Be Excellent To Each Other

Uruguay is legalising same-sex marriage.



Excellent.

Here's the bill.

2nd reading on Tuesday.

Curiously, if the bill passes, any same-sex married couple entering Northern Ireland would be considered to be in a civil partnership whilst there.

(Schedule 2, Part 1, 2, 1)



There's a similar provision if Scotland decide not to go ahead with it and the government passes an order.

Ok, I misread the timetabling. It's this Tuesday.
I'm expecting it to pass second reading, though the later stages might be subject to delaying, and I have no idea how long it might stay in the Lords. Or, indeed, if it will be carried over into the next Parliamentary session.

I'm hoping Scotland passes their law by 2015, so we can get married and not civilly partnered!

Tory chairmen have been writing to Cameron telling him that the gays are evil, and this should not be done in this Parliament.

No mandate is their argument. Didn't stop them tearing the heart out of the NHS or massively threatening every single creative industry in the UK by wrecking the education system. No mandate for either of those things either, the hypocritical shits. (See also: direct democracy. It's OK to have a referendum on a hugely important issue like the EU—which no-one can hope to fully understand—but we don't get a vote on the NHS, we don't get a vote on Lords reform, and we barely got one on electoral reform, since the options were 'status quo' and 'something barely any better than the status quo'.)

It is lunacy isn't it? There isn't a single argument against gay marriage that isn't "I don't like gay people".

It would be a real shame, and a worrying development, if the Conservatives followed the US Republicans and started worrying more about their vocal base support rather than continually trying to reach out for as broad a base as possible. I get the impression that Cameron recognises this, and kudos to him for holding his ground (so far!).

The Tories are very similar to the US Republicans under the veneer. Cameron painted over the cracks but he didn't reform his party enough to weed out all the extremists. Also, the cuddly moderate image that Cameron projected after 2005 was obviously completely fake. I lament the lack of a civilised, humane centre-right political party in Britsin.

That's true of all political parties. The only kinds of people willing enough to dedicate their time to political causes are more likely to ones more interested in the kinds of views that might not be appealing to the range of people a political party needs to appeal to in order to enter office. Balancing the two is a tricky act.

Unless you're Tony Blair, when the party was so desperate to enter office, he had the field pretty much to himself. And then he started ignoring them even more

Bollocks. Every political movement has its more 'ideological' members, and dodgier individuals, but there's a difference between an organisation having its more unpalatable fringes, and an organisation being straight-out built around spite and hatred.

You can't say with a straight face that 'they are all the same'. Some are less worse than others.

To be fair, I just cannot believe that in 2013, there is even any debate about this. If two human beings want to commit to each other for life, the State should do all in its power to facilitate, encourage and nurture this. Time and again, statistics prove that married people tend to live longer, happier, healthier lives.

I just cannot believe that anyone would want to get in the way of this. I am disgusted at some of the things I have been hearing; sad to say predominantly from Tory ranks - the unenlightened, spiteful fools. Cameron, as a modern, progressive Tory, is quite right to face 'em down; let's give him due credit for that much.

Plus, turns out they have a mandate after all, so not only are these old gits bigoted, hateful, spiteful old gits, but they're also lying, bigoted, hateful, spiteful old gits. Still, they have their fans. The most recent BBC article on this is full of "Cameron out!" and "Doesn't parliament have more important things to talk about" and "I have a gay friend, and he doesn't want to get married". It's disgusting.

I'm also still waiting to hear from someone (anyone) how gay marriage somehow negatively impacts on my non-gay marriage.

I do find opposition to this literally unfathomable. Bunch of spiteful and downright weird old twats.

There's less chance of getting the date you want for your "proper" marriage.

Er...

I'm pretty sure that's it.

I had a flyer from these folk with my local MP's details on it, encouraging me to write to them. Swiftly went in the bin.

Every point on that website made me want to punch someone, except for this one:
That's still a good point. Hopefully it will follow on from the same-sex marriages.

One set of in laws is quite enough, thank you very much

Thanks Les.

Seriously, though - I hope it happens.

"If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People's careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children."

Dear God! The humanity! Who will save us from this upcoming apocalypse!

