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New 'Gay Marriage No Thanks' group launches with 'ten good reasons' to oppose equal marriage
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Barry Cryer brands ITV's Vicious 'homophobic' television
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Lord Tebbit: I wouldn't have been surprised if Jimmy Savile was homosexual
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Archbishop of York: Would the Church of England rather bless 'sheep and trees' than gay couples?
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Lib Dems' Baroness Williams to support anti-equal marriage 'union' amendment
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Mixed martial arts fighter: 'Equal marriage could lead to incest, bestiality and child marriages'
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Maria Miller tables Public Order Act amendment protecting critics of equal marriage
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Labour MSP Elaine Smith: 'I'm against equal marriage but don't call me homophobic'
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Tory Lord Mawhinney tables 'traditional marriage' amendment for equal marriage bill
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Lord Hylton tables new wrecking amendment for the equal marriage bill
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Kafka 375
Robert in S. Kensington 361
That There Other David 312
Eddy 304
D.McCabe 283
Jock S. Trap 279
twitless 265
Rehan 242
Pavlos 222
bobbleobble 215
Good news for Labour and Lib Dem supports and hopefully Scotland.
Sounds promising …..hope the rest of the UK will put pressure on Scotland to bring in ME…who will be the first, I cetainly hope there will be a first!
The Greens have long been in favour too, and are likely to increase their representation this election. Keep up PN!
Please don’t be like the TV “debates” and exclude the Greens from this. A recent poll had them winning more seats than the Lib Dems.
I am in no doubt the Scottish Greens’ policies (when their manifesto is launched) will be by far the most far reaching on LGBT rights and i hope every Scottish voter considers voting for them in the list.
The Equality Network will report on all the Parliamentary parties manifestos including the Greens. The Scottish Greens already issued a press release on equal marriage, to mark April 1st – the 10th anniversary of the first (modern) same-sex marriages, in the Netherlands.
In the press release. their co-convener, Patrick Harvie, pledged that the Greens would introduce equal marriage legislation in the next Scottish Parliament.
I wouldn’t be surprised of Scotland beat England to marriage equality.
Lets hope whoever does leads the way for the others to follow.
More dribble and drab from the “not so convincing” parties and again just spouting off to try and win votes.
As for the greens, well, Patrick Harvey will have his work cut out as he is not a very convincing msp at the best of times and given his role at present there isnt much call for greens in Scotland.
As for labour, as you see from todays news, they run away when the heat gets turned up so no doubt they will do badly come elction time in Scotland.
As for the Lib Dems……whao are they?? they have done NOTHING for Scotland, and their present campiagn trail is always outside police offices….
Very impressed with the comments in the Lib Dem manifesto – the most clear and unambiguous commitments to real equality for LGBT in the UK at any time
Labour are not too bad – but why the need for consultation?
Conservatives appear to have forgotten that equality matters or disability or other interest groups exist
I sincerely hope we do not have separate laws in Scotland from the rest of the UK. The UK should move forward together. We cannot afford the chaos of separate provisions even within the UK – it is hard enough seeing different states in the USA not recognising each others’ provisions without our creating the same patchwork here too. Marriage equality across the UK please.
Marriage is a devolved issue in Scotland and Northern Ireland, so the legislatures there will decide. It would be preferable to have equal marriage across as much of the UK as possible, and if the UK Govt are true to their promises, that might happen, for GB at least, in the next two or three years. (In NI, Sinn Fein support equal marriage but the DUP oppose it)
However, if the UK Govt do not move forward, we will certainly not sit back and wait: we will press the Scottish Parliament to go ahead. If the LGBT groups in Maassachusetts had waited for the federal US Govt to do equal marriage, there’d be no same-sex marriage anywhere in the US, now or for the next 10 years at least!
@Dan
Well, whatever our views on devolution – the reality is that its here and here to stay.
Marriage and equality are issues for the devolved parliament in Scotland (and I think for the N Irish and Welsh assemblies).
I hoped that we would move together as a UK in all the parliaments/assemblies – but unfortunately that isn’t guaranteed in the current system.
There has been separate law in Scotland from England almost since the dawn of time. Scots law is completely separate and distinct from English law.
The preservation of Scots law is enshrined in the act of union 1707 – of more than three hundred years ago. It is most certainly NOT something which happened because of devolution.
It will be interesting to see what the SNP manifesto says when it is launched. The Libdems in Scotland will likely suffer, as they are now effectively part of the London Tory Government, and all the polls show their level of support in Scotland has quite literally crashed. As for Labour, they have pretty much copied ALL of the SNP policies (despite voting spitefully against most of them in the last four years of opposition in Scotland), so many no longer take them seriously up here.
Alex Salmond, the leader of the SNP, and current First Minister, is extremely popular in Scotland, whilst in polls most voters do not even recognise the Labour guy.
opposition parties can promise what they like. They’ll never have to make good on it.
True but they can be called to account if they win.
Indeed they can
Parties in Scotland cannnot easily be held to account with the Additional Member System used in elections to the Scottish Parliament. For example, most of the current SNP government ministers, including Alex Salmond, are guaranteed to get back in as if they don’t win in their constituencies they are all near the top of the various regional lists. It’s not just the SNP, though. The Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie, for example, is standing in Renfrewshire North & West constituency and she came 3rd in the equivalent constituency last time(there have been boundary changes) yet she still got in on the regional list. She is also expected to come 3rd this time yet she’ll still get in on the regional list. The Lib Dems also allow candidates to stand in both constituencies and regions, giving people 2 chances to win. I’m not sure about Labour.
that’s why open lists should be used for the additional members, rather than the closed lists that are used for Scottish and European PR elections.
Overall though, the system used for the Scottish Parliament elections is much much fairer than that used for westminster.