David Torrance: ‘This is the SNP’s Section 28 moment, and it is proving just as unmanageable
THE discipline of the SNP since 2007 has been remarkable. As the party’s raison d’être apparently got closer, its MSPs became better behaved.
Even those suspected of being unreliable – left-wingers, fundamentalists and, indeed, social conservatives – kept quiet, fearful of giving journalists precisely what they wanted.
Recent electoral history demonstrates that the electorate does not like divided parties.
To a great extent, that situation is unchanged, although the ongoing row about same-sex marriage in Scotland has betrayed inevitable internal tensions. Papering over the cracks that exist in any party cannot last forever. And although Gordon Wilson is not considered by Alex Salmond or his party to be a credible critic, his views on this consultation are shared by at least a few sitting SNP MSPs.
It causes tangible problems for the First Minister, whose big tent (or indeed “big bothy”) approach to Scottish politics has been a successful fixture over the last 20 years.
The row also strains his argument that the party he leads is “socially democratic” or “centre left” – how many members of such movements in Scandinavia would attempt to argue that gay marriage undermined the very fabric of their respective societies?
Part of the problem is Alex Salmond’s own handling of such issues, avoiding pronouncements on social and moral issues because by their very nature they divide opinion.
When the row over Section 28 (or Section 2a in Scotland) broke more than a decade ago, the SNP leader refused to take a strong line; likewise today he has neither condemned remarks made by one of his own MSPs nor stood up to increasingly strident attacks from the Catholic Church in Scotland.
In order to demonstrate a liberal outlook, and indeed justify his socially democratic credentials, Salmond needs to do precisely that.
But then the First Minister is not inclined to blow apart carefully cultivated relationships, especially when they are politically useful; thus his response to the Bishop of Paisley’s tirade was not to condemn, but to invite him for coffee and, one assumes, supply the standard charm offensive.
Thus it falls to the Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie to defend same-sex marriage from a genuinely liberal standpoint, repeatedly urging the First Minister not to cave in to pressure from the Catholic Church.
This row is the SNP’s Section 28 moment, and it is proving just as unmanageable.
Salmond may come to wish he had followed his own prior form on such issues and left well alone.
• David Torrance’s updated biography of the First Minister, Salmond – Against the Odds, is published by Birlinn later this month.
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Comments
There are 89 comments to this article
Page 1 of 6
sprog
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 09:09 PMGordon Wilsons demand for a referendum on same sex marriages shoul go straight from the First Ministers in-tray to the waste-paper basket.
SeeEmmEss
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 03:50 PM#86 "It introduces a new right of same sex Religious marriage into the statute book" No, it doesn't. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're just misinformed, the alternative being that you're being deliberately misleading. As it is, no churches will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Next, I suppose you'll be trotting out all the old "slippery slope" nonsense - people marrying dogsand other such rubbish.The rest of your post is just so wrong, it's hardly credible that you could say it. Christians being persecuted. That's a laugh. The problem seems to be that the world has evolved to a point where Christians don't get to impose their own prejudices on the rest of us anymore - and that's what they see as persecution against them. Time they learned to live and let live.
SeeEmmEss
Sunday, October 16, 2011 at 03:43 PM#84 "God created marriage, so God defines what marriage is." No , and no. That's people who did that. People thousands of years ago and thousands of miles away. That you still think those ignorant goatherders of 2500 years ago ae still relevant says more about you than you would ever want to be said.
Richard Lionheart
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 05:50 PM#1 The Gay Rights Lobby are insisting that this legislation be past. It introduces a new right of same sex Religious marriage into the statute book, and a new tool in the armoury of Aggressive Gayism to bring Christians to court for breaking Human Rights Law. It could otherwise be put as Legalising hatred against faith! Or to be more specific, as it is very unlikely that anyone would ask for a same sex marriage in a mosque, it is to legalise hatred against the Christian Faith. It is designed to prevent Christians speaking openly about their faith and belief and living their faith. Once Marriage is redefined to allow same sex marriage, their will be no end to the number of times it will have to be redefined to allow other types of unions as EqualityHuman Rights laws kick in. If the SNP are insisting that they support this and they believe it is the will of the people, then there is no reason why they should not seek the view of the electorate at large by holding a referendum
mbrmark
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 12:27 PMGay marriage certainly has the bigots writhing in the pus of their own obsessive hatred. The sooner they get the therapy they need the better for all of us.
