Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Lord Glenarthur Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Glenarthur]

My Lords, in the 36 or so years that I have been in your Lordships’ House I have come across many Bills from all quarters of the House with which I have profoundly disagreed. But none has made me as uneasy— and I use that word deliberately—as this one. The Government and others say that it is popular, but a great many of the people I know—and much more widely, and also among those who are long-term supporters of the Government—despair that such a measure should be brought forward. That is because the Bill goes to the very heart of individuals’ personal and deeply held views about what marriage is. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, said yesterday, and my noble friend Lord Eden of Winton said just now, perhaps these views vary because of differences in age.

Marriage is a unique bond, as important in a non-religious connection as it is in a religious covenant. Despite the safeguards for the religious aspects of marriage contained within the Bill, one of the key views was expressed to me by the Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, someone well versed in the overall nature of marriage, whether religious or otherwise, as I sought to organise my own thoughts about this debate. It is a view which I share. It is that the heart of marriage features both the complementarity as well as the difference between men and women. It cannot do that between those of the same sex whether or not deeply religious views are held.

As others have expressed over the past two days, marriage is a vital, life-giving institution in our society. It has evolved in its current form through a long and complex process, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, explained. It is an institution which recognises the complementarity and the difference between the sexes. Marriage offers a framework of stability for this and, when properly lived, has been proven to do so.

If one considers its ingredients, perhaps early on comes the simple fact of companionship. All of us who have been married learn over time that to make a marriage sustainable it needs hard work, give and take, forgiveness and many other aspects. That is well known to those who have been married for many years. However, there are other types of companionship relationships: caring for an aged parent, siblings living together when they are older, coping with a sibling or friend with a disability, and so on. There are also those who are simply friends and perhaps share a property. These might all be examples of great dependency and, indeed, interdependence, so might there be a case for same-sex marriage to be argued on a basis of mutual companionship? Perhaps, but it is hardly conclusive as none of these other companion relationships requires a marriage bond for them to work beneficially.

What about children? Of course people of the same sex can nurture children, but they cannot create them. It is the stability and complementarity of different sexes in a marriage that form the bedrock of a child’s early years.

Is it not the case that the current movement towards same-sex marriages comes not just from a given equality perspective but because of a mistaken desire for institutionalised recognition within a time-honoured structure; namely, marriage? I would argue, as have others, that marriage and the special meaning that the word conveys is not the means by which this should happen. In a same-sex marriage there simply is not the complementarity and difference that there is between a man and a woman that forms part of its essential structure and character. Indeed, it is the word “marriage” within this Bill that creates the problem to some, including me. Whereas it is the foot-of-the-door argument for those who endorse its purpose, to many, unwittingly, it seems to uproot the significance of marriage for those who think differently.

It is true, as the Government have argued in introducing the Bill, that the means by which the marriage bond has been recognised over centuries has changed and has evolved into a quite sophisticated legal contract, to say nothing of the religious covenant it is now. If marriage stands for stability through complementarity and difference between the sexes, then same-sex marriage cannot become that which it seeks to be. Furthermore, it risks destabilising an institution that at its heart honours stability.

High expectations are therefore placed on those who enter into the marriage bond, and those within it should model or, at the very least, aspire and work towards the ideals of faithfulness and security which society requires for its stable balance. I would not dream of suggesting that faithful and secure modelling of a relationship between people of the same sex in civil partnerships does anything other than add to the well-being of society. Indeed, it seems to me that civil partnerships provide all that is necessary for same-sex partnerships. The point I want to emphasise is that no relationship between those of the same sex can equal or match that complementarity and difference to which I referred earlier which is found in marriage. It cannot create another human being, and that is what differentiates, and always should do, civil partnership from marriage.

It seems to me, and to a great many others to whom I have spoken, provoked no doubt by this Bill and the huge amount of mail that it has generated, that there is a manifest and meaningful difference between marriage and all other forms of relationship; that marriage should remain as it is, a bond of faithfulness and security, however difficult to achieve, but always to aspire to, legally binding and perhaps religiously covenanted, between a man and a woman. A civil partnership can continue to enjoy the brand of complementarity that its own circumstances bring, one hopes, to the well-being of society. But marriage it most certainly is not and it cannot be made so.

I therefore believe that this Bill is fundamentally wrong and is likely to do considerable damage to, or certainly put at risk, a much respected part of the way society works and achieve nothing for same-sex partners that cannot be achieved already. It turns an aspect of society’s norms and values on its head and changes the well understood and accepted meaning of the word marriage in perpetuity. I fear for the future of family life if this Bill is passed. I shall certainly vote for the amendment.