If I had the time (finals revision presses) I would go and find quotes from other cabinet ministers about how talented David Laws is and how important an asset he was to the cabinet.  I could go through his voting record and policy career show his balance and clarity – simultaneously defending the unborn and advocating scientific research, establishing frameworks for pluralist education while helping to prevent half-baked Labour education reforms – in short someone with excellent priorities. He was the driving force behind the return to Liberal roots set out in the Orange Book. I could go on.

To those who argue that Mr Laws’ reasons for not declaring that he was in a sexual relationship with his landowner are cooked-up pretexts for troughing that can’t hold up in our liberated 2010 Britain, I say: imagine your family finding out your sexual preference at the age of 44 in a newspaper. To those who say that remaining ‘in the closet’ is dishonest and that if you take that risk you accept the possibility of tragic consequences…well, that is what I want to address below. Mr Laws’ predicament should not have existed.

Perhaps (I think this is the more likely estimate, but the number is basically irrelevant) about 5% of use are more attracted to people of our own gender. When I meet someone, I do not presume that they prefer brunettes to blond(e)s or biscuits to cake (some readers may object to the analogy but bear with me). I usually assume (the epistemological “principle of charity”) that there is a ‘percentage point’ likelihood that they agree with me about various points of information or opinion based on the controversiality of that opinion (what percentage of people hold that belief determines the percentage likelihood a given stranger will). The gender you are more attracted to should be no different. I am going to keep expressing ‘sexuality’ or ‘orientation’ that way, ungainly as it may be, because I think that both of those terms are too structurally embedded: they make too many assumptions about how sexual attraction works which are based on our current cultural climate (as well as microclimate). People don’t ‘come out’ to tell you their preferences on any other issue: you just don’t worry about it. If we really believe that it doesn’t matter whether someone fancies girls or boys, then there should be no obligation to tell people which they fancy. If we are surprised that someone fancies a gender we didn’t expect them too, that’s all it should be – a surprise. We need to stop seeing who someone fancies as a fundamental part of their identity.

I am about to put scare quotes around the term “gay rights”, and again in a minute. The reason, put briefly for the sake of sticking to my main argument, is that this points out the constructed nature of both terms. In a right-thinking culture we wouldn’t need to have the idea of being-more-attracted-to-the-same-gender-as-yourself as a special identity, and we wouldn’t advocate the equality of people who are more-attracted-to-other-people-of-the-same-gender-as-themselves on the basis of natural rights (which don’t exist) but rather in terms of the benefits for everyone that we want to enshrine in rights legislation.

Campaigners for “gay rights” often focus on the importance of ‘coming out’ of ‘the closet’ as soon as possible (the Guardian CiF article immediately following Mr Laws’ resignation illustrates this point tidily). I believe that this approach can only ever be a short-term solution. It perpetuates the idea that people-who-are-more-attracted-to-other-people-of-the-same-gender-as-themselves[1] are under a burden of telling us that they are more attracted to people of their own gender. Instead, we ought to just assume that there is a 5% chance that this is true for any given stranger. This might seem a hopeless dream, but we will never get there as long as “coming out” continues to be an ever more ritualized way of dealing with anyone who isn’t only attracted to other people of the opposite gender in our culture.

Let me tell a story that might illustrate the kind of world that we could have if we didn’t perpetuate this cultural mechanism, ‘the closet’. In my first Christmas vacation home from Cambridge, I had a female friend over for dinner. As it happens, I did quite fancy her, but nothing was ever going to happen. In a conversation with my sister later that week she asked politely, without any pressure, whether we were an item. I replied, “well, no. It’s a shame, she’s quite fun.” My sister then said “yeah. Well, I thought I’d ask since, you know, with couples that have just got together you can’t necessarily tell.” The exchange was utterly nonchalant. My friend and I hadn’t had our hands on each other and weren’t giving off signals to that effect, but then I wouldn’t get cosy with a girlfriend in front of my family unless we had been obviously going out for several months: call me a prude, but it would be inappropriate. All this is relevant, believe it or not. I come from a Catholic family: my parents are pretty staunch, my little brother has me (theologian, orthodox) and our older brother (psychology/philosophy graduate, lapsed on principle) as shoulder angel/devil respectively while he sings in St George’s cathedral choir, and our older sister is comfortably lapsed.

 Imagine the above scenario if I preferred boys and had a boy I fancied home for dinner. My parents wouldn’t bring it up: they’d assume he was a friend like any other in the same way that they assume I’m going to church, saying my prayers, and keeping my trousers on vis a vis girlfriends. Imagine the hypothetical period after a few months of dating said male object of my desire, in which there might be a bit of hand-holding or whatever in the living room while we all play Cluedo (pwamattopots reading this will have to excuse my lack of imagination if there are different courtship habits that I’m unaware of, not having had a boyfriend). By that point, my brothers and sisters probably would have cottoned on and wouldn’t make a fuss any more than I make a fuss about my sister’s boyfriend despite my strong suspicions that they are, as it were, living in sin. My parents might sit me down and have a talk, but it would be the same talk I presume they’ve given, if they have, my lapsed adult brother and sister: be safe, don’t stop going to Mass, and we’ll pray for your repentance.

