Same-Sex Marriage Bill in the House of Lords

The noble lords are now at the report stage of the bill, and conservatives are making a last-ditch effort to derail or change the bill.  Click here to watch the entire day's debate from the start.

Or read a much-abbreviated live blog of today's debate here.

For the record, your Head Trucker agrees with a couple of points the conservatives have raised:

1. It makes no sense, and is manifestly unfair and unequal not to allow adultery or non-consummation as a reason for divorce with same-sex couples, as they are for opposite-sex couples.

2. I would allow a grandfather exemption for current marriage registrars who do not wish to perform same-sex marriages on grounds of religious conviction; though of course any future registrars hired after the act comes into force should be told that it is a condition of employment in the job. There is nearly always more than one marriage registrar in local offices, or one from another area can be brought in to do the job. Your Head Trucker does not like to see anyone lose their livelihood on account of personal conviction of any kind.

But the noble lords on the Government benches keep airily and blithely waving away all such objections, and the vast majority keep voting them down, so there you go. Charmingly, all the noble lords of whatever persuasion are unfailingly polite and respectful of one another, even when they bitterly disagree, which is so astonishing to see in this modern world - very refreshing.

Your Head Trucker also emphatically agrees with this conservative British columnist that calling someone "gay" - or, I will go further to say, even calling someone "queer" or "faggot" - is not and should not be considered a hate crime.  If you start making every insult a crime, then there is no end and no limit to all that; and you will only embitter the speakers and breed in them a vengeful fury.  There must be no thoughtcrimes or Thought Police in our land of the free. 

In the flush of victory and social change, if we are to deserve all we have won, we must all resist the cruel, Stalinist urge to rub people's noses into the dirt and force them to bend to our every last demand of political and personal correctness.  If you are sincere in believing that liberty is a great American principle, you must concede that freedom of dissent and disagreement, even the expression of disapproval, are essential to our democratic values.  Otherwise, how are we morally different from the bigots who tyrannically demand silence, singularity of opinion, and extreme conformity to their point of view?

As I have said many times before here on the Blue Truck, it is but one small tiny baby step from being oppressed to being an oppressor - you have only to read the daily headlines from all around the world, not to mention any history book.  Victims can, and have, and do switch with great glee to being full-throttle victimizers in a heartbeat.

And yes, I am talking to you, Miss I'm-So-Liberal-It-Hurts-My-Fake-Tits.  That's not liberalism - it's self-righteousness, and very, very ugly.

So behave yourselves, guys, and have some humility, and some humanity.  It's the right thing to do - and much sexier, too.