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London: Gay couple threatened with death in violent late night homophobic assault
141
Government considers watered down same-sex marriage bill to minimise Tory rebellion
133
Tory MP Gerald Howarth: 'There are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who want more than just same-sex marriage'
94
France: Far right activist commits suicide in Notre Dame following legalisation of equal marriage
93
Philip Hammond: 'No great demand for gay marriage and it's upsetting vast numbers of people'
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Government to consider abolishing civil partnerships or opening up to straight couples
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Norman Tebbit: David Cameron has 'f**** things up' with his equal marriage bill
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Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather tells Catholic newspaper 'I never went into politics to tackle equal marriage'
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David Cameron: Gay teenagers will stand that bit taller following equal marriage vote
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Lib Dem Deputy Leader Simon Hughes: 'Marriage should be between one man and one woman'
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Robert in S. Kensington 667
GulliverUK 332
Jock S. Trap 314
Eddy 309
Iris 285
That There Other David 277
Rehan 275
Mark Y 274
rapture 262
Wingby 241
If even these Tories can do it… it’s amazing some Labour MPs are still voting against.
WTF is going on?
Stephen Pound is f—king weirdo. He has an exemplary record on voting for equal rights, yet he won’t vote for this, and yet Ian Duncan Smith will. That shows you that interpretation of scripture seems to be key.
Or getting a good CV?
Nearly all the Labour MPs opposed to SSM are members of the catholic church if that helps
Well I have a catholic background and if I was an MP or minister I would vote in favour of same-sex marriage and infact I`d go further and scrap adultery and bring all civil marriages up to date with modern relationships.
Does that make me a Catholic bigot?
No. It just means you don’t follow the catholic church.
Just wait for the envelope through your door, marked “VATICAN” Ex-Communication order.
Stop appeasing these bigots.
Nope, that makes you a typical British Catholic rather than a subservient weakling passing on orders from The Vatican. Nobody blames ordinary Catholics for the outright bigotry being pushed. It’s Ratzinger and that bunch of right-wing arsewipes he’s stuffed St. Peter’s with that are generating the hate.
Sadly some are more conditioned into doing as they’re told, and even as adults can’t see that they’re just following the results of childhood indoctrination.
The French do not blindly follow the Vatican either. Look at the French government – all of whose members are Catholic.
The Pope may be the head of the Church but the Church lives in each community in which it is set. I look forward to a more liberal Pope in the future.
A Catholic church with liberal voices within it is better than a Catholic church with only conservative voices.
It makes you weird for saying ‘you are a catholic’. How can you support an organisation which despises you – or perhaps even – abuses you? You should try to foregt the brainwashing you obviously underwent as a child and find a religion that isn’t about power, money and control.
By definition Catholicism is what the Pope says it is. If you disagree with him, you’re a protestant.
If they are voting against for religious reasons then why not stand as religious candidates rather than piggy backing up to the trough on the back of a mainstream party? Is it because they know they would get less votes than the now routine lunatic candidate?
Exactly!
But we’re told that the majority of ‘ordinary’ Catholics now approve SSM……presumably the Roman hierarchy has applied special pressure on people in power, maybe offered them Papal knighthoods or somesuch…
Yeah you’re probably right but I also think that the the majority of Labour Catholic MPs are voting for equal marriage ie there ‘s a fair amount of Catholic MPs voting for this change across the Tory and Labour party, so the Catholics are by no means united in the opposition to equal marriage. That’s pretty positive I think.
Andy Burnham for one.
Oddly enough, my Catholic Labour MP, who is very strongly opposed to abortion and any kind of research or treatment inolving human embryos, is also consistently pro-LGBT (she even voted against the “male role model” requirement for IVF) and apparently intends to vote yes. It’s funny how people find it so easy to pick and choose which parts of their religion they should follow.
People are not robots. A person can be a free-market conservative but still believe in a welfare state and free healthcare. A person can be a socialist and still believe in market mechanisms. Post-modernists can still hold (some) fundamental norms.
It is more worrying when one sees a person who trims their reality to their philosophy rather than the other way.
