We Are All Free Now

Peter Hitchens writes:

I wonder how the religious affairs reporters managed to find out about the almost-wedding service of two homosexual clerics in one of London's loveliest churches?

Did they happen to be passing at the time? Did one of the congregation disapprove so strongly that he leaked it? Seems unlikely to me.

Or did those involved, by any chance, want to make sure the world knew that this had happened, shortly before a Lambeth conference which is already likely to involve a disastrous confrontation between sexual militants and conservatives, and speed the split in the Anglican Church? And so it will advance the cause of howling, me-first immorality?

It is strange that it is always the conservatives who seem to get the blame in these matters, for their supposed intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Actually, the Church of England has for many decades quietly tolerated large numbers of homosexuals in the clergy in a civilised, kind and discreet arrangement that avoided pain and confrontation. What has changed is that these clergy, and their allies, have ceased to be interested in receiving tolerance (which of course implies disapproval) and want equality instead.

But that's only the half of it. Not only do they not want to receive tolerance. They most definitely do not wish to give it. Their opponents, first to be classified as evil bigots, are next to be defeated, then driven to the edges of public life and finally forbidden altogether, rather more thoroughly than homosexuality ever was.

The new sexual non-morality - composed of three parts self-indulgence, four parts of commercial greed and three of state power - will rule everywhere. Children will be raised by the state, and parents, increasingly irrelevant, will die alone, and quite possibly with the 'assistance' of the state. Huxley's prophecy of these arrangements in 'Brave New World' is visibly taking concrete shape in the world around us.

The caricature of traditional marriage employed by these campaigners does not honour the institution, as it pretends. Does the clergyman involved in this latest ceremony actually believe in or support the stern prescriptions of the 1662 marriage service on which he based the event?

This campaign intends to bring such marriage to an end, and has already nearly succeeded. judging by the rates, first of divorce, when marriage was still strong, and increasingly of couples who don't bother to get married in the first place, because marriage is so weak. What is the point of lifelong marriage in the brave new world these people seek? For them, it is surely an obstacle and a prison?

This isn't really about homosexuals, a small minority in our society .I really don't want to discuss homosexuality here, or the reasons why Christians (or anyone else) might regard homosexual acts as wrong. It's rather boring, it makes people bitter, and it isn't, actually, the point. It's part of a bait-and-switch trick in which the real centre of the argument is snatched out of sight while the gullible audience's attention is diverted.

It's really about heterosexuals, about marriage, divorce, abortion, parental rights over children, the passing on of culture and morals, the ownership and inheritance of private property, the existence of a defensible private life, the priorities between work and home, all the issues which marriage tried to settle in favour of two adults living privately in a strong, privileged but restrictive relationship in which personal will was subjected to moral law.

Homosexuality is the chosen battleground of the revolutionaries for a very simple reason. Homosexual acts, like all sexual acts outside marriage, many of them far more important, are disapproved of by Christian morality. That's an undoubted fact, and there's no real way round it if Christianity is a received religion based on accepted scriptures. Here comes the trick. The revolutionaries can first dishonestly pretend that this is an objection to homosexual individuals, even though this is the opposite of the truth. . They can then portray homosexuals as a persecuted minority who are discriminated against - a stance which automatically makes their opponents look like bigots. Among thoughtful, well-informed people this would fail. But in our TV-dominated, post-education age, bad arguments drive out good.

They therefore always win, regardless of any facts that happen to be available, since in the eyes of the Comprehensive-schooled, sex-educated, 'Life of Brian', alternative comedy generation, 'discrimination' is always wrong and religious principle is always funny.

This also, importantly allows them to use the law against those opponents - employment law and public order law being the usual routes. It would be very hard to make it illegal to hold an opinion as such, though some of the new 'Anti-Terror' laws come close to it. But it is increasingly easy to make it illegal or expensively unlawful to 'discriminate' or to 'offend' . (see recent court and tribunal cases involving the preacher Harry Hammond and the Bishop of Hereford, and the curious police behaviour towards Lynette Burrows and Sir Iqbal Sacranie who said critical things about homosexuality on the radio).

The trick is to become one of the things it is illegal, or unacceptable, to 'discriminate' against. There is no proper logic in this. Many groups have no real protection at all, though logically they should. And all kinds of amusing things happen when people who are not in these approved categories actually are discriminated against - such as Christians who wear crosses at work.

Suddenly, those campaigners and lawyers who would scamper militantly to the side of a Muslim banned from wearing a jilbab are not available to help. Then there are applicants for jobs who are told that they are not being considered because the employer is applying 'Positive Action' and therefore giving preference to ethnic minorities. 'Positive Action' of this kind is perfectly legal, though in my view impossible to distinguish in effect from 'positive discrimination' which is against the law. And then there's the 'Black Police Association' . We all know what would (rightly) happen if anyone set up a 'White Police Association'.

This, too, is part of the 'Bait and Switch' method. By the time you realise what the real issue is, it is too late. You've lost your fiver. Or indeed the whole battle.

The real aim of all this stuff about homosexuality is to destroy the institution of marriage and the moral system which is founded upon that institution. Make those who defend it look like bigots, make expressions of opinion or actions by such people legally risky, or politically dangerous, and you've won.

What these militants ought to do, if they really mean what they say, is to hold services of Unmarriage, or rituals divorce, in the most picturesque old churches, using caricatures of the most beautiful old Anglican services, and rewritten hymns, to do so ( How about "Clear Off, O Love Divine! or "Hide me from the Great Redeemer").

At the centre of the service might be the words "Those whom man, or the state, or career pressures, have pulled asunder, let not God or anyone else attempt to keep together", while the clergyman (or clergyperson) stamps as hard as possible on the ring which has been previously flung to the ground in a petulant gesture of self-indulgence.

Then we can all get on with the real meaning of life, as so well summed up in 'Sex and the City'.

And, after a few years of this, when the last remaining marriage has been torn apart and we're all the property of the supermarkets and the state, all the churches can be turned into night-clubs or funky loft conversions, and all the revolutionary clergy can get jobs as bouncers or estate agents.

We're all free now.