A debate...

...on same-sex marriage, at which the team led by CATHOLIC VOICES acquitted itself well. A general feeling of vigour and confidence among the (mostly young) RCs who were there in large numbers. On the whole, however, as on other occasions connected with this depressing subject, I left feeling...well..depressed. No vote was taken at the end. The chairman asked if anyone present had changed his or her mind as a result of the debate, and no one had. The side promoting same-sex marriage did not offer an intellectually grounded or well-reasoned approach, but rested on a general appeal to people's desire not to allow any form of discrimination. As we approach the Queen's Diamond Jubilee a survey shows that most people in Britain think that we are, in general and indefinably, in a worse state than we were 60 years ago. This despite the great advances in health and dental care, in longevity, in acquisition of consumer goods and opportunities for holidays and sunbathing and travcelling and eating great quantities of food. It is dreadfully sad to be living in a country where the human realities of marriage and the transmission of life, a sense of joy and hope in the arrival of the next generation, and a belief in the culture and values bequeathed to us by the past, are all denigrated. Of course we are sad. The Queen's own pleas for an honouring of Christ's message each Christmas, the evident sincerity of her own faith, echo this. This is a poignant Jubilee.