Letter to Damian Hinds MP against SSM Bill

1st February 2013

Dear Mr Hinds,

I write as one of your constituents to ask you to oppose the second reading of the above Bill next week.

The government has presented this matter as a case of equality, but I can only echo the words of Bishop Phillip Egan that underlying this assertion is a basic philosophical misconception about the nature of equality, in which equality is confused with “sameness”:

“Equality can never be an absolute value, only a derivative and relative value. After all, a man cannot be a mother nor a woman a father, and so men and women can never be absolutely equal, only relatively equal, since they are biologically different. So too with marriage. Marriage, ever since the dawn of human history, is a union for life and love between a man and a woman. It is a complementary relationship between two people of the opposite sex, the man and the woman not being the same, but different. They are not, in other words, absolutely equal but relatively equal. This is why gay couples, two men or two women, are not being ‘excluded’ from marriage; they simply cannot enter marriage.”

By its own actions, the government is already acknowledging that there can be no true equality between marriage and same-sex couple relationships.  As opponents of same-sex “marriage” have pointed out, one reason why homosexual “marriage” is an absurdity is because it cannot be consummated.  The government’s lawyers have effectively proven this point by failing to agree a definition of “homosexual genital acts.”

Instead of admitting the logical fallacy of ascribing “equality” between same sex partnerships and marriage, it is now proposed that, as homosexuals cannot consummate marriages or commit adultery (because there is no commonly agreed definition of “gay sex”), then both consummation and adultery (as grounds for divorce) must be dropped from marriage legislation completely to avoid discriminating against homosexuals!

This is not only the logic of the asylum, but it gives the lie to all the government’s assurances that same-sex ‘marriage’ would have no impact on the traditional understanding of marriage.  On the contrary, this Bill will radically alter the meaning of marriage for everyone and reduce it to a mere contract for cohabitation.

The government has clearly failed to think through the consequences of this legislation and we are already seeing the effects of it undermining the traditional and legal meaning of marriage – before it has even been passed!  If legislating for “hard cases” always produces bad law, how much more so does legislating for an impossibility?

As David Cameron had the nerve to tell Adam Boulton (Sky News, 3^rd May 2010) that he was “not planning” to change the definition of marriage, I urge you to hold him to his word and vote against this Bill.  Needless to say, his assurances, given just 3 days before the last General Election, have proven to be worthless.  I can assure you that his actions will not be forgotten in 2015 and neither will your vote.

Yours sincerely, etc.

A hat tip to Deacon Nick Donnelly of Protect the Pope http://protectthepope.com/?p=6546  , some of whose words I have shamelessly plagiarized!
If any response be forthcoming from Mr Hinds, who claims to be a Catholic, then rest assured that it will follow - together with appropriate treatment.