Friday 11 May 2012

Yesterday's Papers: Gay marriages and the Daily Telegraph

The Queen's Speech this week omitted any mention of the proposed Bill to legalise gay marriages, presumably as a sop to those on the Tory right who regarded David Cameron's enthusiasm for the subject as 'the last straw'.

That quote comes from a piece by Fraser Nelson in the Daily Telegraph. Here's more from the same source:

'There was something wonderfully British about the passage of the Civil Partnership Act, which was approved one rainy Tuesday evening to no fanfare at all ... [A]lmost nobody cared. Civil partnerships were seen, quite rightly, as ironing out a legal crinkle: it seemed common sense to grant gay couples the same rights over issues such as inheritance and hospital visiting rights.'

Is there a slight rewriting of history going on? These are some headlines from stories published in the Daily Telegraph back when the Civil Partnership Bill was first proposed by the Labour government of Tony Blair:

'Williams denounces gay marriages' (27 May 2003)
'Legal rights for homosexuals denounced - by gays' (30 June 2003)
'Taxpayers face £240 million-a-year bill for gay contract' (1 July 2003)
'Gay unions denounced as charter for tax dodgers' (1 July 2003)
'Outrage greets National Trust's plan for homosexual "weddings"' (28 December 2003)

Not quite true, then, that 'almost nobody cared'. The Telegraph clearly did, and spent some time agonising in its leader columns on what the correct Tory attitude should be. This was an early sortie:

'Homosexuals clearly have some special grievances - over hospital-visiting rights and funeral arrangements, for example. But there are other ways of righting these wrongs, one by one, than by inventing a form of quasi-marriage ceremony that would be open to widespread abuse. The problem of inheritance rights, for instance, might be solved at a stroke by abolishing inheritance tax altogether.' (1 July 2003)

But then the Conservative Party, under the leadership of Michael Howard, decided that there would be a free vote on the issue, a major shift in its position, and the Telegraph followed suit:

'Allowing gay people to affirm their relationship within a civil contract does not undermine the institution of marriage. It might even reinforce it. We will all benefit from greater recognition of stable relationships, of whatever kind.' (25 November 2003)

So all's well that ended well. But it wasn't quite as smooth a passage as Fraser Nelson implies.

1 comment:

Tyrone Jenkins said...

Typical of the Tory press (and indeed the Tory leadership) to do a 100 degree about-turn, in an attempt to appear liberal and cuddly. We should remind ourselves of Clause 28 and the "if you want a queer for a neighbour vote labour" element within the party. In this regard (if found wanting in some other respects)the Blair government can be said to have been genuinely progressive.