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- Published on Friday, 14 June 2013
- Written by Gary Powell
Equal marriage: how strong are the arguments against it? asks Gary Powell
There are certain arguments against same-sex marriage that come up again and again. Their frequency probably emboldens those who utter them to feel confident about their validity. Here are some of the most common objections made, and why they do not stand up to examination:
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- Published on Monday, 08 April 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
Margaret Thatcher, former MP for Finchley, Education Secretary, Conservative party leader, and Prime Minister, died on Monday 8th April 2013, after years of ill-health.
Although it is twenty-three years since she left Downing Street - there are people who were old enough to vote in the 2010 General Election who were not born when she was Prime Minister - there can hardly be a political figure of 20th century who remained so well known, and so divisive, even a decade after her health had forced her to give up public speaking engagements.
In a swift reversal, Downing Street announced a state funeral and then edited their announcement to a ceremonial funeral in St Paul's Cathedral. The most measured response to that has already been written by Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph, an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and her politics:
Yet her greatness as a prime minister is not enough. State ceremonies can be very damaging unless (as with the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton) the whole nation can come together.
This will not happen after Lady Thatcher’s death. There are too many people – for example, shipyard workers from Glasgow, miners from Yorkshire and the Welsh valleys – whose livelihoods were destroyed during her premiership. They struggled against her government passionately at the time, and many still abhor her memory.
One of Margaret Thatcher's political legacies was Section 28.
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- Published on Wednesday, 05 June 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill is now through to the Committee stage in the House of Lords. Only four days ago it seemed improbable - some analysis was suggesting the Bill might only win a second reading by a 10-vote majority, or "too close to call" - but when Lord Dear's amendment came to a vote, his wrecking amendment lost by 390 votes to 148.
This is not the end of the legislative process. The bill now passes to the Committee stage in the House of Lords, on Monday 17th June. This is the stage at which amendments to the bill can be proposed: the opposition will doubtless propose the usual line of allowing civil registrars to discriminate against same-sex couples, or "protecting" teachers from being required to teach the fact that same-sex couples can marry, or other such attacks on equality as were proposed by the anti-gay campaigns or by the opposition in the Commons.
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- Published on Thursday, 14 March 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The European Parliament today adopted a non-binding resolution on strengthening the fight against homophobia, transphobia, racism, xenophobia and hate crime: and repeated previous calls to include homophobia and transphobia in the list of grounds covered by the next version of the 2008 Framework Decision, due for review this year.
Raül Romeva i Rueda MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament’s LGBT Intergroup, commented:
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face the same type of threats, violence and crimes across the EU. Racist and xenophobic crimes deserve specific punishment, and so do homophobic and transphobic ones: they target an entire group, rather than individuals.”
All but one of the seven political groups in the European Parliament jointly authored the resolution (all but the right-wing eurosceptic group whose largest sub-group is the UKIP MEPs). This unaminity is very unusual, but all agreed that:
the European Union is based on the common values of respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law and is underpinned by greater promotion of tolerance
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- Published on Friday, 31 May 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The House of Lords will debate the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill on Monday 3rd June and Tuesday 4th June. Because so many peers want to speak, the debate will be spread over two days instead of one and the vote will take place about six-thirty Tuesday evening.
If the bill gains a substantial majority in the House of Lords on Tuesday, while there will still be several procedural stages to go through before the Bill can receive Royal Assent, the Westminster campaign for lifting the ban on same-sex marriage is won: same-sex marriages in England and Wales can take place from three weeks after the Bill becoming law.
(In Northern Ireland the Stormont Assembly voted against same-sex marriage and at Holyrood the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill is still progressing through legislative procedure for the Scottish Parliament.)
The campaigners against lifting the ban will be holding prayer vigils outside the House of Lords on Monday 3rd June between 12-2pm and 5-7pm.
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- Published on Saturday, 23 February 2013
- Written by Gary Powell
23 February 2013 - Eastleigh could have been going so much better for the Tories. But neither the Prime Minister, nor the Party, is to blame, writes Gary Powell.
A piece in the Times today declares, "Blow for Cameron as Lib Dems set to win Eastleigh by-election." But its analysis is shoddy, to say the least.It may be consistent with the media's "Conservatives are doomed" narrative to suggest that the Tories (including David Cameron) are to blame for the lack of progress so far in Eastleigh, rather than the candidate. But this conclusion is without any foundation, and indeed is contradicted by a simple analysis of the facts.
