Justice Long-Delayed

Like bleedin' clockwork, I'm in a good mood about the way the world is changing and the Tories come along to harsh my buzz.

Actually, there's a lot to celebrate here; gay marriages by 2014, and two Christian/semi-Christian denominations planning to do the right thing and start marrying homosexual couples as quickly as possible.  Given the last Tory government gave us the truly disgusting Section 28, this progress is worthy of praise, even if "We're not going to be openly hateful shits anymore" isn't really the most inspiring political turnaround imaginable.

But it's the idea of refusing to acknowledge a gay marriage performed by a member of the Church of England clergy that pisses me off.  This has been pointed out more than once by other people, but it's worth saying again in this context: anyone who argues they fear for freedom of religion and supports this provision is a fraud.  Legally constraining C of E clergy who support gay marriage is the exact fucking opposite of freedom of religion, and yet it's being supported by a raft of Tories because it's an abridgement of religious freedom that ties in with their private, petty bigotries.

But history marches on.  Twenty years from now, any ultra-right Tory MP who speaks out against gay marriage will be shot down by their colleagues.  Fifty years from now, they'll claim they were in favour of gay marriage the whole time, and it's those pesky left-wingers who are the real homophobes.

One hundred years from now, they'll be using same-sex marriage of an example of a noble British institution in danger of being eroded by the lack of values demonstrated by the 22nd century's young people.  And so it will go on, always and forever; the poisoning of the present, the denial of the future, and the appropriation of the past.  Each step of the way, demanding that if they have to stop being small-minded shits, it'd be really dangerous to not do it very, very slowly.