UKIP: the repository for the ideological toxic waste of British history.

UKIP's behaviour regarding the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act speaks volumes for its regressive and opportunistic values.

The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) opposed the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act. Its central argument seemed to be that if equal marriage were legalised in the UK, then the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) would impose it on reluctant religious institutions.

During the equal marriage campaign, many religious adherents expressed support for UKIP on these grounds. The policy certainly attracted the votes of social conservatives, many of whom expressed belief in UKIP's ECHR warning, while others, in some state of confusion, stubbornly declared their conviction that the Act itself was intending to force places of religious worship to conduct weddings. 

UKIP was very serious about its opposition to equal marriage, and sacked its libertarian youth leader, Olly Neville, after he gave an interview expressing support for the policy of same-sex matrimony. 

Now that the Act has been passed into law, things seem to have gone very quiet on the objection front. Including from UKIP.

The arguments invoking the ECHR bogeyman might have seemed impressive to some at the time, and they were certainly repeated often enough. But they were very flawed arguments. Crying "wolf" is a very effective way of getting people's feelings stirred up and mustering allies. But if no wolf actually turns up, the rabble-rousers will suffer the longer-term harm of seriously damaged credibility.

There was no possibility of the ECHR imposing same-sex marriage on religious institutions in the UK or anywhere else. The evidence to counter the credibility of claims of an impending ECHR imposition was absolutely overwhelming. No-one making this claim made similar claims about the ECHR intervening in British law to force religious institutions to comply with equality measures that relate to groups other than gay and lesbian people.

If the ECHR had any intentions of imposing equal marriage on reluctant religious institutions in the UK, then it would already have intervened on behalf of other groups protected by equality legislation.

There has been no attempt by the ECHR to impose women priests on the Catholic Church anywhere in Europe. I have not heard a single campaigner against equal marriage who warned of the ECHR imposing same-sex marriage on churches, mention that he has any similar concerns about the ECHR imposing women priests on the Catholic Church.
The claim that the ECHR will impose same-sex marriage on English or Welsh religious institutions is no more credible than any claim it will impose women priests on the English or Welsh Catholic Church.

Neither has the ECHR imposed women bishops on the Anglican Church. Or forced the Catholic Church to marry divorcés. Or forced any church or other religious institution to host civil partnership ceremonies. And neither have I ever heard a single opponent of same-sex marriage say they fear that the ECHR would do so.

The fact that the ECHR has never behaved in this way, and that the opponents of equal marriage never announce that they expect them to do so, together with the fact that same-sex marriage has existed in the Netherlands for about twelve years without the ECHR imposing it on its churches, are very clear indications of the legal safeguards that protect the religious institutions of EU member states.

So now I come back to the deafening silence from UKIP. If they were genuinely concerned that outraged churches, mosques, synagogues and temples would have same-sex marriage imposed on them by the ECHR, where has that concern gone? Why are they not now exploiting the situation as an opportunity to point to an impending human rights atrocity soon to make its way towards us over the Channel? And if religions are sitting on a cliff edge now, just waiting for this intervention to happen, shouldn't UKIP be pledging to campaign for the repeal of the Act, at least until they bring about their planned withdrawal of the UK from the ECHR?

If UKIP started to campaign for the repeal of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, which would involve the annulment of same-sex marriages, the impression of bigotry and heartlessness they created would chime with some of the worst of their negative publicity. If UKIP continued to warn that the ECHR was going to impose same-sex marriages on churches, mosques, synagogues and temples on pain of prosecution, their credibility when this didn't happen would be badly damaged.

UKIP's silence on this issue speaks volumes with regard to their true motives in opposing same-sex marriage. When votes are up for grabs, UKIP's libertarian and pro-gay equality supporters can go to hell, as far as their opportunistic leadership is concerned. 

Homophobia is fast becoming as unacceptable as racism in mainstream UK society. British society is continuing to evolve in a way that casts off fetters that have made us a less cohesive, enlightened and productive society. The question is whether the behaviour of elected UKIP candidates, and key UKIP policies such as opposition to same-sex marriage, actually reveal more concerning what UKIP is really about than the facade of the laissez-faire, chummy, chortling, man-of-the-people UKIP officers photographed and filmed with a beer in one hand and maybe a cigarette in the other.

In a decade, UKIP won't be able to use the ECHR as an excuse to oppose equal marriage any more, more countries will have legalised same-sex marriage, and there will be many more younger voters in the UK who oppose homophobic discrimination. In its current form, UKIP will become increasingly out-of-touch with the electorate, and with the modern world. And any party that treats its libertarian, progressive and LGBT supporters with the contempt and dishonesty UKIP has displayed recently, thoroughly deserves the demise that awaits it as history sweeps away the ideological toxic waste that divides and deludes otherwise good people. 

© Gary Powell, 2013