- In the specific case of England and Wales the legislation was passed by large
majorities in the elected House of Commons (400–175 on the Second Reading)
and in the unelected House of Lords (390–148 on the Second Reading). The
Lords had acquired a reputation in recent years for rejecting legislation
supportive of gay rights, so the proportionally larger majority for same-sex
marriage in that house surprised many observers. Opponents of same-sex
marriage argued that the threat of reform – including a big reduction in the
number of members – hung over the Lords. From a conservative perspective
the Lords plays an important role as a revising chamber and is part of the UK’s
‘mixed constitution’. That many members of the Lords felt compelled to support
same-sex marriage was evidence of an increasing imbalance in the constitution. - A more radical criticism is that there is a ‘gay agenda’ intended to undermine
marriage and the ‘traditional’ family with its attendant gender roles. Unlike
many of the previous criticisms this one tends to be strongly motivated by
animosity towards gays and lesbians.
Responses to these arguments can of course come from non-conservative sources.
We might simply reject the critique of ‘rationalism’ and the fear of rapid change.
But we will focus here on conservative counter-responses. The primary one is the
importance of recognising social change. Attitudes to homosexuality have changed
rapidly over the last 150 years. If we take Britain as largely typical of the Western
world, homosexuality has gone from being something not discussed, to – in the
1950s – a topic for discussion but also subject to increased criminal repression. It
was then partially decriminalised in the 1960s, but reconceptualised as a medical
condition and not granted equal status with heterosexuality. The medical
establishment was encouraged to offer ‘treatment’ for the ‘condition’. In part as a
result of the displacement of Freudian theories of sexuality by more biological –
and evidence-based – theories homosexuality was struck off the list of mental
illnesses. Today, the scientific consensus is that homosexuality is a biologically
recurring phenomenon, and can be explained in evolutionary terms.
However, the challenge from activists to the ‘medicalisation’ of homosexuality,
combined with the AIDS epidemic, led to a reaction in the 1980s, culminating in
Section 28 of the Local Government Act (1988), which forbade the promotion by
local education authorities of homosexuality as a ‘pretended family relationship’.
Gradually over the next 25 years, in part due to wider social changes and in part
concerted activism, laws were changed and public opinion shifted. Importantly, none
of the legal changes, such as equalising the age of consent, repealing criminal laws
specifically directed at gay men, lifting the ban on serving in the military, repealing
Section 28 or introducing anti-discrimination laws, had the negative effects predicted
by their opponents. It is in this context that same-sex marriage, rather than being
a radical ‘un-conservative’ change, might better be conceptualised as a recognition
of social change, which – importantly – has to be institutionalised. Same-sex
marriage is the culmination of a series of legal reforms and social changes. And far
from being an ‘elite project’ it carries considerable public support. In November
1975 the polling agency Ipsos MORI found that 40 per cent of British respondents
believed that ‘homosexual couples should be able to live openly together’; posing
the same question in April 2014 that figure had increased to 89 per cent. On the
question of whether ‘homosexuals should be allowed to marry one another’ the
Chapter 9 Conservatism 209