By Owen W. Jones, edited by Tom Guyton-Day
Credit: Adam Jang
When the Orthodox Conservatives launched, Tory Twitter went into meltdown. There was a palpable tension on the part of the socially liberal wing of our party, particularly – from my perspective – from LGBT members. As a gay Tory myself, I empathise with the initial anxiety; “family values”, “gender ideology”, and other such tropes have been used by social conservative movements, parties, and governments across the world to vilify LGBT people. Indeed, when the Orthodox Conservatives launched, I personally was interested but slightly cautious, having no idea what kind of specific views the group may or may not hold. So, I engaged with the group, read their writings, got talking to its members and many of their views aligned with my own.
People often ask me – especially because I am gay – what social conservatism is to me, and why I consider myself to be a social conservative. Ultimately, I believe in strong families (this includes same-sex couples and their children), I take a compassionate and holistic pro-life stance in regards to abortion and euthanasia, I believe in strong borders and celebration of national and regional identities, the maintenance of traditions, and I believe in the salience of the Christian faith in my own politics and in the way Western societies function. As a gay man, I feel no conflict between these values and my own sexuality. Likewise, I have faced no hostility from any social conservative because of it, and have actually received nothing but kindness, goodwill, and friendship from social conservatives I have met on Twitter and real life. It may therefore seem that I am naïve to the realities of social conservatism, but I am not.
Ultimately, conservatism is not simply about conserving the status quo. If it was, then American conservatives would support Obamacare and the membership of our own party would have supported conserving Britain’s membership of the EU. Conservatism is Burkean; it views society as in need of strong and fair social order, places high value on community, and encourages free enterprise. As such, socially liberal views are not inherently incompatible with conservatism, I am not trying to imply that. But, it highlights the validity of the socially conservative tradition also. I am not a gatekeeper – having only been a conservative for around a year and I have no interest in telling anyone which party they do or do not belong in – but I take issue with reductionist and patronising attitudes towards social conservatism and its adherents.
My deference to tradition is not a blind loving of it, nor do I believe that to be the case of most social conservatives. My personal philosophy is that tradition should not stand in the way of necessary progress and that progress should not erode tradition for its own sake. Therefore, I believe it was necessary to give same-sex couples the right to marry; same-sex marriage hurts no one and provides legal equality for LGBT people therefore tradition for its own sake should not have been the reason to prevent it. However, I celebrate the nuclear family because it is a tried and tested, beautiful system of love and support and eroding this for its own sake under the guise of progress is wrong.
In life we have choices. We can choose how to react, how to think, and how to engage with a variety of topics. We all have our natural, inherent values, and if your values are liberal to their core then that is great for you, I am not here to criticise that. What I ask is that you go beyond just tolerating other views and actually embrace them. This is the irony of this situation – liberal conservatives so often have rapidly jumped to conclusions about why and what we social conservatives believe, that it comes across as incredibly intolerant and illiberal. Engage in good faith and I am sure that you will receive the same in return.
People often ask me – especially because I am gay – what social conservatism is to me, and why I consider myself to be a social conservative. Ultimately, I believe in strong families (this includes same-sex couples and their children), I take a compassionate and holistic pro-life stance in regards to abortion and euthanasia, I believe in strong borders and celebration of national and regional identities, the maintenance of traditions, and I believe in the salience of the Christian faith in my own politics and in the way Western societies function. As a gay man, I feel no conflict between these values and my own sexuality. Likewise, I have faced no hostility from any social conservative because of it, and have actually received nothing but kindness, goodwill, and friendship from social conservatives I have met on Twitter and real life. It may therefore seem that I am naïve to the realities of social conservatism, but I am not.
Ultimately, conservatism is not simply about conserving the status quo. If it was, then American conservatives would support Obamacare and the membership of our own party would have supported conserving Britain’s membership of the EU. Conservatism is Burkean; it views society as in need of strong and fair social order, places high value on community, and encourages free enterprise. As such, socially liberal views are not inherently incompatible with conservatism, I am not trying to imply that. But, it highlights the validity of the socially conservative tradition also. I am not a gatekeeper – having only been a conservative for around a year and I have no interest in telling anyone which party they do or do not belong in – but I take issue with reductionist and patronising attitudes towards social conservatism and its adherents.
My deference to tradition is not a blind loving of it, nor do I believe that to be the case of most social conservatives. My personal philosophy is that tradition should not stand in the way of necessary progress and that progress should not erode tradition for its own sake. Therefore, I believe it was necessary to give same-sex couples the right to marry; same-sex marriage hurts no one and provides legal equality for LGBT people therefore tradition for its own sake should not have been the reason to prevent it. However, I celebrate the nuclear family because it is a tried and tested, beautiful system of love and support and eroding this for its own sake under the guise of progress is wrong.
In life we have choices. We can choose how to react, how to think, and how to engage with a variety of topics. We all have our natural, inherent values, and if your values are liberal to their core then that is great for you, I am not here to criticise that. What I ask is that you go beyond just tolerating other views and actually embrace them. This is the irony of this situation – liberal conservatives so often have rapidly jumped to conclusions about why and what we social conservatives believe, that it comes across as incredibly intolerant and illiberal. Engage in good faith and I am sure that you will receive the same in return.
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