The article states,
The poll shows that it will be hard for Tories to blame their candidate, as some MPs are beginning to try to do.
Despite a furore over her differences of view with Mr Cameron on Europe, gay marriage and abortion, she is viewed favourably by 80 per cent of those planning to vote Tory; marginally less than the 82 per cent who have a favourable view of the Prime Minister.
Mrs Hutchings may well be viewed favourably by 80% of those planning to vote Tory. I should imagine that is why most of them intend to vote for her. But what about the Tories who will not vote for her because she opposes equal marriage? There is a lot of strong feeling about this issue among progressive Conservatives, particularly younger ones, who strongly support the modernisation process in the Party, and would have liked to register their support by voting for a modern Tory candidate.
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- Published on Tuesday, 28 May 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The Scottish government confirmed on 23rd May that they still plan to introduce the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill into the Scottish Parliament before the Parliament's summer break starts at the end of June, in accordance with the timetable they announced last September.
The Scottish Transgender Alliance said (Facebook):
We welcome this. Once the bill is introduced we'll let you know about any issues still not addressed adequately for non-binary trans people, trans women, trans men and intersex people and will work for amendments to try to make any needed improvements as it progresses through the Scottish Parliament!
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- Published on Wednesday, 20 February 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
London - 20 February 2013
Steve Radford, a former Liberal Party insider, now Liberal Party Liverpool city councillor, says that
A now top Liberal Democrat politician was involved in a secret Liberal Party dirty tricks unit that organised an anonymous, illegal smear campaign against the Labour candidate in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election, Peter Tatchell. Appalled by his party’s tactics, Steve Radford is now willing to name names.
What has been described as the UK's "dirtiest, most violent and homophobic by-election" took place on 24th February 1983, 30 years ago this Sunday. Simon Hughes contested the Bermondsey constituency for the Liberal Party, against Peter Tatchell for the Labour Party. Hughes joined the Liberal Party in 1972 and, along with most Liberals, the newly-formed Liberal Democrat party in 1988. Hughes has held the Bermondsey seat through several boundary changes since 1983 to the present day.
A leaflet assumed at the time to have been circulated by the National Front, was headed: ‘Which queen will you vote for?’ with side-by-side images of Peter Tatchell and Elizabeth II. The leaflet denounced Peter Tatchell as a left-wing traitor, and published Tatchell's home address and telephone number, inviting local people to "have a go" at him.
“If it is true that the leaflet was produced by the Liberals, it may call into question the legality of Simon Hughes's election to parliament in 1983. Anonymous election leaflets are illegal. They are serious infringements of electoral law,” said Peter Tatchell.
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- Published on Friday, 24 May 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
Simon Hughes has been the MP for Bermondsey for 30 years, since a homophobic campaign against Peter Tatchell swung the constituency from Labour to the Liberal Party.
Earlier this week, when voting on the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill in the House of Commons, Simon Hughes voted to allow registrars to discriminate against LGBT people in the performance of their job, and for the amendment that would have allowed general discrimination against LGBT people by making prejudice against same-sex marriage a "protected characteristic".
Simon Hughes also voted for Tim Loughton's amendment to add civil partnerships for mixed-sex couples as part of the Bill now rather than waiting for a review (in debate, the feeling of the House was clearly that this was a worthwhile change but not worth delaying marriage for same-sex couples to achieve - the vote for a review was passed 391 votes to 57).
Nine years ago, when running for leader of the Liberal Democrat party, Hughes was outed as bisexual by The Sun (and Nick Clegg was theb elected leader). Philip Hensher wrote at the time:
It seems unlikely that Hughes would have chosen this moment to come out, and one could guess that the Sun, which broke the story, showed him some incontrovertible evidence and invited him to comment. His description of his way of life does not seem, in any way, a confident or positive one - "Nobody has a perfect life ... People make mistakes and have to go public sometimes on things they may have wished to keep private.
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- Published on Tuesday, 12 February 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The first sitting of the Parliamentary committee to consider the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2012-13 is today. The Committee is expected to report by 12th March 2013.
You can watch the Committee taking evidence online at Parliamentlive.TV.
The Hansard record of the committee's evidence taken on 12th February is available online.
The witnesses invited to give evidence today (12th February) are Stonewall UK; the Lesbian and Gay Foundation; Gender Identity Research and Education Society; Liberal Judaism; Board of Deputies of British Jews; Out For Marriage; and the Coalition for Marriage.
