Gay marriage. Civil marriage. Meh.

So, the (as Martin Kelly terms it) soi-disant, ersatz Scottish Government will enact a law to allow same-sex couples to marry (in the legal sense of the word). You never saw this coming? Thought you could stop it? Whatever. It's here. So what does one do with it? The answer, I think, is that we treat anything other than sacramental marriage with utter indifference.

I would favour the Church petitioning the S-D ESG to remove its powers to solemnise marriage in Catholic churches. Catholics, if they wish to marry should follow the French pattern and visit the mairie to get the civil  registration and marry sacramentally afterwards in church as joyfully as possible - full High Mass, best fig, smartest vestments, bells pealing , preferably on another day.

But here's the rub: Catholics should be encouraged to make as little fuss as possible over the civil part: turn up casually dressed, say, with two witnesses who are random strangers. Stay just within the law, but treat the whole process with all the solemnity of applying for a tax disc. Because that's just how dignified civil marriage became last night in Scotland.