Gay marriage: the French connection
The issue provoking the biggest Tory rebellion in decades was also prompting a similar row in the French National Assembly. Why?
The 47 members of the Council of Europe during the Council of Europe Conference in Brighton last year. In 2010, ministers from the countries agreed on “measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity” Photo: PA
7:00PM GMT 09 Feb 2013
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The greatest puzzle about the “gay marriage” furore is why this issue suddenly erupted from nowhere to the top of the political agenda. Why has David Cameron been willing, as one commentator put it, to “trash his party” in pushing so hard for something that, before the last election, he refused to endorse or to include in the Tory manifesto? And why, just as it was provoking the biggest Tory rebellion in decades, was it also prompting a similar row in the French National Assembly?
The real story behind this drama goes back to 2010. It has three main players, the Home Secretary Theresa May, our former Lib Dem equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone, and that shadowy institution, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, with its controversial adjunct, the European Court of Human Rights.
In March 2010, ministers from the 47 countries represented in the Council of Europe agreed a “Recommendation” on “measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity”. Section IV focused on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, guaranteeing “respect for family life”. It proposed that where national legislation recognised same-sex partnerships, these should be given the same legal status as those between heterosexuals. There was no mention of marriage as yet, except in a proposal that “transgender persons” should be entitled to “marry a person of the sex opposite to their reassigned sex”.
Four days before the 2010 general election, the Tory party issued a pamphlet, signed by Theresa May, in which a section on “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [LGBT] issues” promised that the party would “consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage”. But this was not in the manifesto, nor, after the election, in the Coalition Agreement.
In June that year, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that, though there was no obligation on countries to recognise same-sex partnerships, Article 8 did not specify that the right to enjoy family life applied only to couples of different sexes, it could be taken as equally applying to same-sex couples. The court proposed that, when a “consensus” emerged among the member states, this could allow the right to same-sex marriages to be recognised under the convention.
Shortly afterwards, Lynne Featherstone, the equalities minister, set out new guidelines allowing “religious music” to be used in civil partnership ceremonies. She suggested that this should be regarded as a step towards allowing gay marriages. In September, the Lib Dem party conference backed her call for same-sex marriages to be legalised.
In December a campaign group, Equal Love, helped a group of British same-sex couples to launch an action in the ECHR asking for civil partnerships to be given full marriage status. They were supported by Peter Tatchell, who told the BBC that banning gay people from marriage sent “a signal that we are regarded as socially and legally inferior”.
The campaign – with much conferring behind the scenes between ministers and gay lobby groups – was under way. In March 2011, May and Featherstone issued an official policy document, “Working for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality: Moving Forward”. It committed the Government to work “with all those who have an interest in equal civil marriage” on how “legislation can develop”. Furthermore, it committed the Foreign Office and the new Gender Equality Office to work for “full implementation” of the Council of Europe’s 2010 Recommendation, with a target date of June 2013.
In November 2011, when Britain took over the six-monthly chairmanship of the Council of Europe, it put this at the top of the agenda. (Featherstone had already committed £100,000 of government money to creating an LGBT unit in Strasbourg to plan implementation of the policy). Britain was so keen to take the lead that, on March 27 last year, the UK’s representation in Strasbourg organised the council’s first “closed conference” (ie, public not admitted), to agree detailed plans for the June 2013 implementation, with a keynote address from Featherstone. A speech by the British judge, Sir Nicolas Bratza, then head of the European Court of Human Rights, signalled that the court was ready to declare same-sex marriage a “human right”, as soon as enough countries fell into line.
Such are the real reasons that our Government needed to rush through last week’s vote on gay marriage. We are committed to “full implementation” of the Council of Europe’s policy no later than this June (and hence the similar law now being rushed through in France). It has been a brilliant political coup by the gay lobby, aided by Featherstone, May and those shadowy European bodies that, in so many ways, now rule our lives. But why weren’t we told more honestly and openly why it has all happened?
Such are the real reasons that our Government needed to rush through last week’s vote on gay marriage. We are committed to “full implementation” of the Council of Europe’s policy no later than this June (and hence the similar law now being rushed through in France). It has been a brilliant political coup by the gay lobby, aided by Featherstone, May and those shadowy European bodies that, in so many ways, now rule our lives. But why weren’t we told more honestly and openly why it has all happened?
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