{"id":37950,"date":"2013-05-21T13:10:19","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T10:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=37950"},"modified":"2013-05-21T13:10:19","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T10:10:19","slug":"uk-gay-marriage-billconservative-party-push-for-law-uk-news-37950","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/uk-gay-marriage-billconservative-party-push-for-law-uk-news-37950\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Gay Marriage Bill:Conservative Party push for law \/ UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UK-Gay-Marriage-Bill\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

The gay marriage bill will receive its third and final reading in the House of Commons today as it passes its final test before returning to the House of \u00a0Lords.<\/h1>\n

Britain\u2019s ruling Conservative party has been forced by its uncooperative members into making a deal with the opposition to ensure the quick passage of a gay marriage bill in the face of plummeting support and anger over \u2018swivelgate.\u2019<\/p>\n

Almost 40 percent of Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s 303 Member of Parliament rebelled against the bill, voting on a \u2013now defunct\u2013 amendment, which would have allowed registrars to refuse to conduct gay marriage ceremonies should they personally object, and could have even delayed the issue until after the next general election, expected in 2015.<\/p>\n

The attempt to force through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill is controversial within the traditionalist ranks of the Conservatives, leading one MP to label comment on Monday that<\/p>\n

\u201cthere are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who see this as but a stepping stone to something even further.\u201d\u00a0However, Cameron is determined to force it through.<\/p>\n

When it became clear that the UK PM did not have enough support from his own party, the Conservative chief whip, George Young, was forced to appeal to the opposition leader, Ed Miliband (Labour), who had been planning to abstain from voting.<\/p>\n

Labour\u2019s change of heart led to the defeat of the amendment 375 to 70 votes, saving the bill by a majority of 305 and illuminating a deep cleft within the ruling party.<\/p>\n

\"Leveson<\/a><\/p>\n

The bill will have its third and final reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday, the day after which it will pass to the House of Lords, where further opposition is expected.<\/p>\n

Relying on opposition backing signifies difficult times ahead for the ruling Conservative party.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a perfect political storm. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Cameron,\u201d\u00a0Iain Dale, a prominent British gay radio presenter and conservative blogger, told<\/p>\n

The latest YouGov poll for the Sunday Times found that 54% of Britons support\u00a0\u201cchanging the law to allow same-sex couples to marry,\u201d\u00a0with over 53,000 civil partnership ceremonies have been carried out since their introduction in December 2005.<\/p>\n

Conversely, only 45% of Tory supporters are in favor of changing the law and 48% oppose it, the survey showed.<\/p>\n

Cameron is eager to force its passage, in attempts to display his party\u2019s liberal and progressive side, particularly following spending cuts and a lurch to the right on immigration policy, which a number of parties are pursuing following a recent surge in UKIP popularity.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, a group of Conservative Party chairmen delivered a note to Downing Street, stating that his\u201cproposal to redefine marriage is flawed, un-conservative, divisive and costing us dearly,\u201d\u00a0saying that the PM was treating loyal grassroots members \u201cwith contempt,\u201d concluding that \u201csome [former party members] of course are joining UKIP.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sudden urgency in passing the flagship policy shortly follows the recent \u2018swivelgate\u2019 scandal, in which a leading member of the Conservative party referred to party activists as\u00a0\u201cswivel-eyed-loons.\u201d\u201cLoon\u201d is a derogatory and archaic term for a crazy person.<\/p>\n

Conservative party chairman Andrew Feldman was forced to deny that he was the source of the comments after Twitter erupted with allegations that it was him, and activists have demanded an apology.<\/p>\n

Usage of the phrase became almost viral across British media over the weekend, causing one MP to comment that his wish for anti-gay marriage supporters to be given protection under the Equality Act 2010 was not because he was\u00a0\u201cswivel-eyed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside deep divisions within the party, there has been doubt over their hopes in the next general election.\u00a0Conservatives would currently garner a mere 29 percent of the UK public vote, with Labour taking 37 percent, and the Liberal Democrats 10 percent, according to UK Polling Report which averages the results of 10 different national polls.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gay marriage bill will receive its third and final reading in the House of Commons today as it passes its final test before returning to the House of Lords.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,14],"tags":[52003,24917,5809,51999,52000,51998,52001,26074,52002,13828,32707,77170,7831,51997,10173],"class_list":["post-37950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-conservative-party-push-law","tag-conservative-party-uk","tag-david-cameron","tag-david-cameron-conservative-party","tag-gay-marriage-bill-law","tag-gay-marriage-bill-uk","tag-gay-marriage-law-uk","tag-house-of-commons","tag-house-of-lords","tag-law","tag-pm-david-cameron","tag-politics","tag-uk","tag-uk-gay-marriage","tag-uk-prime-minister-david-cameron"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}