Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I think that I should make a little more progress. I will take further interventions in a moment.

I know that for many of my colleagues, the crux of the issue lies in the protections that I have mentioned, particularly the protections for the Church of England and the Church in Wales. They have a unique position because of the legal duty of their clergy to marry their parishioners, and furthermore, because the Church of England is the established Church, its canon law is part of the law of the land. As I said to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Bill provides for no disadvantageous or, indeed, favourable treatment for the Church of England or the Church in Wales. It simply provides a pragmatic way of putting them in essentially the same position as other religious organisations. If they decide that they want to marry same-sex couples, they can do so.

We have worked hard with a wide range of religious organisations, including both those Churches, to ensure that the protections in the Bill work. Indeed, the Church of England has commented on the constructive way in which we have consulted it about effective legal safeguards, ensuring that its concerns are properly accommodated. The Church in Wales has confirmed that the Bill gives it protection, while still enabling it to make its own decision on same-sex marriage.

Let me now turn to an issue that has already been raised many times today: the question of legal protections and the European convention on human rights. There has been much discussion about the powers of the European Court of Human Rights, but I believe that its case law is clear: the question of whether—and if so, how—to allow same-sex marriage must be left to individual states to decide for themselves.

“It is simply inconceivable that the Court would require a faith group to conduct same-sex marriages in breach of its own doctrines.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the eminent QCs Lord Pannick, Baroness Kennedy and Lord Lester.

The belief that the Court would order the UK to require religious organisations to marry same-sex couples in contravention of their religious doctrine relies on a combination of three highly improbable conclusions. The first is that the Court would need to go against its own clear precedent that countries have wide discretion in the matter of same-sex marriage. The second is that the Court would need to decide that the interests of a same-sex couple who wanted a particular religious organisation to marry them outweighed the rights and beliefs of an entire faith and its congregation as a whole. The third is that the Court would need to discount the importance of article 9 of its own convention, which guarantees freedom of thought, conscience and religion. That would be rewriting the rules not just for one religious organisation in England and Wales, but for all religious organisations in all 47 states of the Council of Europe. I believe that such an outcome is inconceivable.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Our sexuality is fundamental to who we are. Surely the crux of the debate is the question of whether we accord equal rights, respect and esteem to people regardless of their sexuality.

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend has made her point very powerfully. We need to ensure that, as a society, we treat people fairly. That is at the heart of what we are talking about today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

There is a Bill before the other House to pardon Alan Turing. We probably would not be here debating in freedom today without his genius at Bletchley Park, yet this remarkable individual—the father of modern computing—was driven to suicide as a result of his shameful chemical castration enforced by the state as an alternative to prison. I hope that the Bill in the other place is successful.

If anybody feels, however, that this is some historical footnote, they should think again. They should consider the number of homophobic crimes that happen every year, and perhaps they should look at an MP’s postbag. I receive hateful correspondence, some of which suggests treatment for homosexuality. I can tell the people who write those things that homosexuality needs no treatment. Our sexuality is fundamental to who we are. We will all know people who have been forced to live a lie, bringing immeasurable unhappiness to themselves and those around them. Such marriages were not marriages—they were a sham enforced by society and the state.

I am very proud that we in this House will shortly sweep away one of the last statutory discriminations against people with mental illness. Words matter. The word “marriage” matters to me. My understanding of marriage as somebody with no faith is no less valid than that of Members who speak passionately from their religious perspective. I would say that when this measure has passed, as I hope that it does, we will look back in five years’ time and wonder what the fuss was about.

I well remember talking to a senior military figure at around the time we were about to introduce the ability for people to be openly gay within our armed forces. He spoke about the collapse of discipline and moral decay, but none of that happened; in fact, the forces became a much more open and pleasant place to work. In a few years’ time, will the marriage of any Member here feel any different—any less valuable—because we have extended that right to those who perhaps have different views from ourselves? This measure is long overdue.

I ask hon. Members to remember that when Alan Turing took his own life, it is thought that he laced an apple with cyanide, an apple being the symbol of forbidden love. Homosexuality is not forbidden love, and it is time that this House recognised that, and recognised that people cannot be a little bit equal. We have heard hon. Members and colleagues telling us that this matters to them. If it matters to one person in this House that we recognise the validity of their relationship, then it is time for us to move on. Tonight I shall be thinking of Alan Turing and all those people who have had to live a lie over the centuries, all those people around the world today for whom being homosexual is still a death sentence, and the message that we send around the world if we do not accept and celebrate people who are homosexual and vote for love and equality.