Is it OK to be a Tory behind closed doors?

It’s not that Chris Grayling is homophobic, I don’t believe he is, it’s that he believes he has to pander to homophobes that is so grating. By doing so he has revealed a number of old Tory failings, failings as old as the party itself. The Tory party contains a great number of people who believe small government means the right to cling to your old prejudices without government interference, it is less a policy than it is a group sentiment. Perhaps it is the reason why many of them joined, they could not be considered Conservative in any of their views but they see the party as a home for bigotry, a last outpost of what they see as sanity and what we see as unacceptable social repression.

Grayling was appealing to the misguided classes when he stated his view that banning gay couples from a B&B was acceptable behaviour. He went onto add that this would be unacceptable from a large business or hotel, making it clear that he does not think homophobia is acceptable, it just shouldn’t be discouraged. He was drawing on the age old myth that a person’s house is their own private domain where no law can touch, a view that used to be espoused by liberals who wanted to legalise homosexuality and now by conservatives who want to legalise homophobia. There are two problems with this, firstly, he was talking specifically about people who have made their home a place of business, thereby losing the protection that their dwelling would normally have. He was rightly criticised for effectively supporting the old “No Blacks, No Irish” signs that were once so common.

Secondly, why should someone’s property be outside the bounds of law? The law is meant to protect us, from others, from the state, even from ourselves. Do we step out of that protection when we step onto someone else’s land? If we accept that self facing laws exist , that drug use is unacceptable and therefore that banning it is a worthwhile use of Parliament’s time then why should this not be the case in our bedrooms. There is a separate argument for a separate time about self facing law but the law must be powerful everywhere if it is to be effective, if we accept that people’s houses are some sort of anarchic safe zone then we accept that law itself is wrong. If it is right to pass a law then it must be right that it affects everyone, everywhere. That is the test by which law should be measured, if it cannot pass that test then it should not be made law, a far better result than being made law, but not where it could affect people.