The gay marriage debate really does piss me off. Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn’t give a damn: I know enough sociology to realise that, in many ways, marriage is an outdated institution often trapping people – usually women – into violent and abusive relationships. Yet surely if we are going to keep marriage s an institution, it must modernise to stay relevant to the twenty-first century: it must broaden it’s scope or else we may as well do away with it altogether.

I therefore get angry when those on the (far) right demand we keep it as the pairing of a man and a woman. They say they are defending marriage; they speak of the necessity to respect cultural tradition. Given that if they had their way a symbolic devision between straight and gay coupling will be maintained, their views reduce down to a type of homophobia, but when this is put to them they deny it completely. they even have the gall to claim they are the ones being discriminated against as their religious views aren’t being respected. What bull! They are effectively saying that if you believe in x you have a right to discriminate, and that it is unfair for atheists to impose their secular views on them. Although it doesn’t directly effect me and Lyn, such poppycock infuriates me as it opens the door to all kinds of abuse and intolerance defended by cynical two faced cries of discrimination against ‘traditional values’ – using such logic, all kinds of barbarity can be defended.