Wednesday 5 June 2013

Delightful people, very artistic...

Speaking of bizarre creatures from a bygone age, here's Joan Christabel "Jill" Knight, (Baroness Knight of Collingtree) presenting case against marriage equality in the recent House of Lords debate:
We’ve been told by many speakers in this debate that the bill is all about equality. People must be treated equally, and Parliament must ensure it. The first statement is reasonable, the second is not. Certainly, we are all equal before the law.

But a far higher authority than even anyone here has already decided that people are not equal. Some are stronger, cleverer, lazier, plainer, better looking, than others. Some people can see - others are blind. If anyone brings a bill to this house to change that, I’ll be the first in the lobby to vote for it. No bill can change that.

This bill ignores a fact well understood for centuries. Marriage is not just about love. Of course homosexuals are delightful people, very artistic, and they are very loving people too. No one doubts that for one single moment, but marriage is not about just love. It is about a man and a woman, themselves created to produce children, producing children.

A man can no more bear a child, than a woman can produce sperm, and no law on earth can change that. This is not a homophobic view. It may be sad, it may be unequal, but it’s true. 
via 

This little gem's already been widely shared, but it bears reproducing, as an illustration of how views common in one generation sound like a quaintly comical form of barking insanity a few years later.

Jill, now Baroness, Knight introduced the infamous Clause 28 which became Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988.

And if the fact that this nonsense is validated by 'a far higher authority than even anyone here' isn't an excellent reason for keeping religion out of politics, than I'm the Archangel Gabriel...

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