On Wednesday night I reluctantly switched my marginal preference of support from Michael Gove to Andrea Leadsom.
His team were arguing that arch-Remaniac Theresa May would be preferred to Andrea Leadsom, which made me believe he was not truly committed to Brexit.
And why? Because Andrea Leadsom, my friend and erstwhile neighbour in Northamptonshire, was allegedly some kind of fire-breathing hard-right lunatic.
I spluttered in disbelief over that smear. Anybody who knows Andrea knows she is moderate, pragmatic, sensible, and for social justice.
Theresa May’s campaign seems determined to smear Andrea as hard-right. She is not.
The most dishonest smear against her is that she opposes equal marriage. This is a lie.
Leadsom gave an interview in which she quite clearly said in so many words “I absolutely support gay marriage”.
She was explaining why she registered a positive abstention, voting both for and against gay marriage in 2013 (the traditional way to positively abstain, rather than not voting).
Leadsom said in the interview that what she objected to in the legislation was a widely shared worry at the time – that the way it was worded would force Church of England churches to conduct same-sex marriages against the conscience of Christians.
Leadsom wanted the equal marriage law simply to provide for equal marriage in registry offices, where civil marriages are celebrated. A quirk in English law might have forced vicars to act against their faith.
She also wanted civil partnerships to be made available to straight couples.
Clearly and straightforwardly, Leadsom said ‘I am absolutely in favour of gay marriage’.
Yet this was spun as being against gay marriage.
The Remainstream Media spun Leadsom saying she didn’t like that version of the law, as it made Christians uncomfortable with a religious form of gay marriage being forced on them inside their churches, as Leadsom saying she objected to gay marriage for the sake of Christians.
Here’s Huffington Post, for example:
She said there had been “very clear hurt caused to many Christians who felt marriage in the Church can only be between a man and a woman”
But that is, of course, a reference to Andrea’s understandable objection that the letter of the law threatened religious liberty by mandating gay ceremonies in church buildings.
Leadsom said utterly clearly that she supported equal marriage as a civil ceremony inside a registry office and would have voted for that.
…Registry offices marriages are still marriages. The concern I had was the potential compulsion for the Church of England… This is not about do I consider gay couples to be any less worthy of marriage than heterosexual couples – not at all, it’s exactly the same….. I absolutely support gay marriage.“
Drawing a distinction between Christian marriage and civil, legal marriage is not homophobic. Andrea Leadsom supports the right of gay couples to marry civilly like anybody else. Theresa May and the Remain campaign should fight Leadsom on her actual views, not on made-up nonsense they are spinning came from her.
UPDATE: Thank you to one of our tweeps, a gay man, who found Leadsom’s full statement on equal marriage in 2013. It completely bears out this article’s arguments. As he said “As a gay man, I don’t find this unreasonable”.
