A moral maze...

The UK government is a significant step closer to marriage equality for same-sex couples, now that the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill has passed through Parliament. It now has to be passed by the Lords to become law. The day after the Bill was overwhelmingly won in Parliament, there was a second edition of the BBC panel show The Moral Maze . We're now beginning to analyse this, as we've already been looking at the first edition, broadcast in February 2012 when the government put out a public consultation on the matter. In particular, we're hoping to find whether the themes that emerged in the 2012 debate are strengthened or modified in the 2013 one, particularly given that it is now apparent that there is significant public and political support for the change.

The case against same-sex marriage can largely be characterised, in the 2012 edition of The Moral Maze, by the following arguments:

• It's risky to try to redefine marriage - we don't know what it will lead to, and it could be a 'slippery slope'
• Marriage is fundamentally about biological complementarity, i.e. two people who are of the opposite sex to one another
• Marriage is the sacrosanct place where children are created

In contrast, the case for same-sex marriage 2012 debate can be characterised by the following:

• Society has changed, and so should the institution of marriage - we ought to extend it to same-sex couples to be a truly equal society
• Marriage is fundamentally about love and commitment
• Civil partnerships do not represent true equality

It is noteworthy that overtly homophobic discourses are avoided by those who oppose same-sex marriage in the 2012 debate - at no point is language used which characterises gay people as 'unnatural' or 'deviant'. Similarly, though religious discourses are consistently drawn upon throughout the debate, biblical language is never used and 'God's will' is never referred to. This is in quite a stark contrast to some of the discussions that were reported in the media at the time, such as the attack on the plans by Cardinal Keith O'Brien. In order to draw solid arguments from a logical, defendable standpoint, those against marriage equality in the first debate evidently avoid rhetoric that could be interpreted as extreme, archaic or bigoted.

We look forward to analysing the latest debate to see how the argument might have shifted, and are hoping to employ aspects of Fairclough and Fairclough's approach to assist us in doing this.

In other news...we're continuing to compile news articles since the debates surrounding marriage equality began, and will eventually be employing corpus analysis to analyse these.