Lord Carey says plans would cause deep divisions and likens anti-gay-marriage campaigners to Jews in Nazi Germany
The former archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has accused David Cameron of "plundering" the institution of heterosexual marriage in order to promote same-sex marriage rights. Allowing gay marriage would cause deep divisions in society "without giving gays a single right they do not have in civil partnership", he said.
At a "Coalition for Marriage" rally on the fringe of the Tory conference in Birmingham on Monday, Carey joined the Tory MP David Burrowes and his former MP colleague Ann Widdecombe in protesting that neither the Lib Dem nor Conservative 2010 manifesto had included a pledge to legalise gay marriage.
Carey claimed that in some countries where same-sex marriage had been made legal – including Mexico, Brazil and the Netherlands – it had led to unforeseen consequences such as three-person marriages.
Asked about anti-gay-marriage campaigners being described as "bigots" – on one occasion by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister – Carey said: "Let us remember the Jews in Nazi Germany. What started against them was when they started to be called names.
"And that was the first stage towards that totalitarian state. We have to resist them. We treasure democracy. We treasure our Christian inheritance and we want to debate this in a fair way."
Widdecombe said: "This is not an anti-gay rally. It is defending marriage."
Outside the town hall rally, attended by around 400 people, gay rights protesters accused the platform of promoting "marriage apartheid" by denying the right to marry on equal terms.
Cameron has joined the US president, Barack Obama, in endorsing same-sex marriage and is poised to report on the results of a 12-week consultation before proceeding to legislate. All main parties, including the SNP government in Edinburgh, now endorse the change.
Burrowes, the backbench MP for Enfield South, urged ministers to stage a referendum on the issue, as has been done in 32 US states with mixed results. He said there had been no pressure for a change to civil partnership before the election – "no letters, emails or tweets" from voters – but MPs' postbags were now full of the controversy. "If the government can think again about pasties and caravans it can certainly do so about the important issue of marriage," he said.
Widdecombe, a former Home Office minister, said such consequences would include the replacement of cherished liturgy and names such as "mother" and "father" with "progenitor A and progenitor B" or "partners to the marriage". François Hollande, the French president, is proposing to use the word "carers", she said.
Carey argued that teachers, doctors and other professionals might be forced out of their jobs if they refused to embrace the proposed change to the law, an intolerant restriction on free speech which Widdecombe said could make the Church of England force disestablishment.
"I know, David Cameron, that is not the sort of Britain you want," she said. Carey hinted that the prime minister might have conceded the policy on "pragmatic" grounds to sustain his coalition with the Lib Dems – "the very worst of reasons".
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