Ann Widdecombe: I wouldn’t have enjoyed serving under David Cameron because of equal marriage

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Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe says she wouldn’t have enjoyed being in the current Coalition Government because of its support for equal marriage.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Ms Widdecombe said: “I wouldn’t have enjoyed coalition. I certainly would not have been at one with him [Cameron] over gay marriage, and I don’t like this thing of image, image, image.”

The 65-year-old former prisons minister went on to say: “Let’s take the issue of gay marriage…I do not care tuppence what consenting adults do. It’s not my business. The state does not belong in bedrooms. So I’m not authoritarian. I don’t say: ‘You shouldn’t do this, you must do that.’ What I do say is that the state must have a preferred model, and the model that has served us throughout the millennia is marriage – a man and a woman in a union that is generally open to procreation.

“Marriage isn’t about two people; it is the basis for the family. That’s why it’s unique, and therefore I think society can say we’re keeping marriage for a man and a woman.”

In February, Ms Widdecombe urged British Christian opponents of equal marriage to stage street protests.

During last year’s Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, Ms Widdecombe attended and spoke at a fringe rally by the anti-gay Coalition for Marriage.

At the same event, Lord Carey, the ex-Archbishop of Canterbury, accused politicians of plundering “the institution of marriage.”

Since the formation of the Coalition Government in May 2010, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg have championed equal marriage.

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday; it will now be subjected to further scrutiny in the Lords.

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