There are 8 confirmed labour opponents and almost 130 confirmed Tory opponents. So nothing wrong with the world. The 8 labour opponents are all Catholic ( though note it is a weak excuse as most catholic labour MPs are voting in favour) whereas the Tories are a mix of Catholics, rightwingers and out and out bigots.
Not sure about the ‘confirmed’ opponents – confirmed by who? C4M have shown themselves to be a little untrustworthy in their representation of facts and their slanted view on this.
I have no doubt the vote will pass, and I think a lot of the opposition with not materialise.
Actually, clarification. There has been some movement. 14 labour MPs have said they will oppose and 110 Tories. Still a lot of undecided tho
MANY Labour MPs have always voted again LGBT equality . . .
The response I received from the Labour Party HQ was that it was a ‘personal choice’, however all Cllrs, MPs etc are ‘encouraged’ to support full equality – yet don’t have to ‘sign up’ to it . . .
Seeing is believing. I won’t believe it until I see it. Even then I might need to have my eyesight checked !
Gulliver I think you have a lot of anger issues and unresolved issues from your childhood that really need to be resolved.
Take care, I wish you the best.
Baroness Warsi has no democratic mandate to vote on anything. Nor do any members of the Lords.
That bizarre – BARONESS Wari has a vote in the Lords, MP GRAYLING has a vote as on MP.
Good point.
The title “Minister for Faith” is hilarious. Like we need a minister in charge of protecting the right to believe in fairies.
We don’t have a minister who protects scientists or science, and that is under attack from religion every day.
Actually, David Willetts is the Minister for Universities and Science. Though I agree that “Faith and Communities” is a silly name for a portfolio – it seems to suggest special treatment for religious communities over other communities.
That said, it is not the business of government to have a Minister on a matter of private life such as faith or religion.
That is a really infantile, basic and bigoted understanding of faith.
But that’s what faith in the supernatural comes down to. I believe in equality and make no distinction in my treatment of fairies, gods, angels, saints, messiahs, ghosts (holy or otherwise) or father christmas. They are all equally unlikely to exist apart from father christmas who I have seen in John Lewis.
So PinkNews has reported that Grayling will vote against, then FOR, then against again all in ONE day. In fact, in this one article they have stated in the headline that Grayling will vote FOR the law and then in the body of the SAME article reported that he will vote AGAINST.
Which is it?
Where are you getting this from? The article backs up the title and I cannot find any other pink paper articles on Graylings views of gay marriage.
In the PinkNews article “David Cameron under pressure to grant tax breaks to win same-sex marriage vote”, “Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, and Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary are all expected to vote against the bill.”
As for this article I misunderstood the last paragraph, “One of the Labour MPs to shadow Mr Grayling, Rob Flello, has said that he will vote against introducing same-sex marriage due to his religious convictions”. It could be interpreted to say that, “Rob Flello said that Mr. Grayling will vote against introducing same-sex marriage due to his religious convictions”. I now understand the statement as it was intended.
But the other one stands.
Hayden look at the words “Chris Grayling . . . (Is) expected to vote against”
Ie, Pink News was speculating based on previous voting record that Grayling would vote against. In fact everyone expected he would but he himself had not actually said anything one way or the other.
Now he has declared himself in favour, surprising everyone. He has not contradicted himself and neither have Pink News.
Note, pink news has previously speculated that they expected him to vote against but actually until today Grayling has not stated which way he would vote.
Though I have actually found this quote from Grayling in February last year “I am actually supportive of gay marriage, I think that we should champion and support long term relationships, we should all have that stability in our society and we should recognise relationships and support relationships that are long lasting. Actually society suffers when we are too short term in our relationships.”. So maybe its not such a surprise after all
Excellent news!
In addition I suspect there will also be quite a few sickies on Tuesday !
A lot I would guess. I think any young hopeful Tory MP sticking their hand up as a ‘no’, will be aware that is so doing their career in the party is going to nose dive. So I think there will be a lot of ‘bus broke down’ and couldn’t find my trousers excuses’
Grayling would never vote against, he had to wait a long time to get his cabinet position after the B&B incident, with collective responsibility within the government, he’d have to resign – don’t see that happening.
