Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Poll: Half of religious people support gay marriage

As the House of Lords prepares to vote on gay marriage, a YouGov poll shows that the opinion of people who regard themselves as ‘religious’ is 48pc against and 44pc in favour of gay marriage. Given the margin of error, this can be seen as an even split. So why the acrimony?

The answer, in my opinion, is the way that David Cameron has gone about this. He ought to have said something like:

‘I’m in favour of religious freedom, and think it should be absolute. It’s come to our attention that some liberal strands of Judaism and Unitarian churches want to conduct same-sex marriage ceremonies but are banned from doing so by the government. The state ought to have no role in religious affairs, so I’m lifting the ban.’

He could have presented this (as Tony Blair did) as an almost technocratic reform.

Instead, the Tory leadership has decided to fight a US-style culture war, drawing a dividing line and putting themselves on one side of it and billing this as a battle of progress vs reaction. It was as if Cameron wanted to re-enact a battle fought and won by Tony Blair in 2004. This could be done because Blair did not want to pose as the Emily Pankhurst of gay rights, and bang on about how his Civil Partnerships Act was historic watershed moment. It certainly was, but Blair did not want to ham it up because – in this instance – he wanted to change things more than be seen to change them. With Cameron, it’s the reverse. Blair knew that for a certain generation of voters (brought up when homosexual activity was illegal) the pace of change in social attitudes was utterly bewildering. He didn’t see the point in rubbing his reform in anyone’s nose.

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