They've had civil partnerships for same-sex couples since 2005 and now David Cameron—the UK's conservative prime minister—has announced that his/her majesty's government will equalize marriage laws before the next general election. Says Sullivan...
When Virtually Normal came out in 1995, I didn't dare hope that this day would come—or that it would come from the Conservative party in Britain, which now has more openly gay members of parliament than the more liberal opposition. And it is, of course, a conservative position: promoting family, responsibility, and civil equality in response to an emerging social reality—large numbers of openly gay citizens. In this sense, the GOP is not in any way "conservative." It is better understood as a religious movement with radically reactionary political objectives, like undoing much of the New Deal. One day, it may recover, and candidacies like Jon Huntsman's show the way forward. But not yet. And perhaps not for a very long time. When a party becomes a religion, and when policies become doctrines, change is very hard.
I was living in London in 1988—waiting tables, seeing plays, stealing silverware—when a previous conservative prime minister and her party rammed Section 28 through Parliament. If someone had told me then that the conservative-prime-minister-after-next would oversee the legalization of same-sex marriage, I wouldn't have believed it. So, hey, it looks like he meant it.
I am an Anglophile. Maybe it is time to move.Pace!
B
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