Hammond is voting against but has not had to resign. As a free vote, nor should he.
Wasn’t it reported in PN (I think it was when they reported the incident about comparing equal marriage to incest) that Hammond was going to be out of the country on Tuesday. From memory his voting record shows that he is generally absent on most or even all of the LGBT votes.
He’s been absent quite a bit, but not quite most of the time:
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpid=40512&dmp=826
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Philip_Hammond&mpc=Runnymede_and_Weybridge&house=commons&dmp=826
http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=Philip_Hammond&mpc=Runnymede_and_Weybridge&house=commons&dmp=809
He has been absent for several votes, including those on civil partnerships and gender recognition certificates. Otherwise he has been consistently anti-LGBT.
Im sick of this. Stop appeasing these religious f\/ckin idiots.
Oh relax yourself Dave, chill out and stop being angry all the time
Grrrrrr.
“They will vote in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry next week.” WOW! I can get married next week? Or does PN mean “they will vote next week in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry.”
Good to hear but lets hope they can be trusted to do so.
Very confused by Baroness Warsi, her opinions never seem set.
Why do gays want to get married anyway? To copy the straights. Grayling was the minister who said b&b owners should be abl;e to discriminate against gays and Warsi was censured for taking a businessman on a government funded visit. Gays and religion don’t mix. You only have to look at the Catholic church to recognise this.
Straight divorced couples are also discriminated against by the CoE and of course the roman cult, banned in fact but they still continue to marry, so you’re question is really lame. Civil marriage has NOTHING to do with religion in case you are unaware, an secular state invention. Just because you don’t want to marry doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t let alone support it. Many of us do. If you don’t want a marriage, don’t have one, simple as that and ditto for CPs. Nobody is affected either way except those who want them.
How cynical can you get? This apparent ‘change of heart’ is not about a softening of attitude. It’s about maintaining their place in government. They know full-well Cameron is a staunch gay-marriage supporter. If they voted against, they would be voting against their leader. Shameful, hypocritical lack of moral backbone shown by both of them. Having said that, I’m pleased it’s two more favourable votes ….
Who cares as long as the legislation is passed. Look at the efforts Lincoln had to go to get the 13th amendment passed!
Anyone who is gay and Catholic should formally defect from the church. It is a very simple procedure.
1) Letter to the bishop of the diocese where you live manifesting your
internal decision to leave the church.
2) Response from the bishop or his representative acknowledging receipt of your manifest decision,
3) Notifying the parish of your baptism who will enter it into the baptismal register which indicates your “departure from the Catholic Church by a formal act”.
Not very convinced that they genuinely have any love for this proposal, more out and out ambition to keep and improve upon the portfolios they currently have.
But an extra Tory vote in each chamber is to be welcomed when the division is called. Especially in the Lords.
Dare I suggest there is a fair amount of posturing going on with regard to MPs of all parties voting for equal marriage?
Let me say now that I am 100% in favour of equality but in a non-agenda driven world in which people should marry who they like.
What I am NOT in favour of – and what we are seeing acted out on a global scale now – is equal marriage as the latest trend du jour and political football.
I find it immensely distasteful to see politicians jumping on the equal marriage bandwagon to score brownie points when they have NEVER spoken out for our rights previously, and when some have past records for voting AGAINST our rights.
I am also deterred by the fact that among those being lavished with praise for supporting equal marriage are politically odious individuals who are seeking to suppress and stamp all over our freedoms in other ways.
What use is equal marriage if all our other rights as human beings are being eroded by the day?
Anyone that belongs to a religion of ‘hatred’ and discrimination will probably vote against! Religion is learnt and entrenched behaviour.
Just read in the guardian this morning that Grayling might not vote for SSM as Cameron is being tough and won’t give them the married couples allowance in the next budget – it’s worth about, I believe, £3 each a month, and designed to ….. help you stay together !! I think when it was muted long ago it was around £800m cost to the tax-payer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/01/cameron-marriage-tax-breaks
“Duncan Smith, Grayling and Paterson are also among the cabinet members who are considering whether to abstain, or in Paterson’s case possibly even vote against”