SAME-SEX MARRIAGE BILL WOULD CRUISE THROUGH COMMONS

If a bill to legalise same-sex marriage were announced in the 2013 Queen's Speech, it would cruise through the House of Commons with a comfortable majority.

An alliance of Cameronite Conservatives, Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats would see the bill home with, Cranmer’s Curate estimates, at least 500 out of 650 MPs in favour.

The main opposition would come from the Cornerstone group of around 40 Conservative MPs. Cornerstone, which includes some real characters in the best tradition of independent-minded British Conservativism such as Edward Leigh, Adam Holloway, Nadine Dorries and Philip Davies, declares that it stands for:

the Monarchy; traditional marriage; family and community duties; proper pride in our nation’s distinctive qualities; quality of life over soulless utility; social responsibility over personal selfishness; social justice as civic duty, not state dependency; compassion for those in need; reducing government waste; lower taxation and deregulation; our ancient liberties against politically correct censorship and a commitment to our democratically elected parliament.

So its MPs can be relied on to stage a valiant action against this abomination.

But numerically they cannot succeed. Your curate estimates an additional 40 Conservative MPs out of the parliamentary party of 305 would join them on a free vote. On a whipped vote, cc believes they would be lucky to get half that. The remaining opposition would come from the Democratic Unionists (8 MPs) and some Roman Catholic Labour members.

The permissive society has done its work well on the minds of the new generation of Conservative MPs.

With such a large majority in favour in the House of Commons, it would be vain to hope that the bill would be thrown out by the Lords.

One would sincerely hope that Her Majesty the Queen as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and herself a regular Communicant would in conscience refuse to give the bill the Royal Assent. But that would be very unlikely.

The next horror would be that the Sexual Orientation Regulations would be extended to cover marriage ceremonies in churches. That would mean churches being sued for refusing to take same-sex marriages. They would be seen as sinning not just against the politically-correct deity of equality, but also against the ethos of 'commitment' the Big Society requires.

Under such circumstances, churches that stopped officially registering marriages and offered ceremonies for their members after a civil marriage would still find themselves under pressure from the State.

So, may the living Christ give us courage, resolution, and the willingness to suffer loss in the cause of his Kingdom and righteousness in the difficult days ahead.