The Dominican Timothy Radcliffe would be no-one’s idea of a ‘conservative’ in theological terms or any other terms for that matter.

In a very interesting blog on the issue of same-sex marriage that he wrote for the Guardian newspaper he welcomed “the wave of support for same-sex marriage”, but at the same time reaffirms marriage as we have it on the grounds that it celebrates real difference.

A key paragraph of his article is the following: “Cardinal Basil Hume taught that God is present in every love, including the mutual love of gay people. This is to be respected and cherished and protected, as it is by civil unions. But to open up marriage to gay people, however admirable the intention, is ultimately to deny ‘the dignity of difference’ in the phrase of the chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. It is not discriminatory, merely a recognition that marriage is an institution that is founded on a union that embraces sexual difference. It is not a denial of the equality of the love between two gay people, for all love is of infinite value.”

Can this be the sort of tone we all adopt in the debate about marriage?

To read the blog in full, click here. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/tolerance-is-not-enough