Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Gays back Lord’s Amendment, but want it extended.

Coalition for Marriage Equality | 25.06.2004 14:24 | Gender | London | World

Gay Coalition urges ‘one law for all’

The Lord’s amendment to the Civil Partnership Bill has not ‘wrecked it’ or rendered it ‘unworkable’, as Government spokespeople have claimed”, according to The Coalition for Marriage Equality, which includes nearly all gay campaigning groups, except Stonewall.

LONDON, 25 June 2004 – “The Lord’s amendment to the Civil Partnership Bill has not ‘wrecked it’ or rendered it ‘unworkable’, as Government spokespeople have claimed”, according to The Coalition for Marriage Equality, which includes nearly all gay campaigning groups, except Stonewall.

“We welcome any extension of rights and protections to others, regardless of the motives” said CFME spokesperson Brett Lock. “The law should reflect the wide variety of domestic relationships. The Civil Partnership Bill offers a unique opportunity to do so,” he added.

Richard Kirker of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, a Coalition member, agrees. “The government has fallen victim to its own unwillingness to treat lesbian and gay couples equally, and so the Bill became vulnerable to anti-gay manipulation. It is at best a poor offering. While we are sure the government will get back on course in the Commons, we are hardly inspired by [the Bill’s] content, or the government’s performance,” he says in an LGCM statement.

George Broadhead of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association, another Coalition member, said: "The wrecking of this Bill is not a tragedy. The Bill was seeking to create a second-class status for gay relationships. If the Government can’t live with opening it up to all relationships, then it should scrap the whole thing and start again from a standpoint of equality. Gay marriage is the only equitable way to proceed and if we have to play the long game in order to achieve it, then we can wait.”

Peter Tatchell, a supporter of the Coalition added: “The Lords are right to extend Civil Partnerships to carers and other mutually supportive relationships, but they are wrong to exclude heterosexual couples. That’s discrimination. Civil Partnerships should be open to everyone in a relationship of mutual care and commitment; not just gay and unmarried heterosexual couples by but any two people who live together and care for each other.”

The Coalition was formed earlier this year to challenge the ban on same-sex marriage. It includes OutRage!, The Queer Youth Alliance, The Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association, The Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement, the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Group, The National Secular Society, The British Humanist Association, ScotsGay Magazine, and many others.

From the beginning, the Coalition has argued that the only ethically justifiable way forward is to campaign for full legal equality for all, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. This would mean that civil marriage rights would be extended to same-sex couples and that Civil Partnerships would be extended to include heterosexuals as well, including all domestic relationships of mutual support and benefit.

“The principle of equality has always driven the campaign for lesbian and gay rights and we see no reason to change that” the Coalition said in a statement at the beginning of the public debate on Civil Partnerships.

“The Coalition has been calling on the Government to produce a compelling reason why different laws are needed for same- and opposite sex couples. The Government has failed to do so.”

“It is precisely because there is no logically consistent argument to support an Apartheid-style approach to partnerships that the Government finds itself with this dilemma,” says Lock. “This is what we warned them would happen at the outset, but they weren’t listening.”

Nevertheless, the Coalition recognises that Lady O’Cathain and her supporter’s intentions in proposing the amendment came from a homophobic agenda which does not want to see same-sex relationships afforded “moral equivalence” to heterosexual ones.

“Who cares?” says Lock, “we don’t think gay campaigners should be stooping to Lady O’Cathain’s level of sorting relationships into a hierarchy of social value and validity. The law should deal with the reality of people’s lives and treat them compassionately, and above all equally, and not prescribe socially engineered models of domestic ‘perfection’.”

The Coalition calls for even more amendments to the Civil Partnership Bill which will open it up to heterosexual couples as well, while renewing its call on the Government to provide a compelling reason why gay couples should be banned from getting married.

“Let’s call O’Cathain’s bluff” argues Lock, “Let’s see what her Christian Institute supporters say about using the same logic to extend the Civil Partnerships Bill to straight couples as well. Why not? She’s laid the groundwork! Extending marriage to gay couples too will be next. Again, why not? After all, justice is justice. O’Cathain says she doesn’t want the law to be ‘unjust and discriminatory’ and neither do we!”

“More and more heterosexuals who have gay friends or family no longer see a distinction. Soon the Government will have to see sense and follow the example of other European and Commonwealth countries that have opened up marriage and civil partnership schemes to all without discrimination,” says George Broadhead.

“She may have taken the fort, but it will be her Alamo,” Lock concludes. “By succeeding in preventing Civil Partnerships from being ‘gay marriage’, she has inadvertently re-opened the debate as to why there is no gay marriage. Far from preserving marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution, she has provoked even more public discussion on whether same-sex romantic couples s be treated differently from opposite-sex ones.”

ENDS

Coalition for Marriage Equality
- e-mail: media@equalitycoalition.org
- Homepage: http://www.equalitycoalition.org

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech