All over wether one group of people should be allowed to call their partnership a marrige,And im not talking about DC and NC, becoming a unit.

Every news channel on tv and radio today was carrying a discussion about the good and bad reasons for allowing so callled gay marrige.But not one contributor stated the obvious, its peoples preference on who they share their life with, not just the so called state ,making it legal,and some parts of the state not being happy with it.

Just perhaps DC and NC, have a think about unemployment, failures of the care system for older people, failing companies,massive cutbacks in benefits for needy people, and lots more real problems.

Suppose we will have to wait for the vote on Tuesday then.

I think they should concentrate more on education.

I’m pretty surprised that Cameron is pushing for it. It’seems a pretty brave move for a Tory leader.

I’m trying to work out what they’re actually forcing through under the distraction of gay marriage.
I mean, there can’t really be any other reason for whipping up such a fuss, can there?

😀

I can’t understand why there’s so much fuss about it when it only affrects 0.1% of the population, according to one statistic I’ve read.

It’s no ones right to tell you who to spend your life with. I can not believe that they are being soooo uptight about it.

I was listening to a debate about a month ago on this very subject and the only argument the panel could come up with is… It just doesn’t feel right .
I almost laughed, but felt very sad indeed.

Smoke and mirrors, dear boy.
Don’t look at the shiny lights, see what’s really happening behind them.

Nah Europe will do them more harm
TBH I am not sure why CMD has taken it up with such vigour tbh.

I am less sure why anyone else cares who marries who or how it impacts on their own marriage

Your right they have no rational argument they just dont want “them” to be treated like “us”.

Just perhaps DC and NC have had enough, cant resign as that would be seen as political suicide, so engineer a ploy using a minority group to cause the rest of the condems ,to pass a vote of no confidence in them, and then they can just slide out easily.

As its what the party decided.

Isn’t all the noise more to do with some Tories seeing the abandonment [for now] of the married couples tax break – which was a manifesto promise – being anti traditional family and at the same time, finding the will and time to rush through the gay marriage legislation

It’s no ones right to tell you who to spend your life with.

The law prohibits marriage between a great many people

Brother/Sister
Parent/Child
Grandparent/Grandchild
Aunt or Uncle/Nephew or Niece
Adopted Child/Parent
Stepparent/Stepchild

Would you suggest that these were also legalised?

If your argument is that the state cannot/should not interfere with who can marry each other in any way, then I can see no justification for retaining these prohibitions. Especially the adopted/stepchildren one, as they have no blood relation.

DC is taking a principled stand against a vocal and well-organised section of his party.

Looking at the group at 10 Downing St this afternoon it is noticeable that only one of them looked to be under 70 years old.

For what its worth, I think its fantastic for democracy that a party can allow disagreement and discussion on issues that carry strong feelings.

I think that its a shame, and reflective on the recent history of parliamentary democracy, that the press should choose to portray any disagreement as a crisis.

Perhaps a referendum would be the way forward…

Of the many land mines that look likely to explode underneath the coalition this year, I too wonder why this issue, and why now? Do the backwoods, back benchers feel strong enough to Dump Dave (and Nick) and go to the country with an even more extreme form of right wing manifesto?

I do hope so 😆

Why they are getting so hysterical about this is beyond belief

The law prohibits marriage between a great many people

Brother/Sister
Parent/Child
Grandparent/Grandchild
Aunt or Uncle/Nephew or Niece
Adopted Child/Parent
Stepparent/Stepchild

Would you suggest that these were also legalised?

