The radical secular and permissive climate pervading the modern age has given rise to an enfeebling of the moral sanctions characteristic of a Christian culture once embraced by the western world.

This weakening of a previous Christian perspective based on the Pauline concept of the wickedness of the flesh pitted against the good in the spirit is, to some extent, a corrective and liberating break out.

The wide spectrum of sexual orientation is today better understood as are the constituents of basic human rights, both of which together are leading to a legislation of forms of personal relationships that, in the past, used to be regarded as alien to a civilised State.

So what once was considered as conduct ‘that dare not speak its name’ is now accepted and legalised in what is termed civil union. There is consensus that a social injustice is being redressed and legal recognition is being given to a homosexual union together with protection of the civil rights relevant to marriage. The natural right to bear and raise children, however, does not exist and cannot be claimed. Nor is adoption or surrogate motherhood a right.

As Lord Carey lately pointed out, gay marriage seeks effectively to change the definition of marriage to “a long-term commitment between two people of any sex, in which gender and procreation are irrelevant” and that “ultimately, the proposed legalisation of same sex marriage represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of marriage”.

Civil union should thus be a first step to a wake-up call for us to resist the paganisation of these islands threatened by the passive and glib anticipation of trendy notions current in a materialistic world.