Activists seeking to rewrite the definition of marriage must stop trying to vilify those who oppose them, a gay writer has warned.
“If they don’t snap out of it they’ll even lose the support of gay people like me,” said Max Wind-Cowie.
He is Head of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos and he accused the “gay-rights brigade” of allowing their quest to redefine marriage to turn “into active hetero-phobia”.
Repression
And he branded the vilification of those who oppose the redefinition of marriage as “intolerant” and “ugly”.
He also criticised the advertising standards watchdog’s investigation of a Christian blogger who displayed a pro-marriage advert on his website.
Mr Wind-Cowie, who was writing in the Huffington Post, also warned that far from allowing a plurality of views ‘diversity’ has now come to represent “homogeneity” and “repression.”
Mr Wind-Cowie, who himself supports gay marriage, continued: “Hiding behind it, secularists and the ayatollahs of social liberalism are able to strip public discourse of the bits they don’t like – faith, orthodoxy, skepticism about change.
Weapon
“They have been able to use the frame of diversity as a weapon against its very purpose; to shut out and shut up those with whom they disagree.”
He concluded: “Let’s leave the hetero-phobia at the door and get on with the business of political and moral debate.
“For goodness sake gays, stop whinging about people who disagree with you – argue with them.”
Children
Last month a gay commentator writing for the Irish Times said that the campaign to redefine marriage is being pushed by an “increasingly cavalier and triumphalist liberalism”.
Richard Waghorne, a freelance journalist, warned that switching the focus of marriage from children to adults would disadvantage “future generations”.
He objected to the way it is assumed that all gay people are in favour of gay marriage, and said that gay people have a variety of views.