See, I took a week off a while back, to re-acquaint myself with my wife and to visit with her parents and to be away from work for a while. In that time, I didn’t really do a lot of checking on my blog reader. And I still have over 1,000 posts left over that I haven’t sifted through. So I only just now came across reporting on one of my favorite subjects from last week’s Conservative Party conference in Manchester, England:
…to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative.
— The Right Honourable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Which is a bit of reasoning that seems like it ought to resonate over on our side of the pond, too. Also of great interest was this bit of musing from Clark at Popehat, about why we’re goning to have just plain give up on the idea of gun control altogether pretty soon.
One day, maybe next week, I’ll make it all the way through the backlog of 970 more posts and be up to date again. For now, a belated “Right on, Mr. Cameron!” to the Prime Minister, and a belated “Whoa! I never thought of that” to Clark.
“It’s called technology, and it’s the universal solvent.”
Not quite universal. Close enough, though.
“society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other.”
The PM’s reasoning is infantile here, Burt, abstracting the issue beyond any recognition. One could use the same facile argument for polygamy, for instance. [And many other less savory things I need not pull up as they’d be unnecessarily pejorative.] My objection here is a formal one, not on the merits of the issue. Cameron is not to be credited with a valid argument since it’s vague and equivocal to the point of sophistry.
I notice the majority in the UK are against it, BTW, esp adoption [2/3]. Fortunately, Europe uses the “social contract” model, which basically means the gov’t does what it wants, and gives back to the populace only what they’re angry enough to demand. For example, polls favor capital punishment, and the UK hasn’t permitted a direct vote on EU membership since 1975, but so what?
I don’t know about Cameron. I won’t question his principled commitment to same-sex marriage, but there are political reasons [like its popularity in Scotland] for him to push this now. I wonder if he’ll disappear with the inevitable collapse of his coalition [with the Lib Dems] gov’t.
Cameron’s latest problem is with his own party, which favors by 70% a referendum on the EU. Even Labour and the Lib Dems favor a referendum by a little over 50% each, but Cameron won’t allow it. I imagine he’ll ease past this, but polls I’ve seen run 50+% Eurosceptic vs 37% or so in support.
Which is a long way of saying I don’t support Cameron’s powers of logic and question his political viability as well. Neither am I a big fan of how they do business in Europe [esp the EU, which I see as essentially undemocratic] although I bet Mr. Murali would like it just fine.
;-O
To be sure, SSM is not ultimately Mr. Cameron’s problem is any more than it’s Mr. Obama’s; the problem both politicians face is their respective domestic economies. But like Mr. Obama, the issue is one that Mr. Cameron needs to at least address before dismissing it because there are strongly polarized opinions on the issue.
I’d agree that Mr. Cameron’s reasoning is not deep or hugely philosophical; it is not intended to be. He had address the issue squarely but briefly, as part of his effort to induce his fellow Tories to retain confidence in him despite the UK’s economic despairs. But while it’s not deep logic or well-structured philosophy, it does have an intuitive resonance which I find appealing.
As for Mr. Murali, well, I flirted with the idea of a democracy of educated elites when I was his age, too. After all, since the elites are educated, they must know better than others how to use the franchise. After he gets some friends who navigate through life just fine without all them fancy degrees up on the wall, and observes educated friends insisting upon obvious folly, he’ll grow out of that. Unless, of course, he doesn’t.