The "M" Word

In the modern day, marriage has become a hotly debated topic.  In the United Kingdom, we are currently in the throes of the issue of whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry: that is, join themselves together in matrimony in the same way that heterosexual people can.

Hold on... don't we already allow that?  Eight years ago, the Blair Government passed a law called the Civil Partnership Act 2004, which outlines the legal right of homosexual couples to get married in a civil ceremony.  This type of joining is called a civil partnership, and to all extents and purposes is marriage, just without it being called explicitly that.  Certainly, there are some differences, but most of these are cosmetic and have no real impact on the legal composition.

The United Kingdom is 1 of 20 countries that allows same sex "coupling" under the heading "civil partnership" nationally, and 1 of 31 that allows same sex coupling in general nationally (whether called marriage or partnership).  Now, however, a new bill is currently doing the rounds in Parliament to allow same sex couples to be conjoined under the title, "marriage".  Great, lovely.  The question I want to ask starts to become apparent: considering all the hullabaloo, what exactly is the difference?

A core part of the new bill is the fact that once passed, it will give gay couples the right to marry in religious institutions, where the institution does not object on spiritual grounds to the act.  At least, that was the original, layman's wording of the bill.  Now, however, it has changed to allowing the Church of England and any other organised religion based in the UK to place a blanket ban on gay marriage in their holy places.

For some reason, this is causing quite a to-do in the gay community, and so although I may get hounded for saying this, I'm a little confused as to why this is the case.  If you'll give me the opportunity to explain, I will.

As it stands, the bill will allow gay people to register as "married" in a civil ceremony, that is, a secular event held in a registry office or non-religious affiliated building or open area or such like, for the purposes of allowing them to describe their union as "married" rather than "partnered".  This all seems great, but the provision that religious institutions can opt out exposes, in the gay community's eyes, a prejudice that belies those institutions.  Well... of course it does.  The Church of England recently prevented a policy change in their organisation allowing women to become priests, something that people have also decried as "absurd" and "archaic".

However, we must remember - and this is important - that organised religion is based on eternal doctrine, not the changing cultural attitudes of our time.  That is the point.  And the Bible is quite explicit in its patriarchal attitude, taking every opportunity to demean the female gender, from the very first chapters of Genesis to the painting of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute, even though there is some evidence to suggest the contrary.  I don't want to get into a drawn out religious debate about the issues regarding the Bible (such as the fact that most of the gospels were written years after Jesus' death; were heavily edited or omitted when the thing was actually compiled in various draft forms much later; and then translated and edited again at the Council of Nicaea), but when you pick up the Bible and you choose to adopt it as a spiritual guide, then you must take every word for that of the Abrahamic god.

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind; it is abomination."  Leviticus 18:22.  "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one towards another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet."  Romans 1:27.  "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?  Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,..." 1 Corinthians 6:9.  These are all Bible passages that, in my opinion, leave little room for alternative interpretation regarding God's view (or at least his followers' views) of homosexuality.  There are others, but they can be interpreted in other ways I believe.  Nevertheless, my point is this: only a gay Christian would directly condemn this new bill as a result of the impact it would have at a personal level, but, a gay Christian must have some serious problems if they commit an act that is knowingly antithetical to the God they believe in.  This, of course, exposes the true problem with organised religion and the detrimental effect it can have on individual spirituality, but again, probably a topic for another time.

Eternal doctrine is just that, and it should be because of this that we should seek not to force change in God's word through cultural attitudes, but do away with it altogether.

When you consider these things, any further objection to the bill reveals the true issue: it's not about homosexuals having the same rights as heterosexuals, nor is it about the secular nature of our society.  It's about the vocabulary.  A civil partnership and marriage are considered exactly the same thing, with the only difference being the name; and both sides in this debate are guilty of not getting their story straight.  On one side, you have the societies and communities arguing to get something they already have, and on the other you have institutions that are under the assumption marriage can only take place in the eyes of God.  So why have we been having heterosexual civil marriages in this country for almost two centuries?  And, up until 1753, people could get married without requiring it to presided over by a cleric.

