Comments

1
Still has to get through House of Lords, but it is really exciting news.

Plus, the rifts it has caused in the Conservative party mean that the Tories are very likely to be on their way out in 2015.

Two reasons to celebrate really!
2
UK is going 21st century..they are on the leading edge of hydrogen too!

Hydrogen power ‘will be mainstream in the UK by 2025’

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/green-…
3
Didn't the British invent buggery? Or was the Greeks?
4
Difficult to get anything past the Lords, though, as it's hard to get them all awake at the same time, and then their nurses have to feed them....
5
David Cameron has absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. On the contrary, his inclusion of everyone inside (small c) conservative institutions like marriage is a model conservatives everywhere would be well advised to adopt.
6
The trouble with Britain is that, dreadful though the Tories are on so many things, Labour is always much, much worse. They (Labour) do what the Republicans do here, they spend too much money and then wait for the Tories to fix it, then they spoil everything again.
7
saying that it still needs to get past the house of lords is a bit misleading, all they can do is slow down legislation they cant stop it. If the lords disagree with policy sent to them by the house of commons they can vote it down which sends it back to the house of commons with a note explaining the reasons why they "implore them to reconsider" but if it passes the commons a second time (which it will) it becomes law. The queen has a similar authority though it is even more rarely used.
8
@6 so vote Liberal Democrat, Clegg's party.
9
@8, hah hah hah hah

Seriously, Lib Dems are hopeless maroons who should all be killed. I think their "alliance" with the Tories has destroyed their chances forever, thanks to their "we will do whatever you say and ask for nothing in return even though we disagree with all of it, because we have less integrity than a house made of gelatine" policy.
10
My favorite bit of mind-bending nonsense from the Conservatives came from one Nadine Dorries, MP from Mid Bedfordshire:
In a heterosexual marriage a couple can divorce for adultery, and adultery is if you have sex with a member of the opposite sex. In a heterosexual marriage a couple vow to forsake all others ... A gay couple have no obligation to make that vow [to faithfulness] because they do not have to forsake all others because they cannot divorce for adultery. There is no requirement of faithfulness. And if there is no requirement of faithfulness, what is a marriage?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/…
11
@2: So the entire UK will have mainstream hydrogen energy deployed 10 years before Federal Way gets a fricking subway station. And you guys wonder why we're ripshit.
12
@10: "adultery is if you have sex with a member of the opposite sex."
Man, I've been an adulterer every time I've dipped my wick! Shiiit.
13
@10, that's a special kind of logic being employed there. I'm almost impressed with that new argument. She didn't bring up kids or religion just the apparent inability of gays to commit adultery which is ... something. I have no words.
14
@gloomy_gus, Nadine Dorries is an utter joke of an MP (she spent three weeks of parliamentary time on a reality TV show last year). I too found her statement utterly insane.

I would not be surprised if she proposes an amendment that allows her to check every married woman's vagina to check that their hymens are good and broken. Because she is all about the act of consummation.
15
@6 So, Labour spent too much, and the Tories have to clean up after them.

Tell me again, how are the Tories doing at fixing the budget and economy there?
16
@2. I know several professional drivers in London who have added propane to their very high end luxury cars (Mercedes S500 and S600's and BMW 7 series) From the performance, etc you'd never know that they had done this, and the only thing coming out of the tail pipe is water.

Nearly every model car is available with several diesel engine options. The Audi A6 TDI gets nearly 50 mpg. Ford, Chrysler, GM ALL sell an extensive array of diesel engines. I don't understand why they aren't common place here.

Sorry to get off track.
17
While a good sign, it hasn't passed the House of Commons yet. This was a vote on second reading. It still must get through floor debate and be voted on for final passage. Only then will it go to the House of Lords. It is possible (though unlikely) that it could get enough votes to get through second reading, yet stll fail after a floor debate.
18
As a British expat lefty, it is very rare that I get the opportunity to praise my homeland's government for something. So I shall take the opportunity.

