SubscribeLeading Tory blogger Iain Dale was lucky enough to tie the knot this weekend and good luck to him and his partner. Some might argue that a civil partnership is not a proper marriage, but I guess that depends in large part on the church who are apparently, ‘in meltdown over gays and women’ and still not reconciled with the late twentieth, let alone the twenty-first, century. And a civil partnership is more than Iain would have been able to hope for under a Conservative government.
Anyway. Another reason to congratulate Iain Dale is his standing by David Davis, for whom he acted as chief-of-staff during the battle to lead the Conservative Party. While some apparently claim Davis is a gay basher, he not only attended Iain’s civil partnership ceremony, he played an (undisclosed) part in proceedings and what is more, says Mr Dale:
‘I have been told by several people that he was seen to “well up” a bit during the ceremony.’
That’s a little more than we needed to know, but what a way to answer the critics.
UPDATE 18 June: While Iain Dale’s double entendre is lightly amusing, it’s worth bearing in mind that Public Whip records that Davis has ‘voted strongly against the policy “Homosexuality – Equal rights”’. He was absent from votes on civil partnerships but Iain Dale, who knows him well, is open to the possibility that he would have been against, arguing ‘that if he had to vote on it again, he might vote in a different way’. Only might upon being ‘converted’ by a couple of civil ceremonies that wouldn’t have happened had he got his way! You may be tempted to pity Iain, but should resist that urge.
