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Tory MP Nadine Dorries: 'The gay marriage bill is taking the sex out of marriage'
89
Government to consider abolishing civil partnerships or opening up to straight couples
68
Philip Hammond: 'No great demand for gay marriage and it's upsetting vast numbers of people'
68
Bret Easton Ellis slams GLAAD and says gay basketball player Jason Collins treated like a 'baby panda'
65
US Radio host: Gay news websites are covered with porn that is turning teens gay
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Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather tells Catholic newspaper 'I never went into politics to tackle equal marriage'
59
Government considers watered down same-sex marriage bill to minimise Tory rebellion
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Tory MP David Burrowes: 'I'm not anti-gay; I'm just pro-marriage'
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Christians called to pray at Parliament in opposition to equal marriage bill
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Russia: Tortured and killed gay man was 'raped with beer bottles'
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Robert in S. Kensington 811
Eddy 339
bobbleobble 283
Jock S. Trap 281
D.McCabe 241
rapture 190
Rehan 189
Ray123 181
SteveC 173
Valksy 164
None of these countries should become part of the EU until they have had positive LGBT laws in place for at least three years and there is evidence oc positive change towards the LGBT community.
The same could be said for a fair few existing member states.
Exactly right. Greece and Italy aren’t doing such a great job either.
Spain and Portugal are doing very well.
I think the baltic countries are even worse. Didn’t they want to pass a law against gay people in Lithuania some years ago?
Yeah, you’re so right. But don’t put Estonia in the same position. It’s one of the most atheist state in the world and the people are pretty tolerant to gays, even though it doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage and have no gay adoption.
I want to say this because some people think Estonia is a “Baltic” country as put it in same position with its homophobic neighbors, while de facto it’s a Northern European country planning to join the Nordics.
Indeed they should not become members until they have a proven track record of reform protecting the rights of LGBT people. I don’t think any of them are going to comply. Religion has a stronghold on those countries, deeply embedded.
Every country that’s in the EU should have COMPLETE rights for it’s LGB citizens/visitors
It would be a big step forward if marriages conducted in one EU country had to be recognised in other EU countries.
Yes indeed, but the ECHR will have none of it and has stated quite some ago that it is not intefering in the marriage equality issue of member states. How convenient. It should be one of the prerequisites for membership but that’s not going to happen.
This is just window-dressing and is the latest ‘ploy’ (no doubt by Germany and France) to keep Turkey out of the EU.
Similar promises were required of other recent joiners (Poland, Slovakia, etc) before they joined, but post-membership enforcement or punishment for non-compliance has been non-existent. Not to mention the similar flouting of the commitments of various new-joiners to improve the treatment of their ‘Roma’ citizens (Romania, Slovakia, for example).
This is simply meaningless window-dressing. Once a country is in the EU the reality is that it has a vote like any other member so can block/flout rules it does not like. Just look at the way Cyprus (southern half) has flouted the commitments made to Cyprus (northern half) by the EU when the former blocked the latter from joining as a full member.
Although I am basically pro-EU its double-standards make me sick.
Yeah the EU said the same thing about Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. ALL were admitted and ALL passed very anti-gay laws (think Section 28) after gaining EU membership.
Three of these countries need to be completely rebuilt from the ground up before the EU opens the doors, and not just on LGBT issues. Serbia is so corrupt I’m amazed the EU is even entertaining the notion of entry.
I hope that Brussels is just dangling a carrot in the hope that they can pressure for some reform. Allowing more of these backward Balkan states in as they stand would be an incredibly bad move.