This is the reaction I would expect from my parents. Before you respond and say they must be very nice normal people but lots of pwamattots need the closet to protect them from their crazy Bible-bashing relatives, let me describe my parents’ political and religious profile for you. My mother responds to news of almost every major scandal or political crisis with a memory of how Thatcher said something sensible or had a sensible policy about this issue, and what it was. My Dad refuses to use an omega in his pronunciation of the term “homosexual”, and refers to “gay rights” campaigners as “homosexualists”. By the standards of CiF, they’re pretty unreconstructed. So why do I trust them to be decent in this hypothetical scenario? Well, I’ve seen how mildly disappointed but ultimately unphased and continually supportive they are of my older siblings. My mother worries about my sister moving in with her boyfriend not because she’ll go to hell for it (the number of the elect is known only to God, and besides, there’s a lot of easier ways to get there in theory). Rather, she’s worried that common law marriage is a dangerous situation financially and young people often cohabit their way out of thousands of hard-earned pounds. Pwamattots don’t currently have that problem, interestingly enough, so if I moved in with a boyfriend my mother wouldn’t have to worry about our breaking up and his demanding half my flat.

Being expected to “come out” of “the closet” adds an enormous layer of complication to dealing with the expectations of family and friends. I am inclined to believe that family and friends can often surprise us with how understanding they can be: as for public life, the Daily Mail (and now, apparently, the Talibgraph as it shall henceforth be known until we can think of something wittier than Cranmer) can shriek but it will be drowned out by defence from saner journalists. In a world without the closet, eventually we would be able to worry less about what people will think about who we fancy. Currently, those who speculate on the gender tastes of others (their friends, public figures) do so within a framework wherein they are ‘owed’ information because gender tastes are perceived to be a fundamental part of someone’s identity. Yet even if my taste in women over men were a fundamental part of who I am (and I suspect that some will contend I don’t feel this to be so precisely because I prefer girls and so am in the majority), I wouldn’t owe my friends or strangers information about this except insofar as they asked for it in a relevant context. Arguably, some of the things that I believe are a fundamental part of who I am, but there is no onus on me to volunteer information about my theism or my moral scepticism or even my political conservatism – except insofar as it is relevant to the conversation or situation.  

Let’s imagine a closet-less world for David Laws. He defended himself (and given his past record we shall here give him the benefit of the doubt) by appealing to his “privacy” which needed special consideration because he wanted to prevent, presumably, some family members from knowing that he is more attracted to men than to women. David Laws argued that his relationship with James Lundie didn’t constitute a “partnership” because they had different social circles, didn’t share bank accounts and so on according to the definitions in the Green Book. Presumably the limitations on their relationship (having a separate social life from your beloved does not sound like the sort of thing an ex-banker would put up with for £40k a year) were necessary for Mr Laws to keep it from those acquaintances who would have been distressed by it.

In a closet-less world Messers Laws and Lundie would be able to spend plenty of time together, sharing the same social circles, and people would not decide that they were a couple unless they volunteered the information. Why not? Because there is a 95% chance that they are just friends, and in that world you don’t owe anyone information about whether you prefer men or not. Speculators could speculate because he is not married and 44, but imagine how they would frame those speculations if there were no ‘closet’ for Laws to be hiding in or not. It would not be a question of Mr Laws’ ‘sexuality’, but more directly of whether he was in a relationship with James Lundie. Laws could then give a range of answers if questioned. Saying that it’s none of our business clearly won’t do with a public figure and a landlord receiving taxpayers’ money (because that makes it our business: if they are “partners” he would be breaking rules). On the other hand, he could say that they haven’t or maybe don’t want to get to “partnership” stage and are fine with their relationship the way it is. You wouldn’t resign for having a girlfriend who’s just a girlfriend but not a “partner”, and likewise for boyfriends.

I have to stop and do some work now: I know I have left undescribed the transition from closet-culture to “let’s not talk about people’s sex lives unless they want to” culture, but this post has already gotten pretty long. I expect it will or won’t get fleshed out in comments.

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[1] henceforth pwamattopots, pwamattopot singular, although even coining this implies that such people are different in some important way from pwamatopoadgs or pwaatb’gs (work these out for yourself) or even people-who-are-more-attracted- girls-but-recognize-that-plenty-of-men-are-better-looking-than-plenty-of-girls and the converse (I just couldn’t intelligibly abbreviate that).