When MSPs voted last year to give gay couples the right to marry, it was one of Holyrood's finest hours.
A remarkable and profound social and cultural reform was voted through resoundingly and last Hogmanay the first couples duly took up the right to marry.
However, the change in the law has not ended the controversy over the issue. Social attitude surveys show an extraordinary turnaround in how Scots feel about gay marriage, with a majority now supporting it, but some groups are still opposed to the change, mostly on religious grounds.
It was right that the legislation should acknowledge the objections and a sensible compromise position was reached which balanced the right of gay couples to be married with freedom of conscience for religious groups. Crucially, the legislation specifically stated that religious groups would not be compelled to perform gay marriages and even if a church was in favour of doing so, individual celebrants with a personal objection would be free to opt out. This was fair and respectful towards churches and other religious groups who, on the basis of their faith, define marriage as between a man and woman.
However, even this legal protection does not appear to have assuaged the fears of the Church of Scotland, which in a new report, has raised the concern that ministers could be sued for refusing to marry gay couples. The report by the Legal Questions Committee warns that the church could be vulnerable to legal challenge on the grounds of discrimination under Articles 12 and 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which protect the right to marry and prohibit discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
The fact that the report discusses the possibility of the church avoiding being forced to perform gay marriages under the European |Convention by pulling out of marriages to is a measure of how profound the Church of Scotland's objection to gay marriage. But it is unlikely that the Convention could ever be used in this way, not least because Article 9 protects the freedom to practise and observe religious belief.
Religious groups in the UK have also been specifically protected from legal action by an amendment to the Equality Act 2010, which means that a church could not be sued for discrimination in the way that B&B owners such as Peter and Hazelmary Bull were when they turned away a gay couple from their establishment in Cornwall.
This legal framework was absolutely the right compromise in a difficult situation and there is no reason why it should not prove to be robust. It is perfectly natural that the Church of Scotland should remain anxious about such a fundamental change to society's norms, but it should also realise that everything has been done to accommodate it. Gay couples who wish to do so are now finally able to marry in the way that heterosexual couples can, but religious celebrants with a deeply held objection to gay marriage can also feel secure in the knowledge that they will not be compelled to act against their faith.
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