The 'dark side' of our social reforms

I supported the Homosexual Reform Act back in the 1960s on the grounds that it is not right to criminalise people on the grounds of their sexual orientation.

But the many people who believed that homosexuality should be decriminalised never intended that this should create the proselytising Gay Liberation Movement. The Act decreed that homosexual acts should be “between consenting adults in private” Between means involving two; adult meant 21; and private means behind locked doors. But now the love which once dare not speak its name, shrieks at us in high camp from decorated floats along the high street.

Similarly with abortion law reform, the public was told by its supporters that legalised abortion would abolish the damage to women's health at the hands of the back street abortions. No one at the time thought that a humane Act designed to remove an identifiable evil would lead to abortion on demand, abortion in fact as merely another form of contraception. So now 200,000 embryos every year are ripped, untimely, from the womb just because people fear that a child would interfere with their lifestyle.

The new social morality introduced via these various “reforms” has its dark side. Even the progressive Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported in 1998 that broken families have a higher risk of nine varieties of deprivation: poverty and poor housing; being poorer when they are adults; behaviour problems; performing less well at school; needing medical treatment; leaving school/home when young; becoming sexually active, pregnant or a parent at an early age; depressive symptoms; high levels of smoking, drinking and drug use.

You might think that, noticing the social benefits of marriage, any government would do all in its power to strengthen the institution. But when, as chancellor, Gordon Brown was presented with these infelicities, he refused to arrange the tax system so that it discriminated in favour of marriage as a proven social good: “I mean practical, sustained help, whenever and wherever families need it, in whatever circumstances they find themselves; not by making ideological judgements but seeking always to find the best way to support every child.” Read more
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