Time is running out to respond to the Government’s consultation on equal civil marriage which has been implemented by our own Lynne Featherstone.
It’s really important that everyone who believes in equal marriage should make sure that their voice is heard.
The consultation closes a week tomorrow, 14th June. Don’t leave it till the last minute – make sure you do it today.
If you’re unsure about the issues, those nice people at LGBT+ Lib Dems have prepared a helpful pack which outlines all the issues and arguments.
I also thought you might like to see the video Cambridge Liberal Democrat Councillor Sarah Brown did for the Out 4 Marriage campaign, which was reported in Pink News recently. She talks very movingly about how she and her wife had to dissolve their marriage in 2009 and opt for a civil partnership. She describes how painful it was to have their years of marriage “confiscated by the state”.
If you think that this sort of treatment, described by Lynne Featherstone as “cruel and unusual” is unacceptable, make sure you reply to the consultation to add weight to the case for change.
The opponents of equality have been working hard to make sure that their side is well represented, as they did in Scotland. Here, over 50,000 responses were received, 23,000 of them through the Equality Network’s Equal Marriage campaign. Don’t miss your chance to secure equality. Go here to the official consultation website and do it now.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The mysterious mole men of New York caught on video
Doing better? The goal must be Sufficeincy
Michael Meadowcroft (1942-2026) - A Liberal to His Core
Labour deputy claims that Farage is a threat to democracy
Jason Connor
Mick Taylor
Chloe
theakes
Kira Collins
6 Comments
This is serious – the forces of marginally-religious hatred are pushing their bile hard. We need a strong positive response to this consultation. We’re so close to winning this one – don’t think for a moment that it isn’t worth the five minutes it’ll take you to go and fill out the consultation.
Lynne Featherstone was on Gaydar Radio at breakfast time today talking about it – see LGBT+ Lib Dems website.
I’m sorely tempted to sit on my hands this time, because I think that many LGBT members of the party has failed to push the rest of the party’s (former) agenda sufficiently. While I have no problem with the reform (and I would allow straight civil partnerships, too) and I sympathise with those LGBT friends who are appalled by the Coalition, it is clear that many LGBT members were only ever here to push this one issue, and are now happily supporting neo-liberal economics, austerity budgets and the like. They never believed in the enabling social liberal society I did. Well, put frankly, you have stopped scratching my back, and so I am – temporarily at least – ceasing to scratch yours. That’s how politics is, I’m afraid. I support you, but I don’t feel so strongly about it that I am prepared to work for the causes most important to you, if you fail to support (for example) free education and healthcare, which are important to me.
You are not a Liberal, and I very much doubt you are or ever were an LD.
I freely acknowledge that people who support the anti-gay campaign exist. I just think that you have to be stopped.
“I freely acknowledge that people who support the anti-gay campaign exist. I just think that you have to be stopped.”
What a strange comment to make to someone who has said he supports the proposals, but doesn’t feel sufficiently strongly that he is prepared to work for the cause.
While it’s difficult to see any real argument against same-sex marriage that’s not essentially based on prejudice, one has to wonder whether it’s quite as vital as it’s being made out to be. Indeed, I can’t help wondering whether it’s actually more important as an internal morale booster for the Lib Dems than it is to the gay community. Certainly this poll published in the Telegraph today suggests than only a minority of LGBT respondents see it as a priority, while more than a quarter think there’s no need for it at all:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9317177/Gay-marriage-poll-suggests-doubts-in-gay-community.html
@ Andrew Suffield – You think that I am not a liberal because I may choose (temporarily, as it happens) not to actively campaign on an issue YOU consider essential? I would suggest that is you who do not understand liberalism!
For the record, I am not ‘an anti-gay campaigner’ and have been a card carrying Liberal/Liberal Democrat for longer than you have been alive, Andrew. I had hoped that my sincerely felt comments might give some LGBT campaigners pause for thought about how betrayed many Liberal Democrats feel on other issues. Politics is about building coalitions; I believe in well funded, locally accessible, locally democratically accountable, secular, education and health care, and I am opposed to tuition fees. These things are VERY important to me. You presumably believe strongly in gay marriage. We can work together in a united party to achieve both, or fail separately. Which would you prefer? I have no objection to gay marriage, and I am prepared to work with you, but if you support tuition fees, which I abhor, why should I bother to help you?