So marriage equality went into effect at the stroke of midnight last night, and all around the country same-sex couples have already gotten married and are probably on their honeymoon by now. Curiosity got the better of me and I wondered what the folks at the Daily Mail were saying about it, that bastion of thoughtful and fair-minded tolerance. I came across this:
Amanda Platell: The real gay marriage bigots are its intolerant supportersA wedding day is always a special occasion and especially so, of course, for the first homosexual couples marrying today.
I wish them every happiness for the future. But that does not alter the fact that I still disagree with the concept of gay marriage.
No doubt I’ll receive a barrage of abuse for even admitting as much. For surely the saddest legacy of the whole gay marriage debate is how it has brought about the most appalling bigotry — not against homosexuals, but against those who oppose the new law.
For evidence of that, you only had to watch BBC Question Time on Thursday. One audience member, Marilyn Barmer, was booed and hissed for even having the temerity to ask: ‘Why do we need to change the definition of marriage that has existed for thousands of years, when equality already exists?’
A perfectly reasonable question, you might think. Yet from the outraged response of the audience, it was as if she’d been proposing the execution of every first-born. Others who echoed her views were similarly subjected to jeers, sneers and contempt.
I can’t help wondering if that’s the reaction the BBC — our self-appointed Ministry for Political Correctness — sought to provoke by hosting the show in Brighton, the gay capital of Britain.
But then this was just a microcosm of the way the gay marriage legislation has been forced through by our political masters. Anyone brave enough to voice unease has been branded a bigot whose views were so beneath contempt they didn’t even deserve to be heard.
In modern Britain, the chattering-class thought-police have decreed that their liberal value system is morally superior to the traditional beliefs of millions of ordinary Britons.
A poll that went out at midnight after Question Time said two-thirds of people support gay marriage, but a third still do not. That doesn’t make them homophobes. Indeed, I suspect the vast majority welcomed the introduction of civil partnerships, yet simply feel that gay marriage is a step too far.
Do they not have a right to a voice? The gay community has fought all along for tolerance, and rightly so. But surely it should extend both ways.
Ironically, many of the most vicious attacks have not come from the gay community — many of whom remain ambivalent about gay marriage — but from politicians cynically trying to parade their touchy-feely credentials.
And never mind that this meant trampling over the beliefs of many Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and others opposed to gay marriage.
That’s not social progress, it’s a form of intolerance every bit as ugly as homophobia.
I actually enjoyed reading it. Not because it's right, because it's obviously dumb and wrong. But because it pleases me that faux-victimhood is really all these shitstains have left to cling to.
Amanda Palmer isn't exactly the brightest lamp in the street and I'm under no delusion that this is anything more than the shallow pretence of a no-talent hack with a chronic need for attention from the lowest common denominator and probably not reflective of her true opinion. Nonetheless, it's a good example of the sentiment. The pathetic wailing and laughable appeals for sympathy from sore losers coming to terms with their shrinking privilege. I can't help but gloat. Fucking losers.
Topic: Marriage Equality