The Crown's power to veto an act of Parliament is pretty much theoretical nowadays; the last monarch to veto an act was George IV in the 1820s, who several times refused Royal Assent to a bill that would have let Catholics hold public office (he did end up giving assent in 1829.) Royal veto has not been used since.
So regardless of the Queen's personal feelings, she had no effective choice but to give Assent; refusing would have caused a constitutional crisis and very likely would have ended the monarchy.
And my British straight marriage is still completely unruined. Who'd have thought. I did divorce once, but that was because he was a lazy slob, not because Elton John.
Belize: Look at that heady sky.
Louis: Purple.
Belize: Purple? Boy, what kind of homosexual are you? That's not purple, Mary! That color out there...is MAUVE.
@12, The Queen is the Supreme Governor of the C of E, the Archbishop of Canterbury is in fact the head of the church. In any case I believe it was part of the legislation [to make it palatable to conservatives] that churches would have to "opt in" and the C of E was actually prohibited from doing so.
Ophian @14: I'm going to guess you at least minored in religious studies. I went to USF, a Jesuit university, for two years before I transferred to Berkeley and it made an impression. Which is my roundabout way of saying I find church nerds hot.
@16, nah...art school drop-out, myself. But I am a comparative religion geek. Favorite topic: serpent as symbol, and its inversion in the Abrahamic traditions [Ophian is a reference to early gnostic 'snake' sects]. ;)
@1: the original design for the LGBT rainbow flag had seven colors (or colours, in this case) although it's rare to see that now. So "since when" would have been about 1980 or so.
@25: technically, yes. The original original 1977 flag had a hot pink stripe at the top. However those were hand stitched flags. Demand for the flag spiked after the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978, so hand-stitched flags were no longer practical; the materials for the pink strip were hard to obtain, so the number of stripes was reduced to seven, then finally stablized at six after about 1979-1980.
[But since when has it been Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet...Periwinkle?]
So regardless of the Queen's personal feelings, she had no effective choice but to give Assent; refusing would have caused a constitutional crisis and very likely would have ended the monarchy.
Hooray for the queer old dean!
Oh, and yay for marriage equality in England & Wales. Now it's time for Scotland and Ireland to catch up.
C'mon Scotland - and Ireland, too, but I know it'll take you guys a while longer.......
Louis: Purple.
Belize: Purple? Boy, what kind of homosexual are you? That's not purple, Mary! That color out there...is MAUVE.
Angels in America, Tony Kushner
I think I have that mostly right.
@13, a great line.
I've found my people!
@20, welcome clashfan.
*And anyhow none of them used periwinkle...or is that a light lilac?
I rather like "Mr. O", very kind of Histoire d', or Kafaka, or Russian realist: Mr. O_____.
Appelez-moi M. O, s'il vous plait.
On my screen it presents definitely as lilac!
(Periwinkle would be more blue, wouldn't it?)