The question is about who owns the term "marriage" - and clearly, based on precedence, religion does not have a sole stake on it.

Now I'm going to make a counterpoint, to defend the religious institutions fighting the introduction of allowing same sex marriage into their buildings.  I've already mentioned eternal doctrine, so I'll continue.  It's called having a secular society.  In this country, whilst we are not secular by ownership - our head of state is positioned by hereditary descent based on divine right, and is also the head of a religious organisation - we are so by operation and by culture.  Politically and socially, we fight vehemently for the public separation of church and state.  However, in doing so, we cannot build bridges between them whenever we so wish, and whenever we see something in scripture we do not like: if we don't like it, we convert, and either become secular ourselves or become an alternative denomination.

Separation between faith and law works both ways.

If you are a Christian who is also gay (and you've found a way around those pesky verses in Leviticus, Samuel, Romans, Corinthians etc.) and you want to get married in a religious setting, then find a priest that feels the same way you do about what the Bible says on homosexuality and have him perform the ceremony.  It is no good forcing a priest to marry you: the whole idea of getting married in a church is for the added bonus of getting joined under the eyes of God, but what good is that if the priest marrying you does not believe in the sanctity of such a union?  It becomes null, and you may as well have got married in a registry office.

If we decide eventually that "marriage" is a religious word, then that's how it should stand, and apply across the board of sexual orientation.  If, one day, I decide to make a demonstrable commitment to a woman, then I will do so in a secular setting under the auspices of the law.  And if gay people in such circumstances are forced to refer to it as a civil partnership, then I will happily apply the same term to my own situation.

Socionationalised Healthcare

I'm back!  But let's not linger on that for too long, let's dive straight in.

I’m getting a little tired of the term “socialised healthcare”.

I pay some attention to American media – at least, more than the average Brit – and as I’m sure most will know, they’re having a bit of a to-do over the so-coined “Obamacare”.  As you can probably tell, I’m understating just a tad today.  Considering when I say “little tired” I mean “frustrated” and when I say “just a tad” I mean “downplaying like Tim Henman on a bad day”.

What I want to know is: why are they having this debate?  The US Government already provides its citizens with basic healthcare insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, each serving particular demographics (those in poverty and the elderly), but no program currently exists where citizenship is the only eligibility test.  Currently, and with few exceptions, most of Europe provides its citizens with some form of universal healthcare; that is, paid for through taxation.  Even Mongolia has a (admittedly fragile) health service.

Living in the United Kingdom for so long and taking advantage of that wondrous part of our social system led me to be quite amazed later in life that some countries, even in the Western world, did not have a similar setup.  Even playing Grand Theft Auto, I just assumed the deduction of about $100 every time I accidentally blew myself up because I was spending too much time worrying about not hitting the cars coming the other way and not enough on the angry mob boss chasing me with a machine gun was a game mechanic to prevent players from seeing it as a free-of-charge safety net.  Now I know that if a real American gets into a similar situation, not only will they have to pay to get stitched back together again, but likely a whole hell of a load more than one hundred Jeffersons.

Of course, health insurance does exist, but I’m not a fan of the ethics of insurance as it is let alone paying a private company a few quid every month so that I don’t have to worry if my arm falls off.  Sure, I’ll worry, but only for the few seconds up to the point that I remember, ‘No, wait… definitely paid my premiums this month.  Now you can call the ambulance.’

My point is this: healthcare provided by the government should not be referred to as “socialised”.  Whatever the true etymology of the word in this context, it implies that it is inherently socialist in nature, and brands itself as part of some Marxist notion of governance.  We don’t refer to our other emergency services as “socialised policing” or “socialised fire and rescue”, so why healthcare?  What is it about medicine that sets it apart politically from the other tax-fuelled forms of public health and safety?  Any Brit reading this might think, “well, we do.  Numpty,” but this is more a message to Americans.

