Joyce McMillan: Prejudice that stops us standing proud

A THING of the past, over and done with, consigned to the dustbin of history; that’s how it should be when it comes to discrimination against people on the grounds of their sexuality. It’s more than a generation since the Westminster parliament legalised homosexual acts between consenting adults, more than seven years since civil partnerships between same-sex couples were introduced in the UK; and today, across British society, gay people visibly inhabit the same civic landscape as the rest of us, and enjoy the exactly the same rights and duties.

So why is it that this week – in the autumn of 2011 – our news bulletins have been dominated by two stories which, in different ways, still reflect a kind of low-level hysteria about the whole idea of homosexuality, and an inability to move on from that old world in which the whole subject was regarded as a dirty secret? The first story, of course, is the one about the relationship between the Secretary of State for Defence, Liam Fox, and his close friend Adam Werrity, pursued all week by the Westminster press pack amid a haze of largely unspoken innuendo about exactly why this friend was present on no fewer than 18 of the Defence Secretary’s overseas trips in the last year.

As I write, the story is in fact looking less and less like a clandestine romance, and more and more like a serious political scandal, possibly involving direct intervention in government business by a privately-funded lobbyist for right-wing political interests; and it goes without saying that this political story matters, whereas the detail of Dr Fox’s private life is entirely his own concern.

That simple statement of priorities, though, is still not enough for those who deal in the day-to-day stuff of Westminster political gossip; and the reason for that persisting speculation is that there are still enough politicians around Westminster who lie about their sexuality, or fear exposure of it, to make the subject a matter of disproportionate excitement and interest – witness last year’s sad story of David Laws, the bright young coalition minister who was forced to resign over a foolish expenses scam, partly devised by him in order to conceal the fact that his London “landlord” was really his lover.

If the public school-inflected culture of Westminster is still confused in its attitude to homosexuality, though, its gossipy excitements are as nothing compared to this week’s hysterical row at Holyrood over the SNP government’s modest proposal to allow gay marriage, and to permit those religious organisations which want to solemnise same-sex partnerships to do so. As the Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pointed out, when she launched the consultation on this proposal last month, more than 60 per cent of Scots seem to be in favour of the idea, with barely 20 per cent against.

In Scottish and UK politics, though, there is always the real modern Scotland on one hand, and then there are the various “Scotlands of the mind” imagined by groups who have pinned their hopes – or, conversely, their worst fears – on some private vision of what an independent Scotland might be. Gordon Wilson, the former SNP leader, now chair of a Christian group in Dundee, apparently believes that a right of marriage for gay couples would “destroy Scottish society”. Another veteran SNP spokesman argued that the idea was just an example of “political correctness”, as if human equality were a mere passing fad, rather than the driving force of progressive politics throughout history; and embarrassingly enlarged on his belief that the whole point of Scottish independence was to restore traditional Catholic and Presbyterian values, thereby protecting Scotland from the horrors of modernity.

And as for the Catholic Church in Scotland – well, if all those of a Catholic background in this country really shared the reactionary views embraced by the current hierarchy, then the government might have cause for concern; but since the bishops and their spokesman seem as far out of touch with majority Catholic opinion as they are with the rest of Scottish life, there is no need – beyond the confines of popular journalism – to overstate the significance of their views.

For all that, it would be wrong for the First Minister, or the rest of the SNP leadership, to dismiss the current firestorm of protest on the religious Right as a squall that can be allowed to blow over.

The current wave of religious protest certainly comes from the margins of Scottish society, and does not speak for the majority. It does, though, mesh perfectly with the prejudices of those at Westminster who like to portray Scotland as a dark, benighted and backward place compared with the enlightened South, a country still sunk in God-bothering sectarianism, and therefore unfit to make its own decisions on social issues such as abortion, reserved to Westminster in the Scotland Act of 1998.

And if that false, destructive and disempowering image of Scotland is to be challenged and overcome, then we need leaders who will speak out clearly, every day, for a Scotland which is about the future, rather than the past; about a new enlightenment, rather than the darkness of superstition and prejudice; and about new thinking for a new century, rather than any return to a past which only fools would idealise.

Alex Salmond has in the past fought shy of making categorical pronouncement on social and moral issues, for fear of alienating powerful groups whose support he feels he needs. Now, though, this dispute has become an argument about the whole character, and perhaps even the soul, of the new Scotland for which he has been campaigning all his political life.

As a politician, Alex Salmond must know that hardly anyone under 50 – or over that age – really wants to live in a bigoted backwater where gay people are treated as inferior.

And as a statesman, he should recognise that this is a moment to speak out, without doubt or ambiguity; for the vision of a future Scotland founded not on nostalgia and prejudice, but on the rock of human equality and freedom, and on the great enlightenment ideals of integrity, justice, wisdom and compassion, whose names are engraved on our parliamentary mace.