I thought one of these couplings brought you to us zulu

Nah, pure bred reptilian here mate!

the conservative party has a spectacular history of suicidal party behaviour.
they seem to elect candidates who although under the same banner have entirely different views from the manifesto/ leadership and rejoice at the opportunity to seek publicity to declare thier opposition to the above
the way it is reported you d think that some conservative mps believe that gay marriage will be compulsory for all..when in fact it wont even be compulsory for gay folk.

i m a believer in live and let live as long as it has no negative impact on others..
if you want to get married get married if you want to marry a gay couple that should be okay. if you dont thats okay too.

what is overlooked is that the church can and often does refuse to marry same sex couples so please dont feel denied of the faith of choice shuts the door

Zulu-Eleven – Member
For what its worth, I think its fantastic for democracy that a party can allow disagreement and discussion on issues that carry strong feelings.

Bedroom tax, benefits, council cutbacks, redundancies, shrinking of the armed forces,health care reforms,fuel costs, petrol and diesel costs,unemployment,failing companies,lack of affordable housuing, and cheap mortgage rates, are real problems for real people not gay marrige that is hogging the headlines, ask any lower paid man or woman and the above will always take presedence over what dc/nc want to make law, but will a change in the law suddenly get rid of queer bashing and homophobia.

No, it want its been used as a smoke screen to divert peoples attention from the real problems with UKPLC, most of which have been brought on by the politicians.

plus ca change

or have you forgotten Labours obsession with over 700 hours of parliamentary time given over to debating fox hunting…

Its no different than the attempt by the press to tell us that the Labour party was split over trident/europe/unions/iraq/immigration etc.

We’ll hear that the tories are split on anything and everything, we’ve heard two years of stories about the coalition being split and about to fall apart. None of it is real news, its just all spin.

I don’t understand why he’s so strong on this, it does seem excessively divisive in his own party and probably in his voters, and I can’t see that it’ll cause a flood of happy married gay people to vote tory as it’s traditionally the party of guilty repressed homosexuality…

Perhaps it’s part of a cynical plan, who knows, I’m inclined to assume it is- but it might actually be that he’s found something he actually believes in and is running with it, you never know.

There’s more important things but maybe that’s why this should be able to get through quickly and cleanly so they can get back to those. If it becomes a Major Thing it’s not the fault of those who bring it to the table but those who resist its inevitability.

Firstly I don’t have a problem with same sex marriage as long as
there is a certain age set.
The conserve;s **** up in the Eighties with Poll Tax Now we are to see
the working class suppressed with Room TAX.

Now that Thatcher sold off the council properties to suppress the working class in the
Eighties that we have such an housing problem within the UK.
As the money so called made from selling off such properties.
Conservatives stopped local councils from using that money to make new homes.

Just cannot wait for the next election as this one is just showing how good the aren’t .

what is overlooked is that the church can and often does refuse to marry same sex couples so please dont feel denied of the faith of choice shuts the door

eh?

so callled gay marrige

Well, quite.

or have you forgotten Labours obsession with over 700 hours of parliamentary time given over to debating fox hunting

Well clearly one of us has not forgotten this…remind me what the countries majority view is again

I don’t understand why he’s so strong on this, it does seem excessively divisive in his own party and probably in his voters, and I can’t see that it’ll cause a flood of happy married gay people to vote tory as it’s traditionally the party of guilty repressed homosexuality…

Perhaps it’s part of a cynical plan, who knows, I’m inclined to assume it is- but it might actually be that he’s found something he actually believes in and is running with it, you never know.
Yes this and it is odd he is pandering tot he right re Europe to stop loosing votes to UKIP [ when he is clearly pro europe] and then he does this which will probably anger the same right wing voter he seeks to appease [ to be fair he has no choice re Europe it is a dirty game politics and all that]

Seems an ood issue for a tory to take a principled stance and it seems likely it will cost him dear with his core voters. Does he see it as a Clause 4 moment to make them more appealing to voters other than his core ?

