Scottish Executive ministers at the start of the millennium believed that appealing to the “innate common sense of the public” would be key to achieving their plans to scrap the controversial section 28 law, newly-declassified documents have suggested.
A series of previously-confidential papers reveals how the then cabinet of the Labour/Lib Dem coalition at Holyrood felt it had to take decisive action to move the debate away from “hysterical” and “extremely damaging” coverage of its proposals to repeal the law which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
And they outline ministers’ fears from the time that the “highly vocal” campaign to maintain the status quo could impact upon the Executive’s wider social policy agenda.
The law, which was part of the Local Government Act 1988, stipulated that local authorities should “not intentionally promote homosexuality” or “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.
It was repealed by the Scottish Parliament in June 2000 following a heated campaign from both sides of the argument in what was commonly known as the “section 28” or “clause 2A” debate.
Documents just released by National Records of Scotland under the 15-year rule chart the then Scottish cabinet’s evolving approaches to the issue from late 1999 onwards in the face of strong opposition from some quarters.
Minutes from a cabinet meeting on January 18 2000 show how there was believed to be a “rough balance” between members of the public in favour and against the plans to abolish the law. It was proposed during the meeting that ministers take a “non-provocative stance” on the issue.
But just one week later, First Minister Donald Dewar noted the “increasingly hysterical tone of the media coverage” of the issue, further minutes record.
“The timescale for producing new guidelines intended to protect children from inappropriate teaching had assumed critical importance in the debate,” they state.
They go on: “In discussion the following points were made: Current coverage of the issue was extremely damaging and the executive should move quickly to counter it… The executive needed to take decisive action in order to move the debate forward. It needed to express its position in clear, straightforward terms that would be meaningful to worried parents.
“The key was to find a way of appealing to the innate commonsense (sic) of the Scottish public. Parents should be reassured by the safeguards proposed and the knowledge that if they had concern about a teacher’s behaviour or material being used in schools, they could take action.”
The minutes went on: “There was a risk that a wider agenda could emerge from the campaign, attacking social policies on matter such as health promotion, family law reform and social inclusion… The possible impact of the current campaign on the wider social policy agenda should be kept under close review.”
Minutes from February 2000 onwards show how ministers tried to balance pressing ahead with their plans with listening to the views of the electorate.
In a discussion on February 15, the point was made that “while there was clearly a good case to be made for repeal, it was less easy to answer criticism that the executive was ignoring public opinion and that its stance was inconsistent with claims that the parliament and executive would listen to the views of the public”.
But the paper went on: “Care would need to be taken to ensure that the agreed ‘lines to take’ on section 2A did not involve retrograde steps in terms of the executive’s commitment to modernising attitudes and to promoting an inclusive, tolerant and diverse society.”
Documents from another meeting later that month note: “The First Minister said that as he saw it, although the executive had won a convincing majority in the parliamentary debate earlier in the month, they were not winning the argument in the country.”
The papers suggest that ministers wanted to distance their plans from any notion that they could “undermine” marriage.
Minutes of a cabinet discussion on the issue on May 30 note that: “Section 28/2A is not about marriage. The section does not, and was never intended to, buttress marriage. The repeal of s28/2A would not therefore undermine marriage.”
The papers were released a day after it was revealed that more than 1,700 same-sex couples have been married in Scotland over the last year.
MSPs passed the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill in February 2014, making Scotland the 17th country in the world to legalise same-sex ceremonies.