RE: Luke Tryl: The Tory right shouldn’t fear gay rights

Luke Tryl claims that people like me "fear gay rights", that I "[worry] both that the gay rights movement is merely a vehicle of the left and that in order for gay people to be given equality they might lose their rights of belief and expression".  He also states that I want to "have [my] cake and eat it".  He explains:

"If he wants licence to call homosexual practice immoral then surely it’s only right that one is entitled to call him homophobic or anti-gay in response. A vital counterpart of the right to free expression is the right to be held to account for that expression. To accuse people of “hobbling the free expression of an important view” simply because they hold him to account is wildly to distort the debate."

There are so many places Luke is going wrong here, one barely knows where to begin.  But let's start with the last set of claims.

Luke says that if I can call him immoral then he can call me homophobic or anti-gay.  Of course we can just swap names, but should we feel equally content to do so?  I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that Luke is not fully signed up to the doctrines of Islam.  He might believe, for example, that Muslim doctrines and practice with regards to women are wrong.  Would he think that it flowed from the fact that he was entitled to tell the Muslim he was wrong in his beliefs and practice regarding women that the Muslim was entitled to call him "anti-Muslim", a "xenophobe", to tell him that phobic attitudes of his sort towards Muslims were what got the Conservative party a bad name?  When he offered his reasoned critiques of Muslim practice with regards to women, would he be happy if those around him looked upon him sympathetically and said something like: "You don't need to fear Muslims, old chap.  They are people like you, with rights and dignity.  Islam is central to their identity, you know - it isn't just what they do; it's who they are.  You must try to least more respect for others.  Hatred towards Muslims isn't going to make them go away - get over it!"?

For all I know, perhaps Luke is, indeed, proud to be anti-Muslim.  But I am not anti-gay or fearful of homosexuals or hateful towards them.  I don't object at all to Luke "holding me to account", as he puts it, for my views.  He can tell me I'm wrong.  He can argue that I'm wrong.  He can expose me as a hypocrite, for all I know.  In principle I object to none of these things.  What I do object to, though, are simple falsehoods.

And it is simply false to assert that I am homophobic or anti-gay.  In the first instance I object to these claims for the same reasons I would object if Luke asserted I were eight feet tall or had only one leg - they just aren't true.  But they are more than simple falsehoods; they are damaging falsehoods, designed to smear me so as to undermine my credibility with others.  So in the second instance I object to being called a homophobe for the same reasons I would object if you claimed that I had a criminal conviction for fraud or were a regular attender at neo-Nazi rallies.

Next, I am in no way fearful of gay rights.  Luke should read my articles more closely.  In my view, the key new gay rights of recent years were equalisation of the age of consent and civil partnerships.  Of both of these I was a long-time advocate.  As it happens, I had no particular objection to gay adoption, either (though I cannot claim to have thought it as significant an issue upon which to campaign as the first two) and I was most surprised when it was considered a matter for the Party to whip against in 2003.

But a number of things loosely termed "gay rights" are not rights for homosexuals at all.  For example, banning adoption agencies from assisting only in the adoption by couples qua couples when the couples concerned were in Christian marriage does not add any rights for homosexuals; it simply takes rights away from Christians.  Does anyone believe that even a single additional homosexual couple has been able to adopt a child as a consequence of this?  Closing down the Catholic adoption agencies was nothing to do with extending the rights of homosexuals.  It was, purely and simply, a matter of avoiding institutional moral censure.  The only right denied homosexual couples by these adoption agencies was the right not to be treated in ways some of them (though probably very few) would consider offensive.  Shutting them down benefitted homosexuals only in the sense that banning the Catholic Church altogether would benefit them - by removing an institution that disagreed with them.

I remain, declaring as immoral the sloth (me), the glutton (me), those that lack discipline with their money (definitely me), those without disciplined sexual conduct (as it happens, not usually me), and many others in our dissolute world.  I am, politically, a classical eighteenth century liberal - I do not want to deny the homosexual his freedom to conduct himself in accord with his beliefs, any more than I want to deny that freedom to the spendthrift or the glutton.  But I do want to be able to explain to all of them why I regard them as immoral.  That is not about my wishing to deny any rights to them.  It is about my freedom to conduct myself in accord with my beliefs.