Gay marriages to be made legal.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....gal-Britain-2015.html

/// At present, gays and lesbians are allowed to enter civil partnerships, which offer most of the legal protections of marriage. But the term ‘marriage’ is not used.///

In a time when more important matters should be on politicians minds, why is the term 'Marriage' that important to homosexuals, that politicians find the need to change the law, specially to accommodate them?

[Sqad]

craft.....one has to be one of the "grown ups" to answer that question....

[craft1948]

lol it was said 'tongue in cheek'.................

[Sqad]

craft.....so was mine LOL.......

[RATTER15]

Craft, stop being salacious !!!!!!! ;)

[DrFilth]

i was expecting a dead big grown up answer from sqad :)

[RATTER15]

oh yes, so was mine!

[craft1948]

At the moment gay couples can have a civil partnership and hetero couples have a marriage. If gay couples will be able to get married them presumably hetero couples will be able to have a civil partnership.............

[Kromovaracun]

"I just believe in the sancity of marriage, ie, the joining of a man and a woman and the raising of a family. "

This is an interesting point and I'm glad someone's raised it.

What I'd ask is: Has the conception of marriage changed at all over time? Every human society I can think of has some kind of equivalent to marriage at least. Even if you take the 'man and woman' definition of marriage, hasn't that changed over time too? Hasn't it changed, say, since the pre-industrial days when it was just a part of financial/property relations? Hasn't it changed since the days of tribal societies?

This may seem a facetious point, but it's important. If the answer to the above questions is 'yes', then is there any reason to suppose that in our own day and age the concept/definition of marriage is just seeing another in a long line of changes?

[jackthehat]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11625835

[DrFilth]

tinnitus

[Barmaid]

Kromo makes a good point. Certainly if you go back a few hundred years marriage had different consequences to what it does now. A woman for instance only had rights through her father and was subject to his whim and control, her property belonged to her husband and she was subject to his wishes. For those who are on second marriages, until 1551, it was thought that marriage was indissoulable. Even then for several hundred years it required a private Act of Parliament in order to get divorced. From 1753 to 1837 the only valid marriage was one undertaken with a religious ceremony. Children born outside of a marriage were illegitimate and had no property rights and that illegitimacy could not be corrected by later marriage (except, again, in the case of a private act of parliament).

Now we have the situation where one can marry and divorce as many times as one wishes, the woman is no longer the property and under the control of her husband, a religious aspect to the ceremony is not required, the stigma of illegitimacy has been removed - I see this as progress. So why not allow progress to continue?

[anotheoldgit]

In their continues quest for equality with heterosexuals, I wonder if gays will soon want to be classed as 'Straight'?

[Barmaid]

If this society wasn't so keen on slapping labels on people because of their colour, creed, race, sexual orientation, disability etc that point wouldn't even arise. My view is, it is none of my goddamn business.

What's wrong with "person", instead of "gay person", "straight person" etc?

[anotheoldgit]

/// The Home Office also made clear that one option that will not be included in the formal consultation on reforming the marriage laws is giving heterosexual couples reciprocal rights to civil partnership ceremonies. ///

One law for one but not the other it seems.

Time for the equalities minister to look into this little matter.

[ChuckFickens]

Why are people so concerned about something that essentially doesn't effect them? So what if gay and/or lesbian couple are allowed to get married, all it means to most the people that have commented negativity about this is other people will be allowed to live their lives as they want to, just because it's legal it's not going to mean that everyone will be forced to find a same sex partner and marry them.

Personally I couldn't care less if same sex couples are allowed to marry, it's not going to effect me and if that's what other people want to do then so be it.

[jackthehat]

I am not striving to be known as 'straight'.........'equal' will do me very nicely, thankyou.

[joko]

im not sure of the legalities of the 2 and if they both offer equal legal rights etc, and if it is pretty much the same then on one hand im not sure why they are so bothered about the terminology used...but the fact is, many obviously are bothered and feel real marriage to be want they want... so wheres the harm in giving it to them...why fight it?

if a civil partnership is as near as dammit the same thing anyway - whats the difference?

i realise AOG you were commenting on the fact that there are more important issues to consider so why waste time on this...
well when will there ever be a time when there isnt more important issues? there will ALWAYS be something more important than this to deal with... which is why they have lots of staff who can deal with the lesser issues too, alongside the laregr ones...
its not like more important stuff has been discarded for this...there is not only one person sorting things out....

[anneasquith]

this may be slightly off the original op. but i recently saw 2 gay females getting married ( CP ) one was dressed in traditional female bridal wear ie dress . and the other was dressed in male bridal wear ie suit. and i just wondered is this " normal " in same sex " marriages " ?