TUV Responds to "Equal Marriage" Consultation
15 June 2012
Traditional Unionist Voice today released the Party’s response to HMG’s consultation on “gay marriage”. Commenting on the submission TUV leader and North Antrim MLA Jim Allister said:
“In our detailed response to the Government’s consultation TUV makes the basic points that marriage is intrinsically the union of a man and a woman. This has been recognised throughout history and across all cultures. Marriage benefits society in many ways – not least because it includes the possibility of procreation.
“Even if one believes that a government has a right to enact legislation changing something which has been in existence from the beginning of time, one cannot argue that the current government has an electoral mandate to do it as neither the Conservative nor the Liberal Democrat manifestos contained a commitment on the issue.
“TUV is opposed to granting those in existing civil partnerships the right to convert their civil partnerships to marriages. It is noteworthy that when the civil partnership legislation was being debated back in 2004 Jackie Smith stated: “The whole point, however, is that civil partnership is not civil marriage, for a variety of reasons, such as the traditions and history—religious and otherwise—that accompany marriage. It is not marriage” (House of Commons, 9th November 2004).
“Yet now, as many predicted, civil partnership is being used as a stepping stone to full “marriage”.
“We believe that HMG’s attempts to draw a distinction between what the consultation describes as religious and civil marriages is bogus as there is no such distinction in law. In fact, the Government’s own consultation document concedes as much. Therefore the supposed protection provided to churches is highly suspect and may well be open to challenge.
“While the consultation relates only to the law in England and Wales it is interesting to note that HMG “will be considering the implications of any changes to the legislation of England and Wales and of Scotland for the recognition of marriage and/or civil partnerships. This also applies to the position in Northern Ireland” (paragraph 2.37).
“TUV believes there should have been greater clarity when it came to the implications of these proposed changes in Northern Ireland. Will a “gay marriage” performed in Great Britain be recognised in Northern Ireland?
“There also have to be serious questions asked about the whole consultation process. How, for example, was Peter Tatchell able to say in an article published on 31st March that: “So far, we are outnumbered by opponents of same-sex marriage. This is disastrous. We’ve only got two weeks to reverse this imbalance”? Was Mr Tatchell given access to privileged information?
“Indeed, one does have to question why the Government is bothering to have a consolation process at all when in an interview with The Independent in March Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone said that her mind is already made up and gave a "cast-iron guarantee" that civil gay marriage would become law by the next general election in 2015. "There is no rolling back whatsoever. The essential question is not whether we are going to introduce same-sex civil marriage but how."
“Such a dictatorial attitude and disregard for the consultation process is completely unacceptable.”
TUV’s full submission to the consultation is online here.