The only argument I have seen against Polygamy is that it will be a massive pain in the arse to change all the marriage/pension/tax/inheritance etc laws. Given that they exist for two people at the moment, changing any gender pronouns or whatever was quite simple.

Obviously not a good moral reason against it. Just that the balance of demand to effort will obviously have an effect on it happening.

Why not get rid of marriage completely and solve it that way?

All those people who charge sick prices for shit things just because they are to do with weddings would be jobless. All the money that usually goes to them would go somewhere else which would, by default, be somewhere better. You'd never have to listen to anyone go on about their fucking wedding for months before hand. No stag or hen do ruining your next night out by being appalling cunts. No more money made out of divorce. No more bloody honeymoon pictures when they get back to work. No more stigmatising the single parent, or the single person, or children born out of wedlock. No more adultery. No more shoehorning gods into people's personal relationships. Significant reduction in numbers of people wearing shit gold rings. Churches closing left, right and centre. No more forced marriages. No more dowries, no more honour killings for divorcees.

And one means fewer of cruel people abusing homosexuals through a veil of traditionalism and acceptability.

Of course, getting rid of marriage wouldn't get rid of weddings. People getting 'civil partnered'* still have weddings, as often as not.





*They should be allowed to get married just to stop the horrid abuse to the language that sentence causes

Our rings are platinum.

Mine is titanium and it's awesome.

Ner.

Well, actually, Mrs T's are platinum, mine is titanium too As it was a damn sight cheaper and looks exactly the same.

O/

io

Yeah, well... I've got TWO titanium wedding rings, from two separate weddings to the same woman. Winnar.

O/

So it's mostly your fault.

Gutted, I've only got a bog standard gold one!

Mine is too big now, and I lost it just the other week! It had fallen off into my bag, thank God. I don't wear it any more.

I will not wear one

I have a white gold one.

The Mrs had a platinum one to match her platinum engagement ring (which carries the speshul millennium hall mark).

Not really. Right now, marriage is available between two people, a man and a women who aren't closely related and who are of age and able to make the decision themselves. The change to the law will be to open this up in the sense of it being non-discriminatory regarding gender. That's it. Polygamy is something else entirely (although, with fully consenting adults, I wouldn't give a flying fuck if it was allowed).

Also, the redefinition crowd can fuck right off. Marriage has been redefined countless times over the ages, not least the fact that it in fairly recent history was effectively a transaction without much consent being needed by at least one of the two to be married.

I'm secretly hoping that the ROYAL BABY will be gay, so we can have a Gay Royal Wedding in 20 years time or so. It'd be awesome.

GTFY

But,but, Trooper PROFOUND CONSEQUENCES

Passed second reading 400 to 175.

Excellent! So what happens now?

Your career will be harmed, sorry.

Damnit! Fucking gays!

Committee stage, report and third reading, then onto the Lords.
Of interest will be how its timetabled, though with a vote like that I'd be surprised if it gets kicked into the long grass in the way the Lords Reform bill was.

is this the reason why I've had a shit day at work?

"Why can't I find a church to get married in?"
"It's gay people getting married now. They ruin everything."
"Why is my job so crap?"
"That's the married gay people again."
"Why am I having to explain stuff to children?"
"Married gays, sorry."
"Why am..."
"Gays."

There was some poor wickle picked on bigoted Tory MP on PM this evening complaining about how everyone's calling him a bigot and about how he's not against gay people, and that (and he says this without a trace of irony or self-awareness) he just wants to PROTECT MARRIAGE. If you didn't have a problem with gays then you wouldn't feel the need to protect marriage from them, you utterly bigoted bumptious twat.

That bloke on Today this morning was also saying how no one else in the Western world has done this. Hang on, isn't Spain in the West now?

Just read a piece on the BBC News page (here). Someone from the Coalition for Marriage stated:



Um... I don't think Canadians are thinking 'right! if it's good enough for Elton John it's certainly not appropriate for us! Wedding's off! Eh?'.

Unsurprisingly, my MP voted against.

I've just sent him a short note saying how pleased I am that the bill has passed. Didn't insult or criticise him, but merely to say that I thought the bill is a good thing, and that I hope MPs and peers contribute constructively during the later stages. Might as well spread some love, after all.