by Edward Leigh MP

A new campaign has been launched today to support the current law of marriage. The Coalition For Marriage has initiated a petition to try to persuade the Government to think again about its plans to introduce same-sex marriage.

Along with Commons colleagues such as Jim Dobbin and Joe Benton (Labour), David Burrowes and Fiona Bruce (Con), I am pleased to give my support to this petition.

Marriage has stood the test of time as the bedrock of a good society, and there is absolutely no need to redefine it. I am a staunch supporter of civil liberties for all people and constituents of every background can rely on me to help them in cases of genuine injustice. But the existence of civil partnerships today demolishes completely any claim that marriage must be redefined in the name of equality. Same-sex couples who enter into civil partnership have all the legal rights of marriage. Why should they also have the right to redefine the institution of marriage for everyone else? It is a separate legal framework which predates civil partnerships by centuries and we would do well to leave it alone.

This view is shared by people across the political, religious and philosophical spectrum. Michael White, Assistant Editor of the Guardian, has said that “Aside from all the theological, moral and cultural freight, there’s an important practical distinction which goes to the root of any society – namely that heterosexual marriage is there to produce and raise children in a more or less stable environment.” . I have spoken with homosexual people who do not support the call to redefine marriage, including people who are themselves in civil partnerships. Gay groups and their supporters within Government who want to redefine marriage cannot claim to be speaking on behalf of all gay people, let alone on behalf of the British population in general.

The change being sought would mean the law would no longer recognise marriage as it has been understood for centuries. The legal definition of all existing marriages would be altered. Many married people would think that was very unfair to them. If the change goes ahead, Britain’s oldest married couple, Robert and Susan Erskine, who married 75 years ago, will find their marriage converted into a unisex institution. The new law – retrospectively and without our permission – would deem my wife and I to have registered in 1984, not as husband and wife, but as “parties to a marriage” (so says the draft same-sex marriage Bill published by the leading gay rights group last week.)

The Government has bitten off more than it can chew by arrogating to itself the authority to re-write the marriage certificates of every married couple. Some of those couples will support this redefinition. They are entitled to that view. But most will not. If they, and other supporters of marriage, want to stop these plans, they must speak out now, before it is too late.

A good way to start is to add their names to the Coalition For Marriage petition at c4m.org.uk and to urge their family and friends to do the same.

by Edward Leigh MP

The recent ruling by the High Court asserting that it is unlawful for local councils to begin their sittings with prayers has added to the worries expressed by many Christians and other believes about the growing secularisation of our society. I welcome Communities and Local Government minister Eric Pickles’s statement that the new Localism Act will overturn this ruling and ensure local councils have the right to begin with prayers should they so decide.

As it happens, the council prayers case was brought to the High Court by the National Secular Society, an organisation which is given a level of media attention completely out of proportion to its size or relevance. In fact, it was pointed out recently that the NSS has about as many members of the British Sausage Appreciation Society.

Unlike the National Secular Society, which wages a continual campaign against the public presence of religion, the British Sausage Appreciation Society does not see any need to bring court cases against the nefarious influence of sausage’s rivals – the nefarious influence exerted by eggs, buttered toast, or fried kippers. Indeed, one suspects the aficionados of the British sausage have discovered something the secularists have missed out on: all these can survive together and even get along well with each other without one affecting any other to its detriment. The secularists would have us break our fast on a tasteless God-free gruel, but I will always prefer the Full English.

A number of recent events have given us further opportunity to reflect on the role religion in general and Christianity in particular play in our public life. At a Lambeth Palace gathering of leaders from nine different religions, the Queen highlighted the “critical guidance” religion offers our society.

“Faith plays a key role in the identity of many millions of people,” our sovereign noted, “providing not only a system of belief but also a sense of belonging.”

But the Queen also spoke out in defence of the role the Church of England plays in Britain today. I am not an Anglican myself but I wholeheartedly support the fact that we have an established church here in England. Attacks on the state religion are often launched under the false premise that enshrining the Church of England is somehow bigoted against Catholics, non-conformists, and members of other faiths.

In reality, these attacks against the Anglican church are attempts to further secularise our society. Non-Anglicans such as me must be very wary of attempts to manipulate us in favour of the secularist agenda when we prefer to see an English society infused with faith, even if guided by the imperfect institution that is the Church of England.

I welcome the Queen’s defence of the Church of England’s role in public life and I would echo her assertion that the established church “has helped to build a better society – more and more active co-operation for the common good with those of other faiths.”

This emphasis on the common good was also accentuated in Baroness Warsi’s address to Pope Benedict XVI this week while leading a Cabinet delegation in a visit to the Vatican. Baroness Warsi took the initiative by hitting out against the “anti-religionists” who are “attempting to remove all trace of religion from culture, history, and public discourse.”

“My theory is that we are so afraid… of going backwards in history to the bad days when religion was imposed on people by despotic regimes,” the chair of the Conservative party continued, “that we have got to the stage where aggressive secularism is being imposed by stealth.”

Warsi’s words and Pickles’s action show that, while not perfect, the Government is willing to engage with the world of faith in a way that has been all too lacking recently. Rather than shutting out those who disagree with us, we need to continue the great conversation between all men and women of good will. As Pope Benedict put it in his Westminster Hall speech during his UK visit: “the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief … need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilisation.”