Really Getting Real

The Archbishop of Canterbury has bidden fair to rival the convoluted hypocrisy of his predecessor with yet another tortuous disquisition on equal marriage. Welby is concerned because many young people find the Church's attitude towards homosexuality akin to "racism and other forms of gross and atrocious injustice", possibly including such historical Christian hobbies as religious persecution and slave-holding. While admitting that the Church has behaved rather badly towards homosexuals in the past, and issuing a bracing injunction to be "really, really repentant", Welby voted against the bill giving same-sex couples the right to be treated like other couples, on the grounds that this re-defined the nature of marriage. Presumably Welby is unacquainted with the Old Testament, in which the nature of marriage includes polygamy and concubinage, and which the Saviour endorsed down to the last jot and tittle. The archbishop also appealed to "the Christian tradition" (the Christian tradition being, as he admitted, to support and practise homophobia implicitly or explicitly as the Divine Will commanded); to scripture (enough said); and finally to "our understanding", thereby resorting to the argument from tradition, to the argument from authority and to special pleading, all in the same breath. For his next miracle, Welby proclaimed that, having fought against equal marriage with every unreformed constitutional resource at his disposal and having lost the battle with some ignominy, he did "not have the answer one way or the other ... I'm not going to get into the trenches." The Saviour - who, however repulsive he may have been in most respects, was never mealy-mouthed - must be really, really proud.