Gay Marriage Savior of The Economy!
Gay marriage campaigners kiss outside parliament during the vote. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters
The debate on gay marriage was crucial, historic, representing a profound constitutional change. We know this because MPs kept telling us. Which left us to wonder why it was so tediously and so crashingly dull.
Maybe it was the fact that backbench speeches were limited to four minutes, which meant that MPs felt obliged to make the same points over and over. Those in favour thought it essential to spread equality (or as the SDLP's Mark Durkan put it, bafflingly, "all equality should be equal!" Pick the bones out of that.)
The opponents thought it was unnecessary, unpromised and didn't appear in anyone's manifesto. It would weaken existing marriages. Everyone agreed that marriage was a wonderful institution, though nobody pointed out that nearly half of straight marriages in this country end in separation.
Of course, this being parliament there were some fine mad moments. At one point Yvette Cooper, speaking for Labour, said that the great thing about marriages were the celebrations. "We all love the idea of a wedding party!" she chirruped, adding that gay wedding thrashes could cost £14m. "That's an awful lot of confetti and rubber chicken!" she added, and the chancellor needed all the help he could get – even if it wasn't quite the Plan B Labour wants.
We'll know who is running things in that marriage when Ed Balls calls for massive government investment in canapes and swans carved in ice.
Ian Paisley Jr said darkly that it would have the opposite effect, since in countries such as Spain and the Netherlands, where gay marriage is already legal, the rate of straight marriage had dropped sharply.
Nick Herbert, a gay former minister, scorned such a connection. "You won't hear anyone say, 'darling, our marriage is over. Sir Elton John has just got engaged to David Furnish!'" So it's swings and roundabouts, because if Sir Elton does get married, the resulting party will add at least 0.1% to the GDP.
The Ulster Unionists kept repeating that the only purpose of the bill was to "de-toxify the Tory brand", in other words to get the horsemeat out of the Tory burger.
Nadine Dorries, bravely hacking her way into another jungle, said she was agin the bill because there was "no obligation of faithfulness" in the bill. Roger Gale went right over the top. You might as well abolish all marriage, and have civil unions instead for everyone. You could have brother marrying brother, sister marrying sister and brother marrying sister!
Chris Bryant, the gay former vicar who embodies the entire bill in himself, chipped in to say that remark was "profoundly offensive".
Heavens, I'm beginning to make it sound interesting, but only by ignoring the dozens of dreary speeches in between. Mike Freer, a Tory who has Margaret Thatcher's old seat, said that he queued every day in the tea room beside his colleagues. "So when it comes to marriage, why do you want me to join a separate queue?" Marriage as a form of rock cake.
Christopher Chope felt let down. David Cameron had said there would be no bill. Brooks Newmark interrupted to say that he had five children, and if he voted against the bill "they would think I was bonkers". Mr Chope was undeterred. He placed his faith in the House of Lords, to give the bill "a pretty bloody nose!"
You begin to wonder: since the Tory party can't agree on anything these days, what is the point of them?
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