Is gay marriage supported by anyone outside Parliament?

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield.

A NUMBER of letters (Yorkshire Post, May 28 and 29) include so much that I agree with in the current political and social spheres.

None more than FW Pate who covers a range of vital areas needing a re-think by our elected representatives. May I just add how devalued I feel my life-long principles have become?

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Born in a workhouse to a single mother, with a background in the mining industry, Royal Navy, police and retiring as a probation officer, this 78-year-old father of four – married for 54 years – feels whole areas of his life have, in the past few years, become increasingly devalued.

On top of seeing the ‘justice system’ I had stood for 50 years or more stood on its head, I now find our marriage redefined and I’m puzzled about my legal position. By expressing belief and support for traditional ‘holy matrimony’ it infers, correctly, I am against same-sex marriage – legal or not?

It has concerned me that 
so much legislation has evolved with so little apparent support from the electorate but none more than the recent decisions on same-sex marriage.

Recent opinion surveys should be heeded by the aforementioned.

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I have felt from the outset of these Parliamentary debates that they would further damage political democracy for the wider electorate which, in turn, will be reflected in even less turn-out at the next general and subsequent elections. The damage to democracy may become irreparable, I fear.

From: Coun Nader Fekri JP, (Labour and Co-op), Calder Ward, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

HEAVEN knows I’m no fan of the current Coalition Government, but credit where credit’s due. Namely the pushing through of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill with support from the Labour Party. The size of the majority (366 – 161) shows that Parliament is actually far more in tune with the country at large, than the Tory Party will ever be.

Over the past decade, opinion polls have consistently shown general support for equal marriage among Britons, with those in favour outnumbering those against by two-to-one. And an even larger proportion believing that gay relationships have the same value as straight ones.

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Which is why it is even more disappointing that our local Conservative MP, Craig Whittaker, not only voted against the Bill but was so vocal in doing so, joining other opponents of the Bill, who spit bile against an “aggressive homosexual community” like Lord Tebbit who worried that he’d be allowed “to marry” his son.

It all took me back to the same week in 1988 when the then Tory Government enacted Section 28 of the Local Government Act. This stated that local authorities should not “promote” homosexuality nor “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.

The reality is that we as a society have moved on so far and become more progressive, and that the British population as a whole hold highly accepting attitudes toward LGBT rights, celebrating that their love is worth the same as anybody else’s love.

Let’s hope that the House of Lords recognises this and votes accordingly.

From: Martin D. Stern, Hanover Gardens, Salford.

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AS far as I can see, the only 
way out of the current disputes is that the state should only legislate for “civil partnerships”, and entirely eschew the word “marriage”, while recognising marriages performed within religious communities as qualifying as such for its purposes.

What the state chooses to call “marriage” should be irrelevant to religious communities so long as it does not force its definition on them. Perhaps the time has come for the “divorce” of civil and religious marriage.

From: Jim Beck, Lindrick Grove, Tickhill, Doncaster.

AS a student of language, to me the issue of so-called gay marriage is a simple matter of semantics. Back in the mists of time copper and tin were combined into an alloy called bronze.

If today a new alloy were made from say copper and gold then no one would suggest that it too should be called bronze; a new word would be coined for it rather than trying to stuff another meaning into an existing word.

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Similarly, a ceremonial union between a man and a woman was for hundreds of years called a marriage, a precise word to describe a particular state of affairs. So surely a union between same sex couples should likewise be given a new defining noun, avoiding any confusion about its meaning; the commitment between the couple would be no less on that account and the beautiful English language would not thereby be brutally mangled.

Oh sorry, I forgot, the legal term “civil partnership” already exists.