The chairs of the committee are Jim Hood (Labour, Lanark & Hamilton East) and Gary Streeter (Conservative, Devon South West). Because they were to chair the committee, neither of them voted in the second reading debate, but via the Coalition for Equal Marriage list, Jim Hood had confirmed his support for equal marriage in a letter to a constituent: while Gary Streeter is reported to have said of equal marriage in an interview (Daily Mail):
‘I wish it were not happening …don’t try to tamper with the timeless concept and meaning of marriage, which for most of us does mean one man for one woman for life.’
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- Published on Monday, 20 May 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
Today (Monday 20th May) and tomorrow, the House of Commons will debate equal marriage before the third reading of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill: if the Bill passes on Tuesday 21st May, the Bill must then pass to the House of Lords.
You can watch or listen to the debate live on Parliamentary TV: the debate will start shortly after 3:30 today and shortly afer 11:30 tomorrow.
Given the majority vote in February, there is little doubt that the Commons will vote to pass the Bill to the House of Lords on Tuesday: but a number of amendments have been proposed which could delay or seriously damage the provision of equal marriage in England and Wales. (The Scottish Parliament is proceeding on separate legislation, and the Northern Ireland Assembly has voted against equal marriage.)
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- Published on Monday, 11 February 2013
- Written by Morag Hannah
Morag, a web designer from Scotland, and Erin, a science outreach worker from the USA, have lived in Dundee for just over a year. They've been together five years and celebrated their civil partnership in February 2012. They have no personal attachments to the concept of 'marriage', but believe in marriage equality and may want to convert their civil partnership to a marriage one day for 'boring logistic reasons'.
Following MP Jim McGovern's 'no' vote on the same-sex marriage bill in Westminster on 5th February, they visited his MP's surgery to ask him why.
I can hear myself sighing, because he's talking again about how, despite every unbiased opinion poll coming out with over two thirds of people in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry, his mail-bag was about half and half - and that more folk had written to congratulate him than castigate him after his 'nay' vote.
It's interesting that he's telling me this, because he says his decision to vote against the bill was driven by his conscience, his soul-searching, and yet he takes great pains to remind me, over and over again, that if I'm going to tell him that he's flying in the face of public sentiment, his mail says otherwise. I don't know who he thinks he's placating - certainly it's no comfort to me that half the politically motivated people who live in my part of town apparently think I shouldn't have equal rights. And if he voted with his conscience, why does it matter what his constituents did or didn't think?
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- Published on Tuesday, 23 April 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The day I went to see Boston Marriage performed by the Arkle Theatre company was the same day France had voted to lift the ban on same-sex marriage.
A Boston marriage - from Henry James' novel The Bostonians - describes two women living together who are self-supporting: either because they have inherited wealth or because they have professions. By definition, then, David Mamet's play Boston Marriage does not depict a Boston marriage: Claire and Anna are not described as self-supporting.
As originally used, the Boston marriage relationship was presumed to be non-sexual: and this David Mamet does depict. It is romantic comedy very much in the Noel Coward style: and as with Noel Coward's brittle and glittering heterosexual relationships, I felt that even the smallest cup of passion would melt everything.
But it's a long-standing tradition in mainstream art, literature, and drama to depict any relationship between two women as neither passionate nor loyal: to presume that two women cannot object to a man's inclusion in their relationship since according to conventional tenets, only a man can make their relationship sexual. The Bechdel test famously demonstrates how rare it is for any dialogue between two women to discuss any topic other than a man. With the ban on same-sex marriage lifted, will this change art's conception of the relationship between two women?
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- Published on Tuesday, 05 February 2013
- Written by Jane Carnall
The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill 2012-13 passed to its second reading stage by 400-175 votes today, Tuesday 5th February.
This makes it more than likely that it will become law, but there are several stages still to go through and several points at which amendments can be made, for good or ill.
The bill is now through to the Public Bill Committee, which is expected to report by 12th March 2013.
If you missed the debate live and want to watch it recorded, BBC Parliament have it on iPlayer until 7:29pm on Tuesday 13th February.
The next stage of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill is the committee stage, at which each clause of the bill and any proposals to change the bill are debated.
We can expect that many MPs who argued against equal marriage today in the House of Commons will support amendments such as Edward Leigh's: he proposed that a new protected class should be created for the Equality Act, of people who object to same-sex couples marrying - which if it passed (not likely) would ensure anyone who wished could discriminate against same-sex married couples, claiming a conscientious objection protected their right to discriminate.
