle with the tax hike as not all marriages live up to the Tory idyll.

Yesterday defending his claims that he wasn't guilty of 'social engineering' David Cameron said:

"I will celebrate our commitments. I believe we need to try and build a society that is more about "we" that about "me" where we celebrate togetherness."

Seeing as his tax proposals so far benefit married couples, or with inheritance tax the super-rich 3,000 including George Osborne and David Cameron, doesn't seem to not be much about "we" and somewhat about "me". The Tories are also going to freeze all public sector pay over £18,000, or in other words even if you earn over £8,000 less than the national average, while giving away these tax breaks to others.

David Cameron also said:

"The tax burden for everybody is going to go up unless we get public spending under control. We should be trying to help couples with children."

The Lib Dems have realised that the tax burden is unfair, but rather than focus on couples with children who need help we are focusing on the poorest in our society. Raising the tax allowance to £10,000 will raise 4 million out of income tax altogether, including most of our pensioners. It also means those that have to scrimp at save at the bottom end of the ladder will get help. The Tories are not making promises to the poorest apart from the fact that your tax will go up, but if you're married with kids we'll try and help you out.

UPDATE: I'm quite glad that Cardiff Blogger has also called it a half-baked idea emphasising the element of the CSJ document that seems to suggest the allowance will make people get married quicker.

Friday Blog Love: Where I Agree with Tony Blair

Now the title of this piece may be somewhat of a revelation to any who didn’t see my Tweet from Wednesday evening. But I was talking about a particular article that featured from the first Prime Minister in the UK to give an interview to a gay publication, not just give an interview but be the cover man.

On the occasion of that publication, Attitude, celebrating its fifteenth birthday they had a little bit of a retrospective in all sorts of ways including having the former Prime Minister back for another interview. Having missed his first interview in 2005 I may have been too busy with one election or another, I found myself agreeing with him for quite a lot of what he said*. Thankfully before Ruaraidh Dobson accuses me of being dead wrong (again) I’d like to point out that the area under discussion was equality of sexuality which has seen robust advances under the Blair years; not the various policy areas that I and the rest of Liberal Democrats still vigorously oppose the Blairite doctrine.

Like Blair I find myself in a similar position in one way as a person of faith with an interest in the politics of sexuality, and the aim to improve things socially in that area as far as possible. However, of course and any who saw my last full speech at a Lib Dem conference will attest while he can remain objective in his viewpoint mine is a bit more subjective. For years I was like one of those that Blair described as having a dialogue within religious circles about sexuality and faith, although a lot of that debating from my teenage years into my middle to late twenties was going on in my own head.

While for many years I mulled over the option as being an either or in relation to my faith and who I found myself to be it took a lot of searching to find out that both was an actual option. One thing I hope that people like Iris Robinson can come to understand in the long-term. Blair says in the interview:

"For many people in the world of religion, they have found they’re facing the same challenge as everybody else is in changing times, when it comes to the role of women, the issues to do with sexuality, and so on. But the problem within the institutions of organised religion as opposed, for example, to those in politics, is that those attitudes get mixed up with those of doctrine. For something that is religious in nature, it can be far harder for them to break with the past. They’re hard – they’re really difficult. Because people are debating – what is the word of God? If something is expressed in a particular way in the Bible or the Koran or elsewhere, can you possibly contemplate a process of modernisation where attitudes change over time? But my own view is
that it’s better to have these views debated within religious circles than to pretend that they don’t exist.

"...also to treat religious thought and even religious texts as themselves capable of evolution over time. You have to understand the context and the society in which they were expressed. So, when people quote the passages in Leviticus condemning homosexuality, I say to them – if you read the whole of the Old Testament and took everything that was there in a literal way, as being what God and religion is about, you’d have some pretty tough policies across the whole of the piece."

If you just look at the raft of legislation that has come in under Labour since 1997 and consider if the 1997 brand of Conservatism that was on offer would have made such in roads. 1997 homosexuals weren't allowed to serve in the military, teachers were unable to defend gay pupils in the classroom, there was a status of legal homophobia in the workplace and in failing to recognise partners. So great strides were being made towards equality (despite at the same time the liberties of us all being eroded simultaneously).

