Gay Marriage, MPs vote next week Options

[Simon Kirby]

MPs vote next week on Gay Marriage - see the bill. It's a free vote so MPs will be voting with their conscience and not along party lines.

The act will give same-sex couples some of the same rights to marry as those enjoyed by opposite-sex couples, but intolerant religious groups will still be free to discriminate against gay couples who want to marry in their buildings, and the Church of England specifically will not be free to host a gay wedding even if the parish priest wanted to.

Dear Mr. Benyon

I'm married, and have been for the last 26 years. My marriage, and the public celebration of the committment that it signifies, has and will always be the single most significant act of my life. I can't imagine how intolerable it must be for other couples to be denied that same recognition of their love and committment for no better reason than their common gender.

I'm not happy that the discriminatory views of the religious have been protected in the Bill. No one has supernatural authority for their point of view, and this debate has made it clear to me that the disestablishment of the Church of England is well overdue.

Please support the Bill.