ten years' waiting, but it's better late than the never we've been told before

[frith_in_thorns]

The UK government is currently running a public consultation on whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

Go and reply to it. It's very quick - you can just check the boxes, even. (I'm assuming you're all in favour - if you aren't I have to wonder if I'm on your flist by accident :P)

I don't see anything that says you have to be a UK citizen to reply.

Comments

[schneefink]

Wow, I'm suddenly slightly impressed by the UK government.
I was amused by the box that basically says "tell us why same-sex marriage should((/should not)) be allowed in no more than 200 words." Yay for debate club training, I guess *g*

[frith_in_thorns]

I will be more impressed if they don't hide the results and lie about them, as they did on the disability-reform consultation (and then try and block FoI requests to see the responses)... yeah, my faith in them is pretty much at an all-time low. But I guess this is an issue the public actually cares about, so I can be hopeful :)

[schneefink]

That's why the "slightly". I compared it to the likelihood of the Austrian government doing the same thing *sigh*

[frith_in_thorns]

I have to say I don't know anything about the situation in Austria in respect to this - from your comment it doesn't sound great :(

[schneefink]

We finally have "registered partnerships" since 2010, but with fewer rights than a marriage. There was a lot of ugly fighting over the bill (adoption rights and especially whether or not the ceremony could be held in the same buildings as civil marriages - both no, btw) and it's unlikely any of the influential parties will dare to change anything anytime soon.

[frith_in_thorns]

That's terribly rubbish :(

[schneefink]

Yep, but it'll get better eventually. Stubborn optimism is the only reason why politics don't drive me crazy ;-)

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

Oops. The anonymous comment came from me. Sorry, didn't realize I wasn't logged in. And here I was wondering why I had to enter captcha data. What I posted was this:

I'm as straight as they come, but I have still completed the survey because I think it's important not to discriminate against non-heterosexuals. It's quite sad that in this day and age, we're even still discussing this.

[frith_in_thorns]

Cool, thank you :) And yeah, this is definitely something we need allies to speak up for :)

(I'm deleting the anon comment, since it seems a bit superfluous to have it twice! I have anon ones set to screened because I keep getting spam.)

[gekkoryu.livejournal.com]

I'm asexual, so I like to think I'm pretty objective when it comes to this kind of thing, but gender is arbitrary. I hope this legislature goes through. Survey completed.

[frith_in_thorns]

:) I find it pretty sad that equality is even a question here. (I'm gay-ace myself.)

[gekkoryu.livejournal.com]

I agree. And if we ignore the discriminatory part of all this nonsense then think of all the resources being wasted on people fighting against it. Ridiculous.

[moon-destiny.livejournal.com]

Voted. :D I like to think that whoever wants to get marry, regardless of their gender and/or sex, I think they should have the right to. (Personally though, I'm kinda very anti-marriage for myself, but I like to think I'm objective enough that I would not want to stand in the way of others' happiness.)

[frith_in_thorns]

I definitely think that it's a choice that everyone needs to make for themselves - but the option needs to be available for everyone.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that link; have just filled it in (with several strident-ish comments). I honestly cannot see any justification for not allowing civil marriages (or religious marriages, admittedly, but I am an atheist, which might affect my judgement somewhat) between same-sex couples. Arguments against it just make me so angry. If civil marriage is a state-only thing, anyway, what possible right do the Church have to dictate how it should be? And if they say that all marriage, even civil marriage, comes under their jurisdiction and needs to conform to Christianity's rules, then I don't want any of it. Civil partnerships for opposite-sex couples too, please.

[frith_in_thorns]

Not to mention, not all religions are opposed to same-sex marriage - the UK Quakers have been agreed for several years now that they want to be able to marry same-sex couples.
And there are no real reasons against it that don't boil down to "I don't like queer people and don't think they should get the same rights as me". I also put quite a lot of strident comments into the form!
/has a lot of ~feelings on this

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I love Quakerism - there's probably something bad about it that I haven't yet heard, but everything I know about it sounds awesome.

Ugh, yes. I just can't understand the other reasons. I mean, I understand the words in the phrase "Marriage can only be between a man and a woman", but I just cannot get my head around it as a viewpoint. I don't see how it's anything other than bigotry, really.

[frith_in_thorns]

You probably don't know Claire, one of my housemates (and ex-gf), but she's a Quaker and was one of the people responsible for getting this pushed thorough *is very proud to know her*. And they do sound pretty awesome.

And I've never heard an argument that wasn't either "the bible says (inconclusively)" or "I don't like gay people". Which are both terrible arguments.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Oh, how cool! And yes, they're dreadful arguments.

[maerynsen.livejournal.com]

Well, if you do have to be a UK citizen, they weren't doing a very good job of enforcing it, because I just filled it out. \o\ Thank you for sharing that!