A riddle for a slow news day

What do fox hunting, teenage homosexual relations, and Irish Home Rule have to do with each other? In the British context, these issues are all subject of legislation which was passed under the Parliament Act, which restricts the House of Lords to at most delaying legislation passed by the House of Commons. Once a bill is passed by the lower house, it can eventually become law even when rejected in the upper house (Dubya might be considering similar ideas for the Senate, by the way).

Anyway, seven years after they first announced their intention to do it, Britain's Labour government has forced through the ban on fox hunting despite rejection in the House of Lords. The ban will take effect next year. However, opponents have announced a court challenge based on an untested feature of the Parliament Act.

Under that wacky British non-written constitution, the constitution itself is essentially just precedent and previous acts of Parliament. The original ability to override the upper house dates from 1909, when the Liberals wanted to pass a redistributive budget (land taxes for a social safety net) but the House of Lords blocked it. Using the support of Irish nationalist MPs, the Liberals got the original restriction through both houses of parliament -- although they only got it through the upper house by threatening to create enough additional lordships to give themselves a majority if the existing lords wouldn't do it.

In addition to their budget, the Liberals then used it to pass an Irish Home Rule Bill in 1912, giving significant self-rule to the island of Ireland. It was due to take effect in 1914 but some other event happened that year and the rest is history.

So where were we ... now it's 1949 and the then Labour government wanted additional restrictions on the Lords, so they passed an amended Parliament Act in the Commons and pushed it into law, bypassing the Lords, under the original act. One can see why this wheeze looks a bit fishy, although it encapsulates the fact that the British constitution is ultimately what the House of Commons says it is. If this is too abstract a notion for our vast American readership, envisage Tom DeLay as custodian of your constitutional rights.

Nevertheless, pro-hunt campaigners have announced a court challenge to the ban on this very point, and if successful it would call into question other legislation passed under the revised Act, notably the equalisation of the homosexual and heterosexual ages of consent, the cause celebre of Bronski Beat back in the day.

Recently we had been criticising Andrew Sullivan for his inconsistency. But, showing that wonders will never cease, since he's against the fox hunting ban and for equal legal treatment of gay and straight relationships, he's managed to get this one properly aligned more or less along libertarian lines.

Ironically though, successful opposition to the first as a challenge to the Parliament Act will endanger the second, which nicely illustrates why his gay conservative niche is so difficult: the same upper class twits who want to run with hounds aren't so happy about equal opportunity bonking.