British MPs approve gay marriage – and ‘show contempt for God’

By Barry Duke • 10 years ago

Feb
2013

STEPHEN Green, the violent Christian zealot who hates gays with the sort of passion one only associates with pathetic self-loathers, reacted to news that MPs approved same-sex marriage in England and Wales by saying on his Christian Voice website:

MPs have shown contempt for God, the scriptures, our Christian heritage and six thousand years of human understanding.

The Commons voted in favour of the The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, by 400 to 175, a majority of 225, at the end of a day’s debate on the bill.

According to this report, Prime Minister David Cameron has described the move as “an important step forward” that strengthens society.

About 140 Conservative MPs are thought to have voted against the plans.

Former children’s minister and Conservative MP Tim Loughton told the BBC that he believed “140 or so” of his party colleagues had voted against the plans, along with a “small rump of Labour MPs” and “four Lib Dem MPs”.

He added:

Apparently there are 132 Conservative MPs who voted in favour, so I think what we’re going to see is that more Conservative MPs voted against this legislation than for it.

Opening the debate, Equalities Minister Maria Miller urges MPs to back the bill, and Deputy Prime Minister and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg said:

I genuinely believe that we will look back on today as a landmark for equality in Britain. Tonight’s vote shows Parliament is very strongly in favour of equal marriage. No matter who you are and who you love, we are all equal. Marriage is about love and commitment, and it should no longer be denied to people just because they are gay. The Liberal Democrats have long fought for equal marriage. It is party policy and I am proud that the Liberal Democrats are part of the coalition government that are making it happen.

But Conservative MP David Burrowes predicted that the legislation would receive substantial opposition when it arrived in the House of Lords.

Hat tip: Agent Cormac

The Author

Barry Duke

Veteran journalist Barry Duke, born in South Africa in 1947, settled in the UK in 1973, where he became actively involved in the anti-apartheid movement and gay rights organisations. A militant atheist, he joined the National Secular Society (NSS) and was a co-founder in 1979 of the Gay Humanist Group which changed its name to the Gay & Lesbian Humanist Association in 1987. In 2017 he was handed a Lifetime Achievement award by the NSS for his "spirited opposition to religious intolerance and irrationality" in his roles as a free speech advocate and his work as editor of the Freethinker and the Pink Triangle Trust website. In 2022, when the Freethinker suddenly went "woke", he was summarily sacked for being too aggressively atheistic. In 2017 he was married to his partner of 25 years, Marcus Robinson, in Gibraltar. The couple live in Benidorm, Spain.