”I voted against civil partnerships because they were a fraud. Labour told gays it was marriage and straights it was not.”
- Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer) speaking in support of equal marriage during the Lords debate yesterday in what, for me, was one of the highlights of the debate. Lord Deben spoke directly after and against Lord Carey and Deben’s articulation, logic and citation of the same arguments against being used in The Lords when the law overturned the ban on a man marrying his deceased wife’s sister (also apparently a decreed no no in The Bible) gladdened my heart in the way it hit so many nails on so many heads. Well worth seeking out if you can.
“Ultimately, the proposed legalisation of same-sex marriage represents a paradigm shift in our understanding of marriage,”
-Lord Carey-Former Archbishop of Canterbury
Well perhaps a paradigm shift for how you define marriage Mr Carey. Some might say the proposed legislation just makes it more inclusive.
Today The Lords may attempt to kill the passage of the bill with yet more knit picking and wrecking amendments. Lord Dear, an ex police chief will attempt to beach the bill on the rocks. Oh Dear.
There’s cheap coal in them thar hills. Well out there somewhere. Probably imported. Apparently it’s undermining our pollution and climate change targets (what? They haven’t abolished them yet in the name of the great economic recovery?) as cheap coal means higher electricity generation profits or at least commercial viability in the short term. So Britain’s share of electricity generated by coal has risen to 40%.
Legislation to legalise gay marriage returns to the commons today (UK) which will inevitably put a spotlight on any MP who opposes it. I include abstainers in the no vote as in this case it’s a pretty clear cut yes or no proposal.
On Friday the Church Of England issued a statement that in the event of gay marriage becoming law the prospect of abolishing the current civil partnership arrangements or extending them to opposite sex couples would cause ‘confusion’.
Maybe those who say gay marriage will dilute the meaning of heterosexual marriage and what it means are somehow fighting to save the benefits of heterosexual privilege. It’s a status thing isn’t it? And it’s change. People hate change. And some people really get off on enforcing a hierarchy,still if only in their minds.
My marriage is better or more ideal than your marriage, they will continue to say. Same old, same old.That we’re still hung up on marriage as the top of the relationship tree and don’t recognise long term partnerships in common law is lamentable enough. Laws don’t always change attitudes. Sometimes attitudes prompt legislation and other times the road is long and equality takes longer to achieve in practice.
Look at the equal pay act of 1970. That was meant to pay women the same as men for performing the same job. We’re still fighting that one despite the legislation of equality.
To the opposer’s of legalising gay marriage I refer them the recent debate in the New Zealand parliament and the comments of Maurice Williamson who attempted to address their concerns.
It would seem that Northampton council have been using a council flat to store tools for eight years. Makes a mockery of the bedroom tax somewhat. Only discovered due to a freedom of information request seeming.
Watching the cultural divisions in British society open chasm-like over the polarised responses to of the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher does seem to play along anthropological schismogenesis lines. The angry misogynistic name calling and celebratory death parties seem almost a response to the near apotheosis taking place at the other end of the political spectrum.
Her funeral may be cathartic for some. It certainly isn’t going to bring us closer together as a nation.