Broadsword
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 02:08 AMGod created marriage, so God defines what marriage is. the christian community took God's definition of marriage and incorporated that definition into statutory law, so the community can re-define marraige by changing the statury law, but society can not re-define God's definition of that sanctified institution, so even if marriage is defined to include same sex marriage, it is not marraige as God defined's marriage. The law is for the lawless
Douglas' comment
Saturday, October 15, 2011 at 01:10 AMMost religions encourage love and respect between individuals, and if two people, whether the same sex or not, wish to be married then the state should honour that commitment. Should a religion wish to not honour a marriage commitment between a same-sex couple it is the right of that religion, but not to prevent a secular state from honouring it. The couple, or at least one of the partners, may not even belong to a religion that does not honour same-sex marriage. Love, respect and dignity is the hallmark of a caring society, and Scotland should be a leader in endorsing same-sex marriage at civil level.
hicanon
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 02:21 PMSame sex marriages have been around for a long time. .Hebrides are well known in the western isles.
Neil of Edinburghershire
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 12:40 PMIt's only a danger if they do not build in the option of a gay divorce.
KINGFISHER1
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 10:57 AM78. DRAGON is well aware of this. 77. Enlightenment is what is appropriate.If thou shalt not kill is applied, there isa problem with the texts to which reference is made. I am of the view a certain teacher made the positon clear about 2000 years ago. He UPDATED and partly lifted a LOCK DOWN. 75. As for 77. This is a LOCK DOWN matter. How it is dealt with depends on whether LOCK DOWN is APPLIED again, or further lifted. In DRAGON view KORRECT is IN FAMILY, not the prison of marriage.
jerrygreg
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 09:33 AM#78 - Is that what it's about, or is it about love v hate? Your paranoid ramblings say a lot about you
Epigenes
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 07:48 AMFaceless-beaurocract at 73 says it all. This is pure Marxism. After realising they had lost the economic arguement by the 1920s Marxism was 'socialised'. By the 1950s Marxists began insisting on rights for minority groups and Political Correctness was born thanks to Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse in the US. In Marxism there are no differences in sexual orientation, even men and women are the same, they are just different 'sexual constructs'. Anybody who thinks this is about equality has been fooled. Homosexuals already have that. It is about destroying religion - even the Soviets failed there. Read all about it: - http:www.academia.orgthe-origins-of-political-correctness
forsyth.bill1
Friday, October 14, 2011 at 01:34 AMThere are six admonishments in the bible with regard to homosexuality which christians seem to know only too well and they are forever using them in their diatribes against gays,however there are three hundred and sixty two regarding heterosexuality including adultery punishable by death,masturbation likewise concubinage perfectly ok sex with girls also allowed beating of women killing of naughty children all biblical,iwonder how many of you fulminating at the idea of gay marriage are doing so whilst eating shellfish or wearing clothes of mixed fibres,or perhaps even a bacon roll all forbidden according to the bible.Its not that long ago that terrified women were hung or burned alive because of what the bible said and still does.If you want to believe in mumbo jumbo and fairy tales that is your right but please do not force it on those of us who dont and,if you dont approve of gay marriage dont no one is forcing you to .
jerrygreg
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 11:10 PMVeritas - can a dog say, "I do"? Rev Cotton - I'm an atheist. Am I allowed to marry? If I, or my hypothetical fiancé are incapable of producing offspring through infertility, should we be prevented from marrying because it can't be "construed as to be for the greater good of humanity."? Now lets have a look at Deuteronomy 21:18-21. If your son is stubborn and rebellious, a glutton and a drunkard, should the men of the city stone him until he's dead? Would you object to gay marriage in a registry office, or in a church of a different (but willing) denomination from your own?
Rev Mervyn Cotton
Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 09:29 PMScotland has a great Christian heritage, therefore it is not inappropriate to look at proposed homosexual marriage from a Christian perspective. Homosexuality is sinful according to (1Cor6:9-11); it is unnatural according to (Rom1:26-27); it is dishonourable according to (Rom1:24) Therefore homosexuality, from a Christian perspective is immoral. It would follow on then that homosexual marriage is not only immoral but unethical; unethical, because it could never be construed as to be for the greater good of humanity. Ethically, human action is measured as to motive, standard and purpose to determine as to whether it contributes to the greater good or not. Once more, from a Christian position, it is inappropriate for the Sacred Institution of marriage under God to be besmirched by an immoral and unethical appendage.
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