Gay Marriage Law: Howzat?

Would anyone care to take a stab at why Mr Cameron pushed for and went ahead with the latest new Gay Marriage law now passed by a free majority vote in Parliament? And could we concentrate on the question to hand without diverging into political point scoring - ta.

Gay vote securing?

He genuinely believes that all people should be treated equally?

It is reported ‘because his wife told him to’.
As for equality the current definition is equal in that all females can marry a male and all males can marry a female. Conversely heterosexuals cannot have a civil ceremony.

I am yet to read in the proposals mention of the rights of children to have married parents one of each gender.

To my complete anguish I found myself agreeing with Ian Paisley jnr when I tuned in to part of the debate yesterday. I am further in a peace of mind on leaving Newish Labour though and am encouraged that my MP Jim Dobbin gave an excellent speech against the bill. Now let’s see what their Lordships make of this, we might as well forget it for a few years while it goes through the ‘club’.

I too agree with Dalelad. Cameron appears to have put this forward because it is something he agrees with.

But Old Regulator is all over the place. The Bill yesterday is not a matter of equality between males and females, it's for equal treatment for hetero and homosexuals.

Jim Dobbin's speech was mean-spirited and just plain wrong. He totally misinterpreted the Articles on Human Rights, made the same irrelevant point about this being about equality between men and women, and then moaned about civil partnerships not being available to heterosexual couples even though he'd voted against them for homosexual ones.

Mr Dobbin's involvement in the Coalition Against Marriage and in favour of religious discrimination and intolerance does him no service.

I'd be interested to know which bit of Ian Paisley Jnr's speech was found so acceptable. I've just read through it again to see if my recollection of it was correct. Paisley spends more than half the time on his feet saying that marriage has nothing to do with love. Maybe his does but he really shouldn't generalise!

So what you are saying PT is that equality is one sided, that side being only for homosexuals? Your attack on my MP does not surprise me one jot. I respect Jim for the man of integrity and honesty he is, don’t forget I am not a member of Party and can, unlike some judge on merit and dare I say open mindedness. Yes I am against this bill but I speak for myself not on behalf of others I’ll leave that to you.

You may have misunderstood my reference to Ian P jnr it is his opposition I was agreeing with, by the way I took his reference to love as a ‘pot’ at your front bench, or ex ministers thereof. By the way Happy New Year John

Equality is most certainly not one-sided. If Dobbin had truly wanted to remove the anomaly surrounding civil partnerships then he would have suggested just that. Or he could have done the decent thing by voting for the Bill at this stage, attempting to get an amendment through and if that didn't pass he could have voted against it later. I would be one of many people who would have supported him in trying to make that change. But he's against civil partnerships anyway, which is why I was amazed at his whingeing that they weren't available to non-gay couples.

He claims to be pro-marriage and yet is determined to deny it for many people in this country. He also seems to want to enshrine religious discrimination by denying those churches that want to be able to marry same sex couples the legislation that would let them.

Now that's inequality and it's one-sided.

I think Dale Lad hit the nail on the head.

For many people, this is down to semantics at the end of the day.

I'm not convinced that marriage is entirely the right word to use, but I have no issues whatever with what the bill is trying to achieve. I must therefore put up with the language issues.

It could be worse, the relationship between the Tories and the Lib Dems is called a coalition...

Ah yes, there lies the problem. The lion people are getting worked up about is, in the form given it by the bill, an overstuffed Tom-cat who lingered too long at the vet.

Then you think (in general) that Cameron's motives were altruistic, notwithstanding SB's 'gay vote'?

My opinion (for what it is worth) don't all shout at once !

Live and let live if 2 people truly love each other what is the problem at the end of the day it is up to the individual Church to accept or reject ?

I don't have a problem with it either way but I do think there are more serious issues that needs priority debate !

Should heterosexual couples be allowed to live in civil partnerships ? For those who want the legal and financial security of a partnership, but may not want to be married for whatever reason.