Homosexuality and Gay Marriage

Its interesting to compare US conservatives with UK conservatives.

In the US many conservatives are opposed to gay marriage.

In the UK some conservatives oppose gay marriage while many support it and gay marriage has the backing of the Conservative Party leadership. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, went on record at the Conservative Party conference last year stating, "I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative; I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative." He supports gay marriage because he believes that marriage is a "great institution" and he wants gay couples to be able to participate in that institution.

Right now, with the leadership of all three main UK political parties supporting gay marriage (that's gay marriage with the marriage ceremony performed in a church or other place of worship not just gay marriage in a registry office), it no longer seems like a question of "if" so much as a question of "when".

I sincerely hope that US conservatives can also come around to the realisation that being pro-gay marriage follows logically from being pro-marriage.

I think while a UK "conservative" politician and a US "conservative" politician share the conservative label they are vastly different from what I have seen watching UK political news programs.

I may be wrong but UK conservatives aren't as fundamentalist in their religious leanings when it comes to approaching their voting base, am I correct?

It's that difference that means US conservatives will never give in to the idea of gay marriage.

I would agree. you even compare a US conservative to a Canadian conservative and their is a big difference, on many issues anyway. It seems that on the political spectrium US politics, on a whole, are more to the right than many Western nations.

At least in the past 30 years. A run of the mill democrat from the late 70's would be considered a card-carrying socialist in today's climate and frustratingly, a "conservative" from 30 years ago, like Reagan, would probably be a called tax-and-spend leftist, by the Republican base today.

From a social perspective, it's a bit more nuanced because some issues have gotten more lax over the years, such as legalizing pot. But religion seems to be a playing a greater role than ever in other discussions. And that's why the gay marriage issue has been so divisive.

Interesting for you; us it makes cry.

I agree that the conservatives in the US government maybe a bit crazy but it luckily does not reflect on the population. Every year gay rights are becoming more and more accepted. This year alone three state by popular vote have legalized same sex marriage. And I am very happy to live in one of those states

Like most other civil rights battles of the past, we take two steps forward and one step back. Progress is slow and sometimes unsteady, but it has always won out in the end over time.

The problem that seems to cause all of this back and forth is that change can't happen in the middle of a generation. Its new generations that bring forth change, like right now with younger individuals fighting for human rights for gay couples, but the older generations that are against the change are in power and fight it. Once the younger generations begin to take power things will change quicker. Thats until the future generations come up with something that the youth now will think is crazy and this all starts over again.

Man, I don't think anyone in any of the so-called "civilized" nations are quite as fundamentalist as the Repubs are these days

I may have been a bit too optimistic with my previous remarks. I have seen a news article today which contains both bad news and goods news.

The UK government has announced that they will make it legal (by 2015) for gay marriage to be performed in places of worship. This law will be passed despite opposition from about 100 or so Conservative MPs because it will have the support of the rest of the Conservative Party as well as the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

This is great news.

However, the legalisation of gay marriage will not apply to Anglican Churches. The law will explicitly make it illegal for gay marriage to be performed in Anglican Churches. The Church of England used to be referred to as "the Conservative Party at prayer" and still has a degree of influence over the party. The decision not to legalise gay marriage in Anglican Churches was most likely a compromise intended to pacify the 100 or so Conservative MPs who oppose gay marriage.

That's damned unfortunate but I'd like to think that this is only a temporary setback. I think that the Church of England and the Conservative Party will eventually be ready for this change (maybe in another generation).

I have tended to regard UK politics as a purely secular affair but now it looks as though the US political arena is not the only one in which religion plays a role.