Jingsamichty

That's a very diplomatic way of saying that we're a bunch of godless heathens.

JonboyE

It is almost as if it is deliberately discriminatory and patronizing.

We "normal" people get married but you queers, well, you can have a civil partnership. Now, go away and stop being a nuisance.

I prefer your idea. Everyone has a civil partnership. Then you can go and bother whichever God you want. And call it what you want.

London-England-Lads

Civil Partnership is a legal arrangement.

Marriage is about equality, love and a chance to express our love in certain places of worships should we wish !

London-England-Lads

Tonight was a free vote - hence they take lots of things into consideration, but in the end vote on their own belief.

iaink

Im pretty sure marriage is a legal arrangement too. My wife certainly thinks so...

Mind you, we got married in Vegas, Im not sure that counts as a place of worship. Actually, maybe it is, but its probably not the kind of things we should be worshiping

London-England-Lads

Tonight was a free vote - hence they take lots of things into consideration, but in the end vote on their own belief.

London-England-Lads

You may all mainly be atheists - but all understand emotions and equalities !

London-England-Lads

HA, it is but it is also so much more .... tell your wife she took you "For Better, For Worse".

dbd33

I dunno that it'd help in a mosque or a synagogue, that's too fine a hair for most religionists to split.

Alan2005

I agree. I suspect it wasn't meant to be and is just the sort of half-arsed compromise that politicians come up with to try and piss off the fewest people.

Which is what it should be as far as the state is concerned. For tax, inheritance, power of attorney, that kind of thing.

That should be a private matter for the two of you and whichever organization you wish to perform your ceremony. The state shouldn't be in any ones bedroom.

In this case people that abstain they are either

a) ...bigots and don't want to admit it

or

b) ...ok with it, but think their electorate is full of bigots.

Shard

+1
Good sum-up.

Jingsamichty

That's pretty much what happens, isn't it? You sign the register, that's the legal thing. You can do it it a shellsuit at the Registry office, with a golden coach and half the country watching at Westminster Abbey, and these days probably in the penalty box at Anfield if you so wish. The basic marriage certificate is the same, the rest is just fluff.

But this Bill STILL doesn't give gay couples the right to get married in the UK's established church, the official church of the country.

Given the number of homosexual clergy in the CoE, I think their hypocrisy is indefensible.

Alan2005

I think vicars and what-not must have to do a course on hypocrisy when they go to church school.

jimf

I though there was a legal issue or problem with the CP equivalent of divorce?

Almost Canadian

Why the use of emotive language? Why can't you simply accept that some may have a different opinion to you, but still believe you are entitled to your opinion?