Scrapping Clause Four might have helped Labour in the short term but look where it has left them now! By pushing this marriage issue DC can claim, when the inevitable coalition split occurs, that he kept his side of the bargain, but the ‘untrustworthy’ Lib-dems didn’t do as they’d promised on constituency reform (neatly sidestepping the fact that the Tories didn’t deliver on reform of the House of Lords) and so the Lib-Dems can’t be trusted. A conclusion that many former LD voters will already have come to…

remind me what the countries majority view is again

We knew in advance what the majority view on hunting was

Whats the countries majority view on gay marriage? I think you’ll find its a lot more nuanced and traditional than you’d expect – the poll results very much depend on the wording of the question

it will cost him dear with his core voters.

That problem’s solved with the referendum position – who’s going to waste a vote when the referendum prize is in sight?

Does he see it as a Clause 4 moment to make them more appealing to voters other than his core ?

Possibly – but perhaps its a way to smoke out problems within the Labour party – there’s a fair number of them and their supporters who actually have fairly ‘traditional’ views.

Scrapping Clause Four might have helped Labour in the short term

Hardly. Most voters were completely unaware of Clause IV until Blair announced that he wanted to scrap it.

Besides, Labour Party leaders had ignored Clause IV for over 70 years, so it’s somewhat bizarre to suggest that voters were been put off voting Labour because of it.

As far as the majority view goes- I don’t see why it’s important. Sometimes the majority can justify imposing their views on others, when others are affected- fox hunting supposedly being one of those (it’s not about the hunters, it’s about the fox- allegedly. But even though it’s largely cobblers that’s the excuse that let it fly)

But gay marriage? It’s about the majority telling a minority that they can’t have something that the majority take for granted, even though it makes no real difference to them. Hell with that. It’s not about the fox and nobody believes it is. You are different therefore you may not have what us normal people have.

Clause Four was a touchstone as to what the Labour party was supposed to stand for. By publicly scrapping it Blair was signalling to the voters the way he wanted to direct the labour movement, as well as making it an issue of his personal authority.

As for the issue. Don’t forget how prejudiced some sections of the electorate are. Fermenting hate, be it against gay marriage, or the disabled, or the poor, can resonate with those bigoted voters.

It’s about the majorityone religious monority telling another minority that they can’t have something that the majority take for granted, even though it makes no real difference to them

Definitely not that simple JY. Polling indicates that there may be a public majority who oppose gay marriage, and frequently that only a minority support it. And it’s certainly not just one religion that’s anti.

Again- **** ’em. I’m not that fussed whether one religion is upset about it or 10. I’m fully in support of their right to be upset.

Though, to be fair I never have understood why some gay couples seem so determined to work with a faith that rejects them- “We want a christian marriage, despite Leviticus.” But then that’s religion I guess, just avoid the bits you don’t like.

Yes you are right. However the religious are the only group I am aware of actively campaigning for it to not happen.
I agree the division is not that clear cut.

I say we should ban religious marriage so they can get why it is such a big deal

Equality isn’t a minority issue. its a basic pillar of modern society, and the fact that it’s taken so long to get around to sorting this out is a disgrace and an embarrassment.

Oh ad the pounds collapse against the euro will rip the tories apart much more effectively than this.

The pounds collapse????? The world and his wife is now engaged in competitive devaluation with the exception of the poor guys who need it most.

It’s a deliberate policy. Weak currency = injection, stong currency = withdrawal.

If anything a weaker £ will work in the Tories favour.

forum glitch bump

But the devaluation of the pound is a deliberate measure to boost exports and get the growth curve back on the positive.

And, don’t think for one second that the can that the eurozone kicked down the road isn’t going to come back and bite again very soon, plus, have you seen the latest US growth figures?

(Edit: aha – at THM says, didn’t see due to the glitch)

If anything a weaker £ will work in the Tories favour.

.Not really as we have to find more to fund state.

Trouble is they DON’T devalue the Euro that should be on its knees
But Europe cannot devalue the Euro hence why they do in house loans
with well below negotiated interest rates to keep this Mystical myth alive.

The pound isn’t currently falling because the government are devaluing it, its falling because the markets are now more concerned with the UK’s long term future, than they are about europes.