Not a good few days for our PM. First he displayed filial devotion to ‘Barack’ by letting the President put him to bed. That’s what parents do for their children — didn’t Larkin write ‘They tuck you up, your Mum and Dad’ (or words to that effect)? So the hierachical relationship between the British Prime Minister and American President has been clarified (as if it needed clarification): the US is the father, Britain is the son, sometimes slightly naughty but mostly loyal and obedient.
Those of us who still have any taste left had a distinctly emetic reaction to the Barack-Dave love-in. In any case, without going into the nitty-gritty of the ‘special relationship’, one can observe that it’s rather one-sided. I don’t recall any instance in the last, say, 20 years when Britain’s stand made the US change its policy one way or the other, while examples of developments with the opposite vector are too numerous to mention.
Now it has been made clear why: a father (‘Barrack’) has the right to tell the son (‘Dave’) what to do, but not vice versa. One just wishes that the two chaps didn’t rub it in in such a perfectly nauseating manner. You both went to decent schools, gentlemen, didn’t you pick up some modicum of aesthetic sense? Good job we were at least spared a reenaction of Bush screaming ‘Yo, Blair!’ at Dave’s role model.
And that’s not all. First Dave makes a ludicrous spectacle of himself across the pond, then on his return the same thing is done to him by the European Courts of Human Rights. The day that abortion of an outfit comes across as more conservative than the British ‘Conservative’ Prime Minister is when there ought to be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. So take out your handkerchief: the eurojudges have ruled, correctly, that same-sex marriage is not a human right.
So Dave doesn’t have a natural right to marry George in ways other than those figurative ones in which they are already married. In a way I’m sorry: it would be a sight for sore eyes to have Obama escort either of them down the aisle to the sound of ‘Here comes the bride’. But the federasts made a telling point: allowing civil homomarriage would instantly invalidate any pledge to keep that abomination out of the church. Any church refusing to sanctify such a union would be instantly sued for discrimination, and lose.
Moreover, the law of unintended consequences would predictably add all sorts of nice touches to the outrage: when you undermine an institution going back 2,000 years, there’s no telling what would happen next. Would it not, for instance, be discriminatory to ban marriage between a man and his Labrador retriever — as Florida’s Supreme Court did last year? I know it sounds ridiculous, but all sorts of ridiculous things become possible when tradition is smashed to bits. Whether Dave does the smashing in spite of being a conservative or because of it, is immaterial.
Times, they are a-changing, as Barrack’s favourite singer would have it. Alas, with this kind of government at the helm, they can be guaranteed to change only for the worse.