There may be a good, rational, sensible reason why this distinction is made, but I’ve yet to hear it.  Mind you, I’m also yet to hear any decent explanation for the inclusion of medical care in the budget, yet I’ve assumed that’s the case because the rationale seems so blindingly apparent.  The concept of government is not to take your money: there’s a reason it exists.  It’s a beacon of what civilisation ultimately defines itself upon, and until humanity evolves mentally to the point where we are capable of communicating en masse and ad hoc to make informed, universal decisions we have to rely on government as a means for this communion of leadership.  And, along with the definition of government, no matter how anarchic or libertarian you are, this includes certain responsibilities and duties.  The safety and security of its populace is a major one, and they sometimes take this to hyperbolic extents, especially in Europe where we have felt the effects of socialism more pertinently following the end of the Cold War.  Take defence, for example.  We call it “defence”, but it’s really an “offence”, based on the huge amounts of money that we pile into making sure we can hit any location on the planet from any other point on the planet with a first strike weapon that harnesses the power of the atom.  Even the notion of something as simple as the aircraft carrier carries connotations of an attacking capability.  Which makes the British acquisition of a supercarrier somewhat counterintuitive: why in the name of the Gods do we need a ship capable of carrying half the Fleet Air Arm, when we have plenty of perfectly good land-based airfields from which to deploy them?  The only reason an aircraft carrier exists is to provide a mobile platform for amphibious, international warfare.  It is a relic of the Second World War that persisted because of the possibility of a third.

Sorry, I think I intruded on a different topic (and blog) there.

Nationalised healthcare makes as much sense as a nationalised police force, or a nationalised fire and rescue service.  The USA had a police force to some effect (no matter how ineffective or corrupt, or both) over two hundred years ago when libertarianism was a driving philosophy of the Old West.  I find it odd that in the modern day, a poor American might get burgled and the police will investigate for free (relatively speaking), but if they get stabbed they have to pay for damage incurred, or seek financial assistance from elsewhere.  I know there are plenty of charities about that help with that sort of thing, but I take the philosophy that charities are the cogs that support a mechanism until the manufacturer makes a new cog.  By that I mean we should constantly seek to make charities redundant: cure cancer (Macmillan and others); provide better care for war veterans (British Legion); and even assist Third World populations in developing infrastructure, which would hopefully eventually make them largely self-supported within a greater trading and interactive community (a whole bunch).

To wish for all those things is perhaps naively optimistic, but I only say it to illustrate a point to all the conservatives saying, “there’s the emergency room” or “plenty of charities can help them”.  It’s ridiculous rhetoric of course because charities rely on donations and they are not consistent – they can only help up to the point that they have money coming in from the generous.  But as a society, we should be being generous anyway, by making it a part of our tax and revenue.

We provide the preventative measure for criminal activity: the police force.  In cases where the preventative measure fails, we have the reactive: the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).  We also provide the preventative measure for natural occurrences that can cause material damage, and also as an extrapolation cause physical damage to the human: the fire and rescue service.  Where they fail, the same service seeks to react.

Here in the United Kingdom we also provide perhaps the most important of measures for public health and safety.  The National Health Service.  It provides inoculations and viral treatments and prescriptions to prevent illness, and where those fail or are irrelevant, we have the same service to react to broken bones or disease.  The whole thing seems perfectly logical.

So, right-wing America, you don’t want nationalised healthcare?  Far be it from me, a lowly Brit, to question your obscure liberty-but-only-where-us-holding-the-picket-sign-thinks-it-should-be political philosophy, but if you really plan on seceding from the United States of America, do you think it is therefore ethically consistent to maintain a tax-funded police force and fire service?

For the Brits amongst us, I want to use this same blog as a means to demonstrate the reason why we should not be even contemplating privatising the NHS, even to minor degrees.  The problem is not that healthcare costs too much - although an argument could be made that the pharmaceutical companies make it so - it is that the NHS is a bureaucratic mess.  Although I try not to make it a habit of criticising Blair's government too much, they were big fans of introducing bureaucracy in the organisations it exercised control over.  The NHS has suffered as a result of this.  Its management is flawed, and I was making this argument before various investigations began to reveal corruption in the regional trusts.  I am reminded, as I write this, of a fantastic A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CkltzGAxY

Good day.