In response to yesterdays’ post, several of you commented on the contrast between the two marches in Washington in the last week or so. It was hard not to be struck by the anomaly of the fact that the first march sloganeered that ‘Love Trumps hate’, whilst exhibiting far more hate than love; indeed some of the messages from that march seem profoundly contradictory: women (rightly) complaining about being objectified whilst dressing as a vagina; protestations of love whilst the evidence was that what was meant was lust – a confusion so common in our society as to almost pass without notice; and an emphasis on what humanity had in common whilst banning those who believed that life begins at conception. It was, in short, the perfect paradigm of what has gone wrong with modern liberalism: claiming tolerance, it oozed intolerance; claiming love, it exuded hate; claiming unity, it celebrated disunity; and finally, speaking about what is best in our common humanity, it evidence what is worst about it. By contrast, the “March for Life” did nothing to scandalise public decency, and the only signs of ‘hate’ came from the professional purveyors of ‘love’ on the left.

The explanation for the contrast is not far to seek. Those who so loudly proclaim their support for ‘tolerance’ do so in order to bully those who do not think that their alternative life-styles should be endorsed by the State, and, when the State gives in, they turn to the Church. As I got ready for Mass this morning I listened, as I tend to, to the ‘Sunday’ programme on radio 4, where there were no fewer than three items examining the ongoing ‘scandal’ of the Church of England refusing to totally abandon what the Bible says about marriage. The method was the usual one – how can we say we are ‘loving’ if we do not endorse the life-style chosen by a loving couple? Those who talked about the Biblical witness were not countered by argument, but by sentiment. Which of us does not sympathise with those attracted to the same sex who want to regularise their relationships? But those argument are precisely what has persuaded the State to allow such couples to get married. This is not enough,of course, and it was never going to be enough. Despite the Church of England being specifically allowed opt-outs from the legislation, those who insist that it just has to accommodate their own wishes, and to hell with the wishes of others and of Tradition, will continue to chip away until the Church of England gives in; and when, as on this occasion, it refuses, there is the usual round of anger about ‘hate’. But there is no hint that there is any alternative which involves those with same-sex attraction not getting what they want because they want it. The minority who take the view that they cannot exercise that option because it contravenes Scripture, are rarely given air-time.

Those Catholics who imagined that the previous two papacies had put such agitations to test in their own Church, now know differently. The world will not cease its hostility to Christians until they abandon anything which marks them off from it.