Editorial II - Not so much as a straw in the wind as more wind from Jack Straw …
It's "Back to Basics" II
NO MATTER how much Jack Straw may protest, those who are effectively deemed "non-people" by the governments green paper on family policy are clear that they are being labelled second best.
Lone parents, lesbians and gay men — and anyone who isn’t married, whether through choice or circumstance, fall foul of New Labour’s latest proclamation that "marriage is best".
The core of the document is as firmly based on Back to Basics ideology as anything put forward by Blair’s hypocritical, moralising predecessors in the Tory Party. The strongest support for the document so far seems to have come from the Archbishop of Canterbury — hardly an indication of progressive nature.
This overall trajectory was further underlined by the Home Secretary using the launch of the document to make clear his own opposition to the rights of lesbians and gay men to adopt or the right of lesbians to have access to IVF treatment
His "argument" for this was that "he didn’t want to see children being treated as trophies How dare he suggest that the motives of lesbians and gay men for wanting children are any different from anyone else’s.
His views gave the Liberal Democrats the perfect opportunity to point out that these proposals could easily discriminate against children not from "government approved relationship" —somewhat ironic really, given the package is justified in the first place as being driven by the interests of children.
While some of the detailed proposals are inoffensive individually, these are the ones that are unnecessary. Giving a legal form to baby-naming ceremonies in a non-religious context? What on earth for?
Will grandparents play a bigger role because Tony and Jack say they should? The changes in family structure that may have affected their involvement are more likely to be driven by hard factors such as geography and economics than government ideology.
But of course ideology does play a material role. In a month where the press reported that a young gay man killed himself because of homophobia and isolation, the government’s pronouncements will lead to further misery.
Reputable surveys have shown that marriage may be beneficial to men — from the point of view of health, happiness and income — but not to women.
The idea of the supremacy of marriage plays a part, along with material circumstances, in trapping many women in oppressive or even violent relationships, which are destructive not only for them but for any children involved.
Those that have argued that New Labour is a modern party on social questions have been confounded by how little progressive movement is contained in the green paper. This is a million miles away from the debates in the French parliament over civil unions which would register lesbian and gay relationships for example.
Yet unfortunately some in the lesbian and gay movement, some who call themselves feminists have given at least some credence to the governments direction.
We are in favour of people having the right to have whatever sexual and social relationships they choose, and to register that — if they choose.
We think that the decision on whether people should adopt or receive IVF should on their individual wishes and capacities to parent, not on some bigoted view of whether their sexuality and family circumstances comply with New Labour’s moral precepts.
And we think that this government could do far more to help the children who are supposed to be the main focus of this green paper if they took immediate action to lift millions of households out of poverty. They could do this with a decent minimum wage, increased benefits, and a programme of useful public works to create new jobs and plug gaps in our public services — not least the scandalous neglect of our children’s services and children’s homes.
It is no accident that the green paper — like John Major’s ill-fated efforts at "Back to Basics" was published in the midst of yet another alleged ministerial sex scandal. In real life ministers and MPs do not and will not, live the constrained, narrow lives required by the moral precepts their arrogant, priggish, moralising colleagues try to lay down. So why should they expect us to?