David Cameron demonstrated several things here. First, he might be a Tory, but he's not an old-school homophobic Tory of the type that gave us Section 28. Second, he is willing to drag Britain into the 21st century. And third, he's willing to work with the Opposition and against members of his own party if it means he can actually do the right thing (on this one issue at least). And that took guts. He should be proud of himself for what he did yesterday.

Americans would do well to note that in this case, you've got a right-wing party pushing through pro-gay legislation. In Europe, gay rights are not really a left-right issue any more. Yes, more right-wingers are homophobic than left-wingers, obviously. But plenty of people who vote for the (mainstream) right-wing parties in Britain, France, Germany and Spain are happy to support gay marriage and other gay-rights causes. It would be nice if more Republicans realised that you don't have to hate gay people in order to support free-market policies or the inalienable second-amendment right to get shot: it's not compulsory to be a bigot just because you want to support these other policies.
19
Oh, and as someone living in Australia, it would be nice if our Prime Minister - who's an atheist living with her boyfriend, so she doesn't have the Bible as a defence - would bend to the will of the people, and her own party, and let gay people here get married. Surely if Cameron can do it against the will of his party to do the right, Gillard could do the right thing in accordance with the wishes of her party?
20
@18, thank you for pointing that out about Cameron. Too many Americans think that all conservatives no matter the country they are from are the same. The reality is, American Conservatives are a breed unto their own...and no one wants us exporting them.

I don't like Cameron or the Tories, I can find some areas I can respect their opinions on, but I don't hate and despise them like I do the American GOP.
21
@ 10, 12, 13, 14

To be fair she is criticizing the bill because of how it's written. As the bill is written, adultery only exists for straight couples because the writers of the bill did not include a requirement of same sex marriages to be consummated (as is required under British law for marriages at this time) and because the writers of the bill could not come up with a definition of what same sex consummation requires.

Of course, she is using this as an excuse to vote against the law since many lawyers believe that this is just a technicality and really no big deal.

More on this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics…
22
@18

Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I disagree with most of what the current UK Conservative Party does, but I don't hate them - the European centre-right is ... well, centre-right. They have economic policies that I don't think are ideal, but I accept that it's a matter of opinion. Whereas the American right.... on guns, healthcare, gay rights and a million other things, I don't think it's a matter of opinion - they're just wrong. And a lot of their policies seem to be built on mistrust, nastiness, bigotry and selfishness, which isn't to my mind, the best set of principles on which to build policy.

You're right about not wanting to export American Conservatism. Unfortunately, Australia's Tony Abbott seems to be very keen to import it. Hopefully the next election will consign him to the dustbin of history.
23
Actually one of the most embarrassing things to happen around this was on "yoof" radio, a 20 year old chaste Christian woman unable to congratulate a young gay man for getting engaged, and telling him he could get professional help for his homosexual thoughts and be happy in a heterosexual marriage. I thought THAT only happened in the US.
24
I was there with some friends in the Houses of Parliament when it went through, in a meeting waiting to hear the result. It was an amazing feeling, even though we all knew it wasn't the very end of the journey with the Lords and related stuff to get through. Even so, it was a truely historical moment! And the size of the majority showed how much things had changed over the last 50 years.
I proposed actual marriage to my civil partner as soon as we left the building. Time to start saving and planning! (Again)
25
The French Parliament, who is still working on the details of it all, voted 149 for and 97 against turning "marriage is a contract signed between two individuals of different sexes" into "marriage is a contract signed between two individuals of the same or different sexes".

Why didn't they just turn it into "marriage is a contract signed between two individuals" and leave it at that? Beats me.

Still lots of debating going on right now though. Most of the controversy seems to be about the fact that with marriage will come adoption rights, which same sex couples don't have access to so far (they can adopt individually but not adopt each other's children, even when they are in a civil union).

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