Blair says the highpoint of the various pro-gay legislation that he oversaw come into being was the introduction of civil partnerships. However, these are separate arrangement and still not equal. The equal marriage campaign is seeking for Scotland to:

1. Lift the ban on same-sex marriage and mixed-sex civil partners



2. Allow religious and humanist celebrants to legally solemnise same-sex marriage



3. Put an end to the discrimination faced by transgender people and their partners

As Ruaraidh said earlier this week that this is something that the Scottish Liberal Democrats could well take a lead. As Tony said in the interview we have come a long way from the 80s when if you campaigned for gay people expected that, well, that you were. The generation that make up LYS are the first generation that such a suggestion does not go hand in hand with campaigning. I'd be delighted to see them take this step forward backing up the Homophobia is Gay campaign and the policy they moved which got passed on the blood ban last month.

Is it doable? I think so. I think this statement of Tony shows that we are on an evolutionary trend where we can get this done.

"This process of evolution and change [in religious thought] carries on the whole time. Otherwise, you end up pitting religion against reason, and that is the single most dangerous thing you could ever do. Because in the end, if you force people to choose between religious faith and reason, they will choose reason. But that is not, in fact, what should happen. Religious faith and reason are actually in alignment, in my view – or, at least, that is the argument."

So while I'm quite certain that Ruaraidh would happily tell me I'm dead wrong in holding on to my religious faith, I'm sure he'd also the one of the first to ask me about the debates I've had with myself to deal with moving this debate on.

*You do have to register to read this link but it is free to do so.

Warren: It's Marriage Not Relationships That's the Issue

With less than a month to go to the inauguration of the first Black President of the United States, Rick Warren the pastor who some has, in the eyes of some been controversially, chosen to pray at that historic event has made a statement on gay marriage.

He said in the podcast released on Monday:

"I have in no way ever taught that homosexuality is the same thing as a forced relationship between an adult and a child, or between siblings. I was trying to point out I'm not opposed to gays having their partnership. I'm opposed to gays using the term marriage for their relationship."

Strange then that in the past he has made such comparisons of homosexuality with paedophilia, polygamy and incest, as he equated all four together only last week when he answered a question with a clear "I do".

He also said that while he doesn't equate homosexual relationships with incest or pedophilia, that he opposes redefining marriage just as any conservative Christian would. Problem with using such phraseology as that is very similar to what the conservative Christians in the American bible belt were saying about inter-racial marriage up to 41 years ago in 1967, when the Supreme Court overturned bans in Loving v. Virgina. Thing is he is opposed to Proposition 8 in California, which again was a redefinition of marriage.

Is Rev Warren, also opposed to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling? I don't think he is and am not accusing him of such. However, the thing is that laws are transitory the US has Supreme Courts at state and federal levels to past judgements on such things.

As any fan of The West Wing will know the USA hasn't always looked favourably on minorities. The rules of the Census as outlined in Mr. Willis of Ohio pointed out how the original wording from the founding father's appropriated proportions only of slaves or descendants of slaves towards state and national totals. So the rules move, the fact that Warren also quotes the extremely low church based guesstimate of 2% gay population rather than any scientifically sampled survey does not give his affectations any merit. Afterall the church is supposed to stand up for the underdog and the oppressed. Yet not as often in the past they are the oppressor and the big guys pulling their disproportionate weight.

His Larry Ross a spokesman for Warren's Saddleback church tried to ease things over by saying the church's view that Scripture prohibits sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

Anyone can attend Saddleback worship services. But the church article had said that gays "unwilling to repent of their homosexual lifestyle would not be accepted" as members. One wonders just how many Saddleback members have or are having heterosexual relationship in a lifestyle not conforming to the churches view. But that is an investigation for another day.

Bush Seeks to Ban Gay Marriage

After years of speculation as to which Republican would have the audacity to attempt it in the land of the free, step forward George W. Bush. The leader of the war on terror has announced a new front as he attempts, yet again, to constitutionally seek a ban on gay marriages. This comes less than two years after Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a lesbian daughter, spoke out against such a ban when Bush had previously backed a motion calling for a federal ban.

This could be an attempt to shore up key grass root Republican votes following recent opinion polls the latest of which had the Republican congress on only a 27% approval rating ahead of November's mid-term elections. One pollster Charlie Cook said:

"It's bad. It's very bad. All the diagnostic indicators suggest that 2006 will be Armageddon for the Republicans."

However, many people put Bush's victory over Kerry down to the ballot initiative in Ohio to ban gay marriage which brought out the narrow Republican victory there which secured Bush four more years. If Ohio's 20 electoral college votes had gone the other way Kerry would be the current occupant of the White House.

So is the resurection of this policy, plus repealing the estate tax and the congressional right to ban flag burning a sign of election year panic?

None of the three is currently expected to pass, but it is a marker for the nation.