Your last paragraph says it all really. Which goes for Civil Partnership as well. It is what they make of their union. Having a fetish about calling it marriage is an oddity and to what purpose?

Religion came after human marriage rituals in this part of the world. So, throwing in the idea of it being a religious dogma was designed to side track. And as such gets away from the core of the issue.

Marriage between opposite sexes is a vow between them and only them as no other circumstance fits that situation. It is a gift from man to woman and woman to man. They give it to each other and the children of that union as well as to their entire extended family and the community they live in. It is their promise of fidelity, their promise to support each other through their differences. Not through their sameness.

We need a law that says anything not in a manifesto has to be put to a referenda.

We also need a law that says MPs are held to their commitments on the stump.

If you say, as John Redwood did, that he will publish the pensions debts then he has to be held to them. If he doesn’t, then that is grounds for a recall. Ditto for the lib dems and their commitments over tuition fees.

It’s democracy.

1. If you don’t tell people when voting, and then go ahead and do it when you haven’t asked them, its not democratic. It’s a dictatorship. It’s fascist.

2. If you tell people you are going to do something, then do the opposite, its fraud.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that gays have been excluded from marriage. I don’t think the majority of people go into marriage with the same ideas as you do Maude or think that gay couples, who have now gained greater tolernace amongst most people, should continue to be discriminated against.

Gays couples in CPs are on average faithful. However, like married couples it doesn’t always work out like that. I prefer couples to work out things first rather than cry out adultery and ask for an instant divorce based on that. As for children, no-one expects the married couple to have children. It’s their decision and personally I would plan first when to have a baby rather than be put under pressure to have a baby becuase I’m now married.

As for straights CPs versus gay CPs then the govt has made it clear that this will be reviewed. I don’t even know whether that means getting rid of CPs and replacing it with a more French like system like PACS. It needs a lot more thought put into it rather than saying we now need straight CPs becuase we’re going to have same sex marriage.

It’s interesting that now France has both PACS and same sex marriage, British gay couples in CPs,working or living in France ,will still be recognised as the equivalent of PACSed couples. In France PACS couples have lesser rights than married couples. Dutch and Spanish gay married couples, however, will now benefit from more rights in France than us British couples.

Just shows CPs are different to marriages and could well lead to us being less well off when we take our CP civil status abroad with us.

According to this poll, 77% of the population want marriage to remain as it is in its traditional form.

http://www.catholicvoices.org.uk/monitor-blog/2012/06/cv-publishes-first-ever-poll-gay-attitudes-same-sex-marriage

But a referendum, as was called for by many, would have settled this argument once and for all. Wonder why they didn’t want it? Couldn’t be because the truth would out. Could it?

If the HoL reject the SSM do you think that the govt has a legitimate right to use the Parliament Act to get it thru and would you both think that it is not right for the HoL to vote down a bill that had such a huge majority in favour of it in the Commons?

I voted for my MP but I have no say in who becomes a peer and I have no opportunity in a general elction to get rid of any peer. They are there for life, some who have responded to me and said no to gay marriage are in their 90s. I would be thoroughly disappointed if the Hol scuppered this bill when my MP voted for it and there had been a massive cross party majority in the commons. How could the Lords vote for Lord Dear’s “fatal motion” on the 3rd June when their main purpose is scrutiny and not scuppering bills they simply don’t like the idea of.

Do you think that the general public would be happy with an unelected body of people voting down such a bill which has had such a big support in the commons?

Where did you read in my post that it was a requirement of marriage? It is an expectation of marriage. Marriage between a man and a woman was conceived in order to celebrate conception and the joining of two distinct families within one unit to add to those families. It was also conceived to remind those taking such a step that they were entering into a relationship of one unit, which is called fidelity. Which, from my understanding, gay marriage does not require this pledge. So same sex marriage cannot exist for it is based on a pretense of meaning.

What possible reason do gay couples have for a marriage ceremony that creates a ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ For, they can never be either of those things to those they choose to partner.

The relationship between two men or two women is taken care of under legislation by offering up civil partnership, which is theirs for the taking, should they wish to participate. And how clever to realise that by having this ‘right’ they are reducing the rights of other citizens as it is for ‘Gays’ alone. Hence the sudden push for heterosexual civil partnership. Again wanting to reduce the meaning of an infinite difference regarding the entity of human marriage. Which is something that exists as a particular and discrete unit, consisting of unconnected distinct parts.

Mixed doubles cannot take place between two men or two women. That eliminates the contest before it’s begun. It cannot be a horse race unless only horses are in it. If you admit camels into a horse race it becomes a camel and horse race. No. What is really taking place here is an act by government to remove the fact of gender. What will you call the Wimbledon mixed doubles if you cannot refer to or accept that we have two distinct gender differences with quite separate biological factors and needs? And why should any of us want to give up our gender ‘rights’ in order to pretend we have no real and very desirable differences? I don’t want to be a man, as wonderful as men are, they are ‘different’ from me. Not to mention I love their difference and don’t want to emulate it or pretend I don’t find it extremely exciting in its existence.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/husband

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/wife

Without these two distinctive parts, matrimony loses its clarification.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/matrimony

Civil partnership is what two people of the same sex have. Matrimony stems from the word, mother. Which is the essence of the relationship called marriage.

What you suggest, by way of a back door analysis, is a nonsense. Marriage takes place between a man and wife. And same sex marriage can never bring that situation about.

Pretending to be other than what one is, is not reality. It is a faux situation and no legislation can change that fact.

Out of interest are you going to support this bill in the House of Lords? I think the author of this blog, Lord Norton ,is and I hope the majority of the other peers will follow suit.

If you do not support the bill, then why not?

The state gets out of the marriage business.

The only thing that should concern the state is the enforcement of contracts, and the welfare of children.

So you can have any marriage contract you want, and you go to court to enforce it. Catholic, Muslim, Athiest, Polygamist, you name it, you can have it.

However, there are laws already in existence that mean people cannot walk away from their children. Enforce those.

Then there is no issue. Catholics have their contract. Gays can have theirs. Polygamists can have theirs too. Each to their own.