Government must find way forward

When Cardinal Keith O’Brien called for a referendum on the gay marriage issue he must have known there would be a huge reaction. He insisted it would be a “grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right”.

The outpouring of indignation in the wake of his comments was entirely predictable and placed huge pressure on the Scottish Government ahead of its planned cabinet meeting to discuss the issue yesterday.

Normally sure-footed and deft, the SNP chose to defer a decision on legislation until the end of the month. The analysis of the consultation on the issue has also been delayed.

It is an outcome that is unlikely to satisfy either camp and one has to wonder why a sub-committee had to be hastily set up to examine issues of religious freedom — after all the issues have not changed in the last 24 hours and should not have come as any surprise.

Both the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland are vitriolic in their opposition to same sex marriage, insisting any attempt to redefine the union between a man and a woman is deeply dangerous.

However, a so- called rainbow coalition of organisations, including The Equality Network, Amnesty International and the Humanist Society of Scotland, has diametrically opposed convictions which are every bit as strongly held.

It is almost impossible to envisage any common ground for the Government to exploit.

The public consultation into whether or not gay and lesbian couples should be entitled to anything more than an exclusively civil partnership garnered far more responses than inquiries into both independence and the smoking ban — it is the responsibility of those who